Chavalin Svetanant (チャワーリン・サウェッタナン・ชวาลิน เศวตนันทน์) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature (MCCALL) at Macquarie University, where she is also a member of the Multilingualism Research Centre.

She received her MA and PhD in Japanese linguistics from Kyoto University. Her expertise lies at the intersection of language and culture, with a primary focus on media and communication studies in comparative cultural contexts. She brings a wealth of international experience and perspectives to her teaching and research, and is committed to advancing understanding of language and culture through innovative interdisciplinary approaches.

Chavalin has published extensively in academic journals, covering topics ranging from corpus linguistics and semiotics to discourse analysis. Her research has been recognised as highly impactful and is widely cited by other scholars in the field.

Prior to joining Macquarie University in 2008, Chavalin was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Eastern Languages, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, and a visiting research scholar at the Japanese Research Centre for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto.

• Cross-cultural Media and Communication Studies
• Multimodal Discourse Analysis
• Japanese/Thai Linguistics (Corpus Linguistics, Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis)
• Japanese Language Education (Japanese as a Foreign Language, Cooperative Learning, e-Learning, Kanji Learning)

Areas of HDR Supervision:

Open for postgraduate supervision on topics related to research interests including but not limited to Cross-cultural Media and Communication Studies, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Linguistics, Social Semiotics, and Japanese Language Education.

Principal Supervisor PHD Thesis

• Jiayang (Ken) Hu, "Chinese as Spatial Repertoire: Everyday Interaction Navigated by Semiotic Landscapes in Suburban Sydney" (ongoing)

• Hideki Sumiyoshi, "The effect of shadowing practice: The case study of Japanese language learners in an Australian university" (Awarded, 2018) 

• Simon Paxton, "Tackling the kanji hurdle: An investigation of kanji order and its role in facilitating the kanji learning process" (Awarded, 2016)

Associate Supervisor PHD Thesis

• Lyndell Nagashima, "Intercultural competence development of university students in Japan" (Ongoing)

• Vu (Tung) Tien Tung, "Conceptual metaphors in the U.S. online newspapers at the time of the United States 2020 presidential election" (Ongoing)

• Nicole Mutlow, "Exploring language attitudes in a German-English bilingual school in Australia: A case study with a mixed methods approach" (Awarded, 2021)

• Sung-Ae Lee, "Constructions of Korean identity in fiction and film after the Korean war" (Awarded, 2016)

• Damien Liu-Brennan, "Edo no hanabi: the Japanese observance of 'fire-flowers' and the birth of a unique seasonal fireworks culture' (Awarded, 2013)

Principal Supervisor MRes Thesis

• Jiayang (Ken) Hu, "Decoding “Chinatowns” in Sydney: A comparative study of how Chinese characters create space" (Awarded with High Distinction, 2023)

• Hideki Sumiyoshi, "The effect of shadowing practice: A case study of Japanese language learners in an Australian University" (Awarded with High Distinction, 2014)

• JPNS2010 Japanese Studies 3
• JPNS2020 Japanese Studies 4
• INTS2001 Language in Use
• ARTS1000 Humanities and the World