Chavalin Svetanant (チャワーリン・サウェッタナン・ชวาลิน เศวตนันทน์) is a Senior Lecturer in the School of International Studies at Macquarie University, where she serves as the Director of the Macquarie Japanese Studies Centre (MJS Centre). She is also a member of the Lifespan Health and Wellbeing Research Centre and the founder and coordinator of the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Scholar Network within the Faculty of Arts, an initiative dedicated to mentorship, advocacy, and visibility for CALD academic staff and HDR students.

A linguist by training, Chavalin received her MA and PhD in Japanese linguistics from Kyoto University. Her research investigates the complex negotiations of cultural identity and social relationships through language. Utilising interpersonal pragmatics, multimodal discourse analysis, and corpus linguistics, she examines diverse communicative forms, including political speech, advertising, and digital media, to uncover the underlying mechanics of social interaction.

Chavalin’s academic perspective and service leadership are deeply informed by her multicultural lived experience. Raised in Thailand and trained in Japan before moving to Australia two decades ago, she applies this multicultural trajectory as a foundational lens for her linguistic and cultural critiques. Her work frequently explores the intersections of language, power, and emotion, deconstructing how socio-cultural ideologies are reflected and reshaped in contemporary discourse.

Prior to joining Macquarie University in 2008, Chavalin was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Eastern Languages at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, and a visiting research scholar at the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto. She has published extensively in international journals on topics ranging from semiotics and appraisal systems to cross-cultural emotional engagement, with her research widely recognised for its scholarly and cross-disciplinary impact. 

• Cross-cultural Media and Communication Studies
• Multimodal Discourse Analysis
• Human-AI Interaction
• 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, Human-AI Discourse, 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" (Awarded, 2026)

• 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
• INTS1002 Unlearning Culture: Myths, People, and Change
• INTS2002 Strategic Communication and Cultural Narratives
• INTS2001 Language in Use
• ARTS1000 Humanities and the World