The status and relevance of Vietnamese journalism education: An empirical analysis

Based primarily on data from indepth interviews with senior journalists and journalism educators as well as a content analysis of journalism curricula, this paper sets out to provide an overview of the demand, overall provision structure, teaching materials and methods of Vietnamese journalism education. It first shows that with a fast expansion in both size and substance, the Vietnamese media system is beginning to feel the urgent need for formal journalism education. However, the country's major journalism programs have been criticised for producing hundreds of unqualified journalism graduates a year. In general, the most deplorable aspects of Vietnamese journalism education include its body of outdated and awkward teaching material, its undue focus on theories and politics at the expense of practical training, its lack of qualified teaching staff and its inadequate teaching resources.

A corpus-based analysis of transfer effects and connected speech processes in Vietnamese English

This paper presents a corpus-based descriptive analysis of the most prevalent transfer effects and connected speech processes observed in a comparison of 11 Vietnamese English speakers (6 females, 5 males) and 12 Australian English speakers (6 males, 6 females) over 24 grammatical paraphrase items. The phonetic processes are segmentally labelled in terms of IPA diacritic features using the EMU speech database system with the aim of labelling departures from native-speaker pronunciation. An analysis of prosodic features was made using ToBI framework. The results show many phonetic and prosodic processes which make non-native speakers’ speech distinct from native ones. The corpusbased methodology of analysing foreign accent may have implications for the evaluation of non-native accent, accented speech recognition and computer assisted pronunciation- learning.

Reduplication and word stress in Vietnamese

In this paper acoustic properties of two types of reduplicative compound (full and tone sandhi reduplications) were examined to show acoustic evidence of assymetrical prominence relations (van der Hulst, 2005), in support of a hypothesis that Vietnamese reduplications are phonetically right headed and that tone sandhi is a reduction phenomenon occurring on prosodically weak positions (Shih, 2005). The results show phonetic evidence of prosodic constituency at the level of the bisyllabic word in Vietnamese.

Cross-language Perception of Word-final Stops by Native Vietnamese Listeners: Preliminary Results on the Role of Specific, Non-native Phonetic Experience

This study examined the discrimination of word-final stop contrasts (/p/-/t/, /p/-/k/, /t/-/k/) in English and Thai by 12 listeners who speak Vietnamese as their first language (L1). Vietnamese shares specific phonetic realization of stops with Thai, i.e., unreleased final stop and differs from English which allows both released and unreleased final stops. These 12 native Vietnamese (NV) listeners’ discrimination accuracy was compared to that of the two listener groups (Australian English (AE), native Thai (NT)) tested in previous studies. The NV group was less accurate than the native group in discriminating both English and Thai stop contrasts. In particular, for the Thai /t/-/k/ contrast, they were significantly less accurate than the AE listeners. The present findings suggest that experience with specific (i.e., unreleased) and native phonetic realization of sounds may be essential in accurate discrimination of final stop contrasts. The effect of L1 dialect on cross-language speech perception is discussed.

Understanding problem gambling in two ethnic communities in Brisbane, Queensland - A pilot study

This paper aims to present findings from a pilot study on understanding gambling within the Greek and Vietnamese communities in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland State. It explores gambling behaviour among gamblers and views of workers from their own communities. Rich data were obtained by conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews. Three themes that emerged are the causes of gambling, the impact of gambling, and participants' views on existing delivery of gambling services. It appears that a more culturally appropriate gambling service is necessary to address the needs and problems of gamblers from non-English speaking backgrounds.

PCR detection and analysis of Pasteurella multocida from the tonsils of slaughtered pigs in Vietnam

A total of 36 tonsil swab samples were collected from healthy swine prior to slaughter at the abattoirs in Can tho and Tien giang provinces of Southern Vietnam, The presence of Pasteurella multocida in these samples was detected by the combination of direct cultivation and isolation, mouse inoculation and the polymerase chain reaction (PM-PCR). P. multocida was detected in 16 samples by PCR, with 17 strains ultimately isolated. All samples were negative for serogroup B by HSB-PCR and conventional serotyping, with isolates identified as A:3, D:1 or D:3. In addition, all samples were determined to be negative for the P. multocida toxin (PMT). Characterisation of isolated P, multocida by REP-PCR and biotyping revealed nine distinct REP profiles and seven biotypes among the 17 isolates. Some correlation was seen with P. multocida isolated from a previous Australian outbreak of acute swine pasteurellosis, and those isolated from fowl cholera outbreaks in Vietnamese poultry. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.