School of Languages and Cultures

2026 Winter Research Program

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Engage in a formal research project over the winter break with the UQ Winter Research Program.

The UQ Winter Research Scholarship Program offers scholarships to students wishing to gain experience working alongside a researcher in a formal research environment in their area of interest at UQ.

Each project will be offered for a period of four (4) weeks between 29 June to 24 July 2026.

Successful applicants will receive a $2,000 grant.

Participation is open to undergraduate (including honours) and master by coursework students who are currently enrolled and will remain at UQ for the entirety of the research program.

Please check your eligibility before submitting an application.

Applications will open on 23 March 2026 and will close on 12 April 2026.

Check out some testimonials from previous scholars.

  1. Exploring pragmatic and categorial aspects of family discourse
  2. Data Analysis in Korean language use by Korean background speakers
  3. Professional conference interpreters’ use of interpreting strategies in real-life Chinese/English simultaneous interpreting at the United Nations
  4. Navigating the AI Revolution: Understanding How GenAI Tools Transform Academic Writing for International EAL Students
  5. Enhancing Infectious Disease Communication for High-Risk Populations
  1. Indigenising Japanese language curriculum: Building learning resources to connect Indigenous cultures and histories in Australia and Japan
  2. How prior language experience shapes new language learning
  3. Mass-mediated women’s voices: experiences of tidal flooding in Indonesia
  4. Connecting the Stolen Generations: The effect of ‘family reunions’ on Stolen Generations survivors
  5. Postmemory and childhood in letters by high school students to executed and disappeared teenagers during the 1973–1990 Chilean dictatorship.

1. Exploring pragmatic and categorial aspects of family discourse

Project title: 

Exploring pragmatic and categorial aspects of family discourse

Hours of engagement & delivery mode

Winter program: 29 June – 24 July 2026

Hours of engagement: 36 hours per week

Applicants will be required to be on St Lucia campus for regular meetings, data sessions and project discussions, while some other activities can be done off campus.

Description:

This project focusses on interactional pragmatics and Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) as an analytical and methodological frameworks to analyse social interaction, more specifically, family interactions. With a close attention being paid to a detailed analysis of verbal and embodied behaviours, it explores audio- and video-recorded everyday-life conversations between parents, parent(s)-child(ren) and siblings in various families. The focus of the project is on how various pragmatic phenomena – norms, politeness, identity, power – are co-constructed and unfold in and through interaction.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:

The skills the scholars will gain can include:

  • Interactional pragmatics;
  • Membership categorisation analysis (MCA) methodology;
  • Creating literature database;
  • Academic articles’ synthesis;
  • Detailed data transcription;
  • Abstract writing;
  • Data analysis;
  • Findings’ presentation at the end of the project.

Scholars will have an opportunity to work alongside the supervisor and some of the supervisor’s research students as well as be involved in the data discussion sessions/reading group that are organised by the supervisor. All of the developed skills will be crucial for anyone who would like to do an Honours’ or Master’s thesis analysing social interaction or is planning to do a PhD.

Suitable for:

Given the specifics of the project, this opportunity is suitable for:

  • 2nd-3rd -year undergraduate students or Master’s students that have some background in language and interaction, more broadly, or pragmatics, in particular (e.g. doing at the moment or having completed SLAT3030, SLAT7899 or equivalent);
  • Students who are interested in doing research (Honours or MA thesis);
  • Students who pay attention to detail and have good time management skills.

Primary Supervisor:

Dr Valeria Sinkeviciute

Further info:

Interested students are encouraged to contact Dr Valeria Sinkeviciute (v.sinkeviciute@uq.edu.au) prior to the application submission to discuss their interest in and eligibility to join the project.