In this episode, Brynn and Dr. Cho discuss Dr. Cho’s new book, Multilingual Practices and Monolingual Mindsets: Critical Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Health Care Interpreting. With a novel approach, which sees interpreting as social activities infused with power, Dr. Cho’s research and this book have captured the dynamics of cultural, linguistic, and ethnic power relations in diverse sociolinguistic contexts.

For more Language on the Move resources related to this topic, see Reducing Barriers to Language Assistance in Hospital, Life in a New Language, Linguistic Inclusion in Public Health Communications, and Interpreting service provision is good value for money.

If you liked this episode, be sure to say hello to Brynn and Language on the Move on Bluesky! Support us by subscribing to the Language on the Move Podcast on your podcast app of choice, leaving a 5-star review, and recommending the Language on the Move Podcast and our partner the New Books Network to your students, colleagues, and friends.

Each year, we celebrate Buwan ng Wika or (National) Language Month in the Philippines. Formerly focused only on the Filipino national language, the month-long celebration has evolved into a multilingual celebration seeking to raise awareness also of other Philippine languages, including Filipino Sign Language and indigenous tongues and writing systems. But, of course, we are free to celebrate languages any other time of the year.

At the University of Santo Tomas (UST), the oldest university in Asia, Buwan ng Wika was auspiciously extended with three events spotlighting language this year.

First, during the first week of October, new street signs were installed around the Manila campus of UST. Quite distinctive, the new signages had the familiar campus street names transliterated in Baybayin, an old Tagalog writing system largely used in the northern part of the country before the Spanish rule from 1565 to 1898. Along with other initiatives by Filipino scholars to revive this pre-colonial script, the project enriched the university’s linguistic landscape. Notwithstanding criticisms about the weak translation of an earlier version of these signs, the move reflects an appreciation for languages that are less visible.

Second, not long after this multilingual campus update, precisely on October 10, 2024, language scholars across the Philippines were rattled by the ratification of Republic Act No. 12027. This new law discontinues the mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTBMLE) policy enacted in 2013. While the MTBMLE implementation had important challenges such as limited instructional materials, among others, there was palpable panic and disappointment from groups of language teachers and scholars over the legislative imperative to repeal the language-in-education policy that advocated the use of mother tongues as medium of instruction in basic education classrooms.

The Multilingualism and Multilingual Education class under the English Language Studies Program of the UST Graduate School was not going to stand silent. Our small cohort of six (five PhD candidates and course facilitator, Dr. Pia Tenedero) responded to this issue by raising three important questions that problematize the seemingly reactive, government decision to withdraw its support of mother tongue-based instruction. We believe that, given a better fighting chance, the MTBMLE could work wonders as it did in East Timor. Our formal response and appeal (posted in the UST Department of English Facebook page) is pictured here.

Whether this and other official statements released by various universities and professional groups will or can make a difference remains to be seen. But putting forward a position statement allowed us to engage with the real-life implication of the theories we have been discussing in class since the term began in August.

Third, our class had another special opportunity to extend our appreciation of multilingualism in education contexts. On 26 October 2024, Dr. Loy Lising of Macquarie University and Language on the Move, spoke to our group in an exclusive online learning session. Anchored on the theme “The Future of Language Learning: Moving Toward a Multilingual Mindset in Education System,” the two-hour conversation was attended by about 50 language undergraduate and graduate students and teachers from UST, Mariano Marcos State University Baguio, and De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, Antipolo. Dr. Lising shared reflectively on the theme, grounded on two important, recent publications—the “Multilingual Mindset” (Lising, 2024) and the book Life in a New Language (Piller et al., 2024).

Dr. Loy Lising and the Multilingualism and Multilingual Education class of UST

Two key concepts framed the interactive discussion: linguistic hierarchies and multilingual mindset. Reflecting on linguistic hierarchies, we acknowledge the differential social value of languages (based on Ingrid Piller’s (2016) award-winning book Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice). To drive this point, Dr. Lising asked us how many languages we have and whether we and the places where we use them value these languages equally.

Multilingual mindset, which Dr. Lising defined in her article, recognizes disparities in language proficiencies, repertoires, and practices. It is “a way of thinking about language that is mindful and expectant of these variations,” which, in fact, characterize every human interaction, but are particularly salient in migration contexts. This disposition or way of seeing presents an important alternative (even, antidote) to the pervasive “monolingual mindset,” which sees the world only in terms of one language – English (Clyne, 2008).

Capping the month with a conversation that explored challenges and hopes of multilinguals based in the Philippines, we came out of it feeling more certain about the importance of language mindfulness and energized to do our part as language teachers and researchers to grow the multilingual mindset in our homes, classrooms, research sites, places of worship, holiday destinations, and everyday interactions.

This time of the year certainly taught us several ways to grow in our mindfulness of multilingualism beyond the traditional Buwan ng Wika. Afterall, languages ought to be celebrated every day of the year!

References

Clyne, M. (2008). The monolingual mindset as an impediment to the development of plurilingual potential in Australia. Sociolinguistic Studies, 2(3). 347–366.
Lising, L. (2024). Multilingual mindset: A necessary concept for fostering inclusive multilingualism in migrant societies. AILA Review, 37 (1), 35–53.
Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic diversity and social justice. Oxford University Press.
Piller, I., Butorac, D., Farrell, E., Lising, L., Motaghi-Tabari, S., & Williams-Tetteh, V. (2024). Life in a new language. Oxford University Press.

A lack of legal literacy can affect migrants – and indeed anyone – across all aspects of social life. This can include everything from signing a contract with an electricity provider, through earning a living, to having a safe and dignified marriage.

Legal professionals suggest that recent migrants may be special targets of a range of scams and exploitation because they are more likely to lack legal literacy, may lack information about available assistance, or may not be capable of accessing those services even when they do know about them.

However, this is not due simply to a lack of inclination to learn about the law. Rather, the development of legal literacy is dependent on the accessibility of information and education. For those with limited or no English, this naturally requires the provision of resources in other languages and accessible formats, in locations where their target audiences can find them.

While the various government and non-government bodies tasked with providing information about the law have already taken a range of measures to make their resources more accessible to non-English speakers and readers, barriers persist. These barriers can even influence the form of exploitation people face. For example, a lawyer I interviewed in my most recent project shared the story of a man who had migrated to Australia in the late 1990s and became trapped in a highly exploitative work arrangement:

you see the signs from the very beginning. Like, he didn’t have an accountant, he’ll use [his employer’s] accountant. And that accountant played around with his papers. They put him in a house on top of the shop. They denied him English lessons. So, till this day, I speak to him in Arabic, even though my Arabic’s not perfect.

In this scenario, it was only when the man’s workplace injuries became so severe that he insisted on seeing a doctor that he was eventually able to learn about his rights and access legal assistance. Among other measures, his exploiters intentionally limited his English language acquisition opportunities as a form of abusive control, to prevent him learning of his rights and seeking help.

This only reinforces the importance of providing resources in a range of languages, and clearly demonstrates the inappropriateness of claims that individual migrants are responsible for learning English as a prerequisite to accessing full inclusion in society and protection of the law.

Unfortunately, his case is far from being an exception. News reports uncover myriad examples, from international students underpaid with justifications that their limited English meant they weren’t good enough for minimum wage, to asylum seekers threatened with deportation if they didn’t comply with forced labour arrangements.

The complex and interconnected barriers recent migrants, especially those with temporary visas, often face means holistic responses are needed for them to access their rights. However ultimately, seeking justice still hinges on them first having knowledge about what those rights are and the processes and resources available to have them enforced. This is not possible unless relevant information is available in a language and format accessible to them.

The landing page

While service providers and regulatory bodies appear aware of this issue and have taken steps to address it, less is known about how accessible the resources and mechanisms are in practice (Victoria Law Foundation 2016). Further, beyond these formal offerings, less still is known about how migrants with limited English actually learn about Australian law and how it applies in their lives.

The Legal Aid bodies in each Australian state are tasked with providing a range of legal services. This includes providing free legal assistance and advice to some individuals, based on need. However another of their statutory functions is what is commonly called Community Legal Education and Information (CLEI) (e.g. Legal Aid Commission Act 1979 (NSW), section 10(2)(j),(k),(m)). This means that they are required to develop and disseminate informational resources and training to help increase the community’s legal literacy.

This is considered a crucial component to ensuring the whole community, and particularly recent migrants and those with limited or no English, can access justice, but we do not yet have a comprehensive picture of what is currently on offer, nor how well it works for these particular groups. Therefore, the peak body of the Australian legal profession has called for research to address the gaps in evidence to ensure migrants’ linguistic and other forms of diversity are understood and incorporated into efforts to improve community legal literacy (Law Council of Australia 2018).

The internet is a popular starting point for individuals looking for all types of information and existing studies on multilingual communications on the websites for government schools and multiple government service providers suggest that much work remains done to ensure that multilingual government communications are both complete and accessible for their target audiences. Therefore, in May, to start exploring the legal literacy resources available for non-English speakers, I undertook a pilot audit of Legal Aid NSW’s website.

The website

Information about Apprehended Violence Orders in Spanish

Legal Aid NSW offers a range of CLEI, with varying accessibility for non-English speakers and readers. As someone with English literacy, the landing page immediately presents me with a promising ‘My problem is about’ section. This part of the website helpfully guides readers step-by-step, in accessible plain language and appealing format, across a wide range of legal issues, e.g. ‘My job’, ‘Disasters’, ‘My rights as’ and ‘Visas and immigration’. Another section provides lay definitions of legal terms. These reflect an evident broader commitment to enhancing the accessibility of the site as a whole. However, these two sections are only available in English. Similarly, face-to-face and online legal education courses are advertised, but all current offerings appear to be in English only.

Another section provides a large collection of resources, like posters and pamphlets, organized across various topics, providing information about legal issues and available services. Some are provided in languages other than English (LOTEs). However, again, non-English speakers have significantly less access. Of the total 233 resources identified, only 40 are available in more than one language. Even then, most only include a few common LOTEs, e.g. Arabic (37), Chinese (36), Vietnamese (29), Dari/Farsi (16). Further, LOTEs are included inconsistently, e.g. Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy information is offered in 13 languages, including several not used in any other resource. In contrast, all resources in the Disasters, Covid-19, Prisoners, and Young People topics are in English only. All resources are written texts (some with images), meaning only those with literacy can access them, a barrier for some refugees, for example, even in their first language (see e.g. Ba Akhlagh & Mehana 2024). Finally, when LOTE versions exist, it appears they cannot be located without English language literacy: the search function seems to operate only with English key words, and the resources are sorted and labelled in English.

One section of the website is more broadly navigable in many LOTEs. The ‘Ways to get help’ section provides information on how to access legal assistance and is available in 31 languages.  However again, there are inconsistencies between languages, e.g. the Spanish version largely replicates the original, with a full overview and four subsections covering contacts, legal advice, help at court, and applying for legal aid. In contrast, others, like Italian and Pashto, have no overview and only two subsections. Others have only an overview and no subsections. Some links lead readers back to English-only content, and website navigation menus remain in English even when on LOTE pages.

Where to from here?

Existing reviews and scholarship emphasise intersectional considerations when examining and addressing barriers to justice. For example, providing multilingual resources in written form only will not reach people who lack literacy or have low or no vision. Telephone information services and audio resources may be inaccessible for migrants who are deaf or hard of hearing (Smith-Khan 2022). Living in a regional area decreases access to language supports more readily available in urban centres, increasing the importance of LOTE resources. Similarly, not all LOTES are equal: speakers of ‘emerging’ community languages (e.g. recently arrived refugee communities) often have less language support, and issues with correctly identifying and categorising minority dialects and languages can lead to unsuitable translation and interpreting (Victorian Law Foundation 2016, pp 8-9; Tillman 2023).

Spanish word search

These considerations must inform the design and prioritization of resources in particular languages. For instance, while it seems logical to offer resources in commonly spoken LOTEs, speakers of these languages often have a higher level of English proficiency than speakers of emerging languages, who may often also face additional vulnerabilities (Grey & Severin 2021, 2022).

This brief pilot has obviously only uncovered what is publicly available via a website: qualitative research is needed to understand how service providers like Legal Aid NSW develop their resources and how legal, policy, and practical considerations influence their choices. At the same time, research could also provide insight into migrants’ decision-making. By better understanding how recent arrivals and people with limited English find out about the law, research could provide valuable evidence to policymakers and service providers to continue to make community legal literacy efforts more universally accessible.

References

Ba Akhlagh, S & Mehana, M. ‘Challenges and opportunities in designing culturally appropriate resources to support refugee families’ (2024) 8(1) Linking Research to the Practice of Education 2.
Grey, A & Severin A, ‘An audit of NSW legislation and policy on the government’s public communications in languages other than English’ (2021) 30(1) Griffith Law Review 122.
——— ‘Building towards best practice for governments’ public communication in LOTEs’ (2022)31(1) Griffith Law Review 25
Smith-Khan, L. ‘Inclusive processes for refugees with disabilities’ in Rioux et al(eds), Handbook of Disability (Springer Nature, 2022)
Tillman, M ‘Ezidi refugees in Armidale say gap in language […]service impacts health care (2023) ABC https://tinyurl.com/2vz3x8s9
Victoria Law Foundation, Legal information in languages other than English (2016) https://tinyurl.com/3nr5vndb

International migration is at an all-time high as ever more people move across national borders for work or study, in search of refuge or adventure. Regardless of their motivations and whether they intend their moves to be temporary or permanent, all transnational migrants face the challenge of re-building their lives in a different cultural and linguistic context, far away from family and friends, and the everyday routines of their previous lives. Established populations in destination countries may treat migrants with benign neglect at best and outright hostility at worst.

How then do migrants make a new life?

To answer that question, Life in a New Language examines the language learning and settlement experiences of 130 migrants to Australia from 34 different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America over a period of 20 years. Reusing data shared from six separate sociolinguistic ethnographies, the book illuminates participants’ lived experience of learning and communicating in a new language, finding work, and doing family. Additionally, participants’ experiences with racism and identity making in a new context are explored. The research uncovers significant hardship but also migrants’ courage and resilience. The book has implications for language service provision, migration policy, open science, and social justice movements.

Today, Brynn chats with Loy Lising, one of the book’s six co-authors, with a focus on low-skilled migrants and how their experiences are shaped by monolingual ideologies.

Use promo code AAFLYG6 for a discount when you purchase from Oxford University Press.

Advance praise

“This volume breaks new ground by focusing on Doings: a group of diverse researchers collaboratively doing close listening and looking over 20 years, as adult immigrants to Australia engage in doing life, things, words, family, and work in a new language. The result is not only new understandings of the participants’ self-making, but also the making of a new research trajectory that focuses not simply on the learning of a language, but on humanity doing life in language.” (Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, City University of New York)

“This is a moving book that represents the voices of migrants on their challenges and successes across different kinds of boundaries. It embodies impersonal structural and geopolitical pressures as negotiated in the dreams and aspirations of migrants. The authors share findings from decades-long separate research projects to develop richer insights, as a model for data sharing and ethical research.” (Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University)

Related reference

Lising, L. (2024). Multilingual mindset: A necessary concept for fostering inclusive multilingualism in migrant societies. AILA Review

Transcript (by Brynn Quick, added 05/08/2024)

Brynn: Welcome to the Language on the Move Podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. My name is Brynn Quick and I’m a PhD candidate at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Today’s episode is part of a series devoted to Life in a New Language.

Life in a New Language is a new book just out from Oxford University Press. It’s co-authored by Ingrid Piller, Donna Butorac, Emily Farrell, Loy Lising, Shiva Motaghi Tabari and Vera Williams Tetteh. In this series, I’ll chat to each of the co-authors about their perspectives.

Life in a New Language examines the language learning and settlement experiences of 130 migrants to Australia from 34 different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America over a period of 20 years. Reusing data shared from six separate sociolinguistic ethnographies, the book illuminates participants’ lived experience of learning and communicating in a new language, finding work and doing family. Additionally, participants’ experiences with racism and identity-making in a new context are explored.

The research uncovers significant hardship, but also migrants’ courage and resilience. The book has implications for language service provision, migration policy, open science, and social justice movements. My guest today is Dr. Loy Lising.

Dr. Lising is a senior lecturer in linguistics at Macquarie University, as well as a senior fellow with the Higher Education Academy. She’s a member of the International Advisory Panel for Migration Linguistics Unit at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She served as program director for the Department of Linguistics Master of Cross-Cultural Communication Program at the University of Sydney from 2012 to 2014.

In 2015, she was awarded the Andrew Gonzales Distinguished Professorial Chair in Linguistics and Language Education by the Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Loy is a sociolinguist whose research interests lie at the intersection of multilingualism and migration. Employing both ethnographic and corpus approaches, she investigates the enduring consequences of this convergence on key issues such as heritage language maintenance, the evolving variation in languages in society, induced by language context situations between diasporic communities and mainstream society, and the de facto multilingual practices present on the ground in a society that continues to hold the monolingual ideal.

Welcome to the show, Loy. We’re really excited to have you here today.

Dr. Lising: Thank you, Brynn. I’m really excited to be here and thanks for having me.

Brynn: To get us started, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you and your co-authors got the idea for Life in a New Language?

Dr. Lising: So to begin, I am an Australian linguist of Filipino, particularly Cebuano heritage. And so, the kind of work I do pay homage to those dual identities. My family and I migrated to Australia in 2004.

And in 2005, I started research work in a unit that was then called the National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research. And in 2007, that unit ceased to exist and was replaced by a smaller unit called Adult Migrant English Program Research Centre for which Ingrid became the centre director. And so, in 2008 and 2009, Ingrid hired me as a postdoc to coordinate this national longitudinal multi-sided research project that was funded by the Australian government department called at that time Department of Immigration and Citizenship, which we now know as Department of Home Affairs.

And the focus of this project was on language training and settlement success of migrants to Australia. So, in that study, we shadowed around 150 migrants to Australia across different states and territories. And in that role is where I also met the other authors.

Emily joined from Sydney Uni as Ingrid’s PhD student, and then Donna, Vera and Shiva then started their PhD journey with Ingrid as well. So, I would say that that particular research project was for me transformative and really laid the groundwork for my future research work in trying to understand how living a life in a new country is impacted by how migrants also need to learn a new language or at least a new way of doing and performing a different kind of English to the one they have already and also to their language learning. So, I think our work in the center gave the five of us who were supervised by Ingrid an opportunity to catch her vision and passion for this kind of research focus.

So really Ingrid is the driving force behind this book and her work on this started in 2001 when she was at Sydney Uni and investigated the success and failure in second language learning. And so having supervised the four other authors and also supervised my own research in 2009, really I would say was the starting point of the idea for this book.

Brynn: It sounds like it was a really natural progression for all of you to come together and work on this together. And what’s interesting about Life in a New Language is that this book is all about this reuse of ethnographic data. And as you said, you and the other co-authors each had your own projects that you were working on, but then in order to create this book, you brought it all together.

Can you tell us about the original research project that your contribution is based on?

Dr. Lising: So my original research project, which my contribution to this book was drawn from was a research study funded by Macquarie University new staff grant in 2009. And so, this was at the end of the AMAPRC first phase research project that I was the research manager for. And so, this MQNS project shadowed Filipino-skilled migrants to Australia on a temporary long-stay business visa, or as it was popularly known then, 457 visa.

And 457 visa had eight streams, and the one that my participants were under was the labour agreement stream. This visa was introduced in 1996, and it was intended to attract workers to Australia in areas where there are shortages. And so, the temporary visa is limited to four years with the possibility of extension if the work contract is renewed, and then also they can have the possibility of applying for permanent residency.

So Ingrid supervised that project, and it was modelled in design and reproach, I guess, on the AMAP national project that we worked on together. It was qualitative investigation through rapid multi-sided ethnography, shadowing three cohorts of Filipino skilled workers, abattoir workers, prefabricated home workers that included both IT professionals and carpenters, making prefab harms for the mining companies and also nurses. And they were situated across three states, so Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales.

So that’s the work on which my contribution to this book has been derived from.

Brynn: And you just mentioned that the participants that you were shadowing were doing quite different types of work, the abattoir workers, the nurses and the skilled labourers.

Dr. Lising: Yeah, prefabricated home workers that included the carpenters who actually built the homes and then the IIT professionals that I guess made the homes technology ready.

Brynn: So, it’s quite different work. However, what you really looked at in your part of your work and that the other authors looked at as well was this idea of finding work in Australia once you’ve come to settle. Can you tell us about what you found about your participants’ employment trajectories in these very different fields?

Dr. Lising: The Filipino skilled workers that I interviewed and shadowed were quite different to some of the participants that we have reanalysed for this book in that they came to Australia already having a job because the temporary long-stay business visa required for them to be identified for a specific work shortage. And so, in that sense, there wasn’t a lot of grief in terms of actually finding work. What there was grief about, however, was in their experiences once they came and did their part.

And that was largely to do with one of the main findings that we have in this book, and that is to do with this notion of linguistic proficiency. And so, for example, the abattoir workers, it’s a no-brainer to note that most people who go into abattoir work, other than those who really love that kind of work, would be coming from an educational trajectory where, you know, they have low education, okay? And that’s why they end up doing abattoir work.

And so, the Filipino workers that were hired for this work were hired by an Australian manager who actually went to the Philippines and observed their knife skills. And so “at the time of, for this particular cohort of abattoir workers, at the time of their employment, English language requirement wasn’t actually on the table. And so, so long as they had an offer of work, that was fine.

And so, the grief for them was when they came and the policy changed, and there was then an English language requirement attached to the renewal of their contract and of course permanent residency. And the requirement for those were pegged on an IELTS, so an International English Language Testing System band score of about five. Now, speaking, listening are perhaps things that you can grow to learn in doing work and life in a predominantly English-speaking country, but literacy skills of writing and reading are totally a different skill set that you need to have a sufficient education to be able to improve on those and be able to meet the band score that you need.

So it was that. And then there was also the issue of doing work in a workplace context that were quite intolerant of multilingual practices. And so, I’ve actually, based on that original research study in 2009, I’ve published in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, this paper that I entitled, Speak English, Social Acceleration and Language Learning in the Workplace.

And so, the analytical lens I use there is the notion of speed at work. And so, we have this expectation that when people do come and they don’t have a lot of English, they’ll learn it at work anyway. But you know, abattoir workers work in a conveyor belt-like system.

And so, if they keep talking, they’re going to be behind with their work. But then again, this intolerance of multilingual practices also kind of, or just talk in general while working, really limited their ability to practice their English anyway. But equally challenging for them was this limitation they felt in having this comfort conversations with co-nationals in their own language, because colleagues who only spoke English would actually be suspicious of them.

And often they are told off for speaking other languages.

Brynn: It feels like a real damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, where they don’t have the literal time during their workday to quote unquote improve their English. But then when they do try to communicate using the resources that they have, maybe the language that they came to Australia with, they’re told not to.

And to me, I remember when I read that part of the book, the first thing that I thought of was nail salon technicians, because I feel like that is the same thing that I hear, especially monolingual English speakers say when they go to a nail salon, and they’ll hear, usually the women that work there will be speaking Vietnamese or sometimes Thai, and so these monolingual English speakers will be saying, I bet they’re talking about me. I bet they’re talking about how bad my feet are, things like that. And it made me wonder if that’s what was potentially happening in the abattoir as well, was that these English speakers were thinking, well, if they’re speaking in a language that I don’t understand, they must be talking about me.

Brynn: Certainly, so one of the participants from that original work that’s featured in this book, Ellen, she’s real aspiration to improve her English. She only finished high school and she has this very accented English, but she understood that if she just kept speaking English, she will become better. But also, I think coupled with that was she one day was pulled aside by the manager and he told her that he gets really embarrassed when other people are speaking their language because he’s not sure what they’re talking about.

So, I think, yeah, I think and that is a monolingual mindset. Absolutely. So, I’ve just written and actually, incidentally, it’s come out just on Friday, this paper on the multilingual mindset.

Brynn: And I’m glad that you’re mentioning this because I did do an episode a while back talking about the monolingual mindset. And until Friday, we didn’t really have anything to compare that to. And now you’ve written about it.

Dr. Lising: I was very excited about that. And I’m very proud of the work. So, it’s entitled Multilingual Mindset, A Necessary Concept for Fostering Inclusive Multilingualism in Migrant Societies.

And it’s in IELA Review and it’s a special issue that’s actually time for 60th IELA Conference in Kuala Lumpur in August, where Ingrid is one of keynote speakers. Yeah. So, in that, I talk about how, you know, the multilingual mindset refers to a way of thinking about languages that is mindful and expectant of variation in not just language proficiency, but also variation in language repertoire and variation in language practices.

So, if we have a shift for a moment that we go to work and we don’t have an expectation that everybody should just be speaking my language so that I can understand what they’re all saying, because otherwise they can be talking about me, but rather that if we step back for a moment and actually think, well, what is a language for? And the language is you has many functions, right? Not only does it index who you are and your identity, you use it for various purposes, and one of which is to connect with “co-nationals, your banter, to exchange humour for levity and for, you know, just to kind of, you know, have fun.

There’s no point in translating those jokes just for the sake of the English speaker who might think that they’re talking about them. And so, yeah, so I think and I hope that people will read that because I think even if they don’t necessarily accept the argument I put forward, I think it’s based on multilingual reality that we live in. But yet we’re still holding on to this monolingual ideal that yes, we have over 400 languages in Australia, but let’s just speak English anyway.

Because if we entertain this notion that it’s perfectly fine for people to operate in the languages that they have, I mean, obviously it’s different when they’re talking to somebody who’s speaking English and achieving a different communicative purpose, right? I’m not talking about that. I’m just talking about the other uses of languages.

And so, this notion of multilingual mindset allows us to kind of step back and reconsider, okay, well, these are the other things that language or languages are achieving.

Brynn: Yeah. In this section that you contributed especially, you really do get that feeling as you read that it just felt really bad for these workers, especially the ones in the abattoir situation, to be told, no, you can’t speak this language in order to achieve some semblance of comfort during the day, or connection or something like that.

In your opinion, what can we do to make things easier for new migrants, especially in this context where maybe they are doing this more quote unquote unskilled labour, which is silly to me because it sounds like it’s quite skilled, but especially for these people who come and work these long hours, or who are not able to speak their own languages, what can we do to make things easier for them?

Dr. Lising: If I could just pivot back to the main three findings, particularly for that chapter on work that we have, and so the three common themes there are in the experiences of our participants relative to Australian work experience, linguistic proficiency and educational qualification. If I can just revisit each and then I’ll get to the answer to your question. So, in terms of Australian work experience, one of the common things we found is that people are asked Australian work experience before work becomes readily available for them.

And it’s like a chicken and egg scenario where no one’s going to give me work, so how can I have a work experience so that I can actually work? And I guess I can answer your question. So, to that, for the migrants themselves, I find that the way to go around that is to actually do volunteer work.

Now that can only go for so long, right? Especially if you’re the breadwinner of the family, like in our book, Story Franklin, for example, who is a qualified English teacher, and he was allowed to do volunteer work at a Catholic school, but won’t be considered for paid work because his qualification is not recognized.

And so that’s the other thing, educational qualification, so not having your overseas qualification recognized, so not just in Franklin, but the story, for instance, of Vesna, who comes from Bulgaria, who’s a midwife, and, you know, as you know, we have such a shortage of midwives in Australia and a lot of other health workers, but the Overseas Qualifications Authority deemed her qualification insufficient for her to actually be working, and so here’s this woman who is done work on midwifery through four years of bachelor’s studies in Bulgaria and did 30 years of work experience in various countries, one of which is in United Arab Emirates, where she worked at a British hospital, and yet those things are not recognised.

I’ve asked permission and I have been given permission by my husband that I can share his story. So, my husband is a vet. So, he got his veterinary medicine from the University of the Philippines, but he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in veterinary medicine from the University of Queensland.

And for a long time, for about 20 or so years, he served in an international multinational company as the technical services manager for Southeast Asia, and also started a similar work here in Australia. And that’s what brought us to Australia, and he can create vaccination programs for large swine farms, but he cannot write prescriptions because he is not recognized as a vet unless he studies all over again. Mind you, at some point in his career, he’s a recognized swine specialist, considered to be top 50 in the world and was always guest speaking everywhere.

So, you know, qualification, educational qualification. So to that, I guess, in answer to your question, I think we need to rethink the way that we think about the qualifications and we need to reassess our policy relative to recognizing these overseas qualifications in a way that provides new migrants clear and more accessible pathway on how to have their qualification recognized, right?

“In university, we have an RPL system, recognition of prior learning. And so applying the same principle, if you have similar bachelor’s degree, a tremendous amount of work experience, I mean, sure, you need to have some mechanism to ensure that, you know, there is standard quality of work that will be given, but not this just, you know, outright rejection of qualification, you know, so I think there needs to be some reassessment of that. And the other refining we have, of course, is the linguistic proficiency in terms of our participants in this book, both in terms of assured deficit in language and, you know, and kind of automatically assigned to an English class where they find themselves, you know, sitting in a room learning something that’s not really useful because they know English.

And also, I think that’s related to the non-recognition of varieties of other English varieties. And so, this, I think Ingrid has written about that with Hannah Torsch and Laura Smith-Khan, in terms of, you know, white English complex, this notion of a kind of prejudice against other kinds of Englishes as well that is non-white. So, this understanding again, and going back to what I talk about in the Multilingual Mindset paper of an expectation or variation in terms of language proficiency, right?

So, it’s that it’s really about just pay attention and accommodating the other person. And often it’s about perception. So, it’s kind of like if you like the other person, you’ll listen to them and you’ll understand.

But if you look at them and you have kind of an assumption of who they are or prejudice against who they are, and you’re bound to kind of make a judgment that you’re not going to understand them, even if they’re speaking the same language as you.

Brynn: And that’s what really comes through in the book, not just in the portion that you contributed, but with the other authors as well, is this idea of, okay, at the moment, we seem to only have one standard when it comes to either language or employment, and recognizing the recognition of prior learning, like what you talked about. This is the standard of English that you must meet, or this is the standard of employment or education that you must meet. And it feels like there’s no room for nuance, or to really look and judge on a case-by-case basis. And that just feels unattainable.

Dr. Lising: I can share another story that is actually quite raw, because I’m tutoring somebody at the moment who’s a religious person. And he’s here with his family from a war-torn country. And for him to advance to the next visa category that will allow him to qualify for a permanent residency application, he needs to achieve an IELTS band score of five overall and 4.5 in individual bands.

Brynn: And can you remind us, what is the highest band?

Dr. Lising: Nine. So, nine is the highest band that an English speaker who’s paying attention in the test can gain. And if they’re not paying attention, they will not even get that.

But the point of it is, as you were saying, there’s no opportunity here for new ones in accommodation. So, there are two kinds, perhaps there are more, but the two kinds of standard, and for those listening, I’m doing this in air quotes, tests that our government accepts are the IELTS test and the PTE test. And the PTE is computer based and it’s also computer marked.

And so, this person, and I’m sure he sat the test and was highest in IELTS speaking, 6.5, which is by the way, a university entry mark. But when he sat the PTE, he could only get 28 out of 30. And so there lies your real example, precisely of how there’s no nuance in this test.

And the standard against which I would assume his production in terms of speaking would have been judged against would be British speaker and American speaker. So, but yet in his work, he would speak in Arabic. That’s what his work requires him to do.

And he speaks French, but never mind that.

Brynn: But never mind, we’re not going to recognize all of these other proficiencies.

So, let’s shift gears a little bit into the actual writing of this book. So, I’ve spoken to each of your co-authors, minus one so far, and I’ve asked them all the same questions.

Now I’ll ask you, what was it like to co-author a monograph with five other people? Because as I said to one of your co-authors, I’ve done group projects before, they’re not my favourite. Was it like that or was it something different?

What did you do especially because so much of this took place during COVID? What were the ups and downs of this writing process?

Dr. Lising: I mean, group projects can be fun. And it can be fun if it’s in this way that I’m about to describe. So, for me, the experience of writing this book over the last five years among six of us, have been actually quite an enjoyable experience.

Yes, there are moments where it was hard work and we ensured that we crossed our T’s and dotted our I’s and we made sure all the facts that we have about all the participants. Because you’re talking about putting together a book based on 130 participants drawn from six projects over the last 20 years. So, there are, as you can imagine, there are real challenges there in ensuring quality of the outcome.

But I think that for me, there are two main reasons why there has been an enjoyable experience for me. And I think, judging by my observation of others for theirs as well, are that of friendship and trust. So, the six of us, as I’ve said to you at the beginning, have known each other since 2008.

I’ve known Ingrid since 2007. So that’s about 17 years of working together and we’re still working together. So, it’s gone well.

So, all these years, Ingrid has been constant in the way that she has guided us in our scholarly growth. And the great trust in the group, you know, because of that individual relationship, but also the collective relationship, and there’s a lot of, you know, respect. So, the great trust in the group has allowed us to work seemingly so seamlessly together.

Ingrid has been a glue that has bound us together. But I think knowing that we have the same passion, we have the same understanding on how things are to be done and how we interpret things, I think has really been quite enjoyable for me. I can’t really think of the down.

Maybe the only down was that a significant part of the five years in which we were working this book was COVID years. And so that meant that we had Zoom meet a lot of meetings.

Brynn: A lot of Zoom meetings. Everyone did.

Dr. Lising: That’s right. But we managed a few, you know, face to face, except for Em, who’s quite distant. I think that that relationship that has been there all along and knowing how each other works has been a real formula for the success in this group work.

Brynn: This is a good example of group work then. And I really do love how you all came together to do this because I just think that there needs to be more of this in academia. And I think that’s what is so wonderful about the Language on the Move research group is that it brings us all together.

We have friendships, we have academic relationships, and you don’t feel alone, especially for those of us who are just starting out in this academic process. We can ask questions; we can talk to those of you who know what you’re doing. And I think that many academics don’t get that relationship.

And that’s why I would encourage as many academics as possible to do this kind of collaboration and collaborative work that you’ve all done.

Dr. Lising: And it’s been such a bonus as well to actually have done this at a time when the notion of data sharing is just new. And so, we were all so enthused and excited to be part of this innovation.

Brynn: So, before we wrap up, can you tell us what you’re working on now? What do you have any projects going on? Research, teaching, what are you up to?

Dr. Lising: So, I’m in a teaching and research academic job family. And that means that I do equal part teaching and research. So, I love teaching.

And I think that in as much as you have audience in terms of your own research, who can read the work that you do, engagement with the students and being able to translate the research that I do to advance students’ understanding of the field really just excites me and makes me come to work every day happily, joyfully. So, in my teaching, I teach across the undergraduate. So, in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, we have undergraduate courses and postgraduate courses.

So, I teach in the undergraduate course and in the postgraduate. So, in the undergraduate, I convene this large, two large units. One is an introduction to social linguistics, which is one of my most loved content that I like talking about.

And talk about that in terms of the history of the discipline, but also talking about the two parallel strands in terms of social linguistics, so social linguistics in society and micro social linguistics, social linguistics in languages. So, one has the focuses on language and how language features change because of social factors, and the other one takes society as a starting point and looks at how societal structures and features impact on languages. And so, I love that and I also can be in a unit called professional and community engagement unit, which our linguistics major take and that allows them to do workplace, work-integrated learning and relate that to their own understanding of linguistics.

And I shouldn’t have to tell you because you, you tutor with me in that unit.

Brynn: And I love it!

Dr. Lising: And in the postgraduate, our master of applied linguistics and TESOL course, I teach pragmatics and intercultural communication. Those are my teaching tasks in terms of my research.

I’m currently working on a number of collaborations and those collaborations sit within my social linguistic research program, which is in multilingualism and social participation. So, this has two focuses for me in the Australian context. And those are, one is on the employment experiences of non-English speaking backer and migrants in Australia, and also a macro social linguistic focus.

And the micro social linguistic one is the influence of migrant languages on Australian English. And then there are, I also do a couple of other international collaboration on multilingualism in the Philippines. So yeah, that’s what I have in store.

Brynn: I don’t know how you have time to sleep, but I love everything that you do. And I also took your pragmatics course, which I also loved. So, I can attest to that one.

Loy, I so appreciate you talking to me today. Thank you so much.

Dr. Lising: Thank you for having me.

Brynn: And thank you for listening, everyone. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe to our channel, leave a five-star review on your podcast app of choice and recommend the Language on the Move Podcast and our partner, the New Books Network, to your students, colleagues and friends. Till next time.

NSW Police (Image credit: Edwina Pickles, SMH)

Editor’s note: The Language on the Move team closely collaborates with the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Researchers’ Network (LLIRN). To raise awareness of LLIRN and feature the research of its members, we are starting a new series about exciting new research in specific areas of language and law.

In this first post in the series, LLIRN founders and conveners Dr Alex Grey and Dr Laura Smith-Khan introduce the research of three early career researchers working on language, policing, and criminal justice.

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Alex Grey and Laura Smith-Khan

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The Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Researchers’ Network (LLIRN) came into being in 2019, after an initial symposium involving a group of academics and students, mainly from Australian universities, whose research is interested in the various intersections of language and law. One of our key goals of the symposium was to learn more about each other’s work and create new opportunities to collaborate.

Since then, LLIRN has grown and we have organized and run a number of different initiatives, including multiple panels at conferences across both linguistics and law, a special issue that showcased the work of several of our (mainly early career) members, and a lively and growing mailing list.

Fast forward to 2024, our Listserv now includes members from at least 37 different countries, at diverse stages of their careers, working as academics, as language or legal professionals, and/or in policy or decision-making roles. However, as LLIRN convenors, we have felt that we still have much to learn about the members who make up the network, the expertise they have and their goals. This new blog series intends to address this gap: we want to learn (or “LLIRN”) more about each other, and to make our learning public so that others too can learn more about us.

Northern Territory Supreme Court (Image credit: Dietmar Rabich, Wikipedia)

In the first of this new series, we showcase LLIRN members, Alex Bowen, Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida, and Dr Kate Steel, who are working in areas related to language, policing, and criminal justice.

Alex Bowen, University of Melbourne, Australia

Alex Bowen’s in-progress PhD looks at communication about criminal law and justice with Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. His earlier research was about how police in the NT explain the right to silence in police interviews, producing the publications listed below.  He has previously practised criminal and commercial law.

Alex Bowen is interested more broadly in police interviewing, language in legal processes, interpreting and translation, how we understand and talk about law and justice interculturally, and how legal language is influenced by monolingual and colonial assumptions. He is interested in discussing these topics, especially with Indigenous scholars and practitioners, and developing interdisciplinary and intercultural resources for training and education. He may be available for peer review related to the above topics.

Recent publications

Bowen, A. (2019). ‘You don’t have to say anything’: Modality and consequences in conversations about the right to silence in the Northern Territory. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 39(3), 347–374.
Bowen, A. (2021). Explaining the right to silence under Anunga: 40 years of a policy about language. Griffith Law Review, 30(1), 18–49.
Bowen, A. (2021). Intercultural translation of vague legal language: The right to silence in the Northern Territory of Australia. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 33(2), 308–340.
Bowen, A. (2021). “What you’ve got is a right to silence”: Paraphrasing the right to silence and the meaning of rights. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 28(1), 1–29.

Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida, University of Lincoln, UK

Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida has experience conducting ethnographic and conversation analytic research in police and judicial settings. This has included research on police interviews with suspects in the UK, criminal hearings in Brazil and, more recently, International Criminal Court (ICC) trials, producing the publications listed below. He is currently working on a paper about the role of judges in witness examination at the ICC, focusing particularly on the tensions associated with their dual-role as both referee and truth-finder.  He lectures in Criminology.

International Criminal Court, The Hague (Image Credit: Wikipedia)

Dr Ferraz de Almeida is broadly interested in studying social interactions in any form of police or legal context and welcomes contact from researchers with similar interests.

Recent publications

Ferraz de Almeida, F., & Drew, P. (2020). The fabric of law-in-action: ‘formulating’ the suspect’s account during police interviews in England. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 27(1), 35-58.
Ferraz de Almeida, F. (2022). Two ways of spilling drink: The construction of offences as ‘accidental’ in police interviews with suspects. Discourse Studies, 24(2), 187-205.
D’hondt, S., Perez-Leon-Acevedo, J. P., Ferraz de Almeida, F., & Barrett, E. (2022). Evidence about Harm: Dual Status Victim Participant Testimony at the International Criminal Court and the Straitjacketing of Narratives about Suffering. Criminal Law Forum, 33, 191.
D’hondt, S., Pérez-León-Acevedo, J. P., Ferraz de Almeida, F., & Barrett, E. (2024). Trajectories of spirituality: Producing and assessing cultural evidence at the International Criminal Court. Language in Society, 1-22.
Ferraz de Almeida, F. (2024). Counter-Denunciations: How Suspects Blame Victims in Police Interviews for Low-Level Crimes. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 37, 119–137.

Dr Kate Steel, University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, UK

Dr Kate Steel’s PhD (2022) and continuing research explore interactions ‘at the scene’ between police first responders and victims of domestic abuse, producing the publication below. This work draws from police body-worn video footage within one force area in the England & Wales jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. This research responds to the typical simplification of the crucial role of communication at the scene is and its under-emphasis in official procedure for the first response to domestic abuse, at both local and national levels.

Dr Kate Steel is now working with another police force to develop language guidance specific to the policing context of domestic abuse first response.  She lectures in linguistics.

Recent publications

Aldridge, M., & Steel, K. (2022). The role of metaphor in police first response call-outs in cases of suspected domestic abuse. In I. Šeškauskienė (Ed.), Metaphor in Legal Discourse (224-241). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Available from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9900169
Steel, K. (2023) “Can I have a look?”: The discursive management of victims’ personal space during police first response call-outs to domestic abuse incidents. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 37(2): 547-572.

What about you?

Do you work or research in an area related to criminal justice and language, or another area where language and law intersect? Join the LLIRN!

What other language and law topics would you like to learn about? Have your say on our next LLIRN “What’s new in language and law research?” blog post. Let us know in the comments or join the network and send us an email!

Upcoming events of interest in this area

Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida and Dr Kate Steel will both be presenting their research in the coming months, including at the IAFLL European conference in Birmingham. Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida will also present at the Forensic Conversations in Criminal Justice Settings Symposium in Loughborough in September.

Join us on Thursday, December 14, at Macquarie University for a workshop to explore Linguistic Inclusion Today.

The aim of the workshop is to take stock of the state of linguistic inclusion in Australia, as we see ever-increasing linguistic diversity clashing with the continued monolingual hegemony of English. Following our CfP, we have put together an exciting program of keynote lectures and panels focusing on multilingual practices and policies in families, schools, healthcare settings, and government.

The workshop includes a special symposium focusing on the situation of languages in Australian Higher Education. Languages programs at Australian universities operate under the ever-looming threat of cuts to small programs, a threat that has gained new currency due to the rise of automated translation and generative AI.

The symposium “Languages in Australian Higher Education” can be attended as part of the full-day workshop or as a standalone option. For background reading on declining language learning opportunities in Australian higher education, see this new article by Svetlana Printcev over at SBS.

Program

9:00-9:15 Welcome
9:15-10:15 Keynote: Alexandra Grey, Linguistic Inclusion and Good Governance in Multilingual Australia (Chair: Yixi Isabella Qiu) (view abstract)
10:15-10:30 Break
10:30-12:00 Panel, Multilingualism in Australian Families (Chair: Hanna Torsh) (view abstracts)

• Speaker 1: Priyanka Bose, Conceptualisation of family and language practice in family language policy research on migrants
• Speaker 2: Sithembinkosi Dube, Bringing emerging African languages into the social inclusion agenda
• Speaker 3: Undarmaa Munkhbayar, Heritage Language Maintenance in the Mongolian Community in Australia
• Speaker 4: Emily Pacheco, Sign language maintenance among children of migrant Deaf adults in the diaspora
• Speaker 5: Muhammad Iqwan Sanjani, Constructing transnational family language policy through translanguaging

12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Keynote: Trang Nguyen, Language Policy and Individual Voices: Introducing “Individual Language Policy” (Chair: Jinhyun Cho) (view abstract)
2:00-2:15 Break
2:15-3:45 Panel, Language Polices for Inclusion in the 21^st Century (Chair: Loy Lising) (view abstracts)

• Speaker 6: Jie Zhang, Between vulnerability and agency: crisis communication with Deaf communities in Wuhan during the Covid pandemic
• Speaker 7: Brynn Quick, How are language barriers bridged in hospitals?
• Speaker 8: Natalie Skinner, Cultural and linguistic diversity in children with a disability affecting their communication
• Speaker 9: Yixi (Isabella) Qiu, Navigating epistemic injustice
• Speaker 10: Tazin Abdullah, Citizen science: inclusive practices in data collection

3:45-4:00 Break
4:00-5:30 Symposium, Languages in Australian Higher Education

• Keynote: Jasna Novak Milic, Language Preservation and Identity: The Story of Croatian Studies in Australia (view abstract)
• Chair: Ingrid Piller
• Discussants: Antonia Rubino, Mark Matic, Jane Hanley
• Zoom host: Agnes Bodis

5:30-7:30 Reception

Registration

Attendance is free but spaces are strictly limited so register asap to avoid disappointment.

There are three attendance options:

• Full day (register here) [sold out]
• Only symposium, Languages in Australian Higher Education, and Reception (register here) [sold out]
• Virtual attendance at only symposium, Languages in Australian Higher Education (register here)

Abstracts, Keynotes

Dr Alexandra Grey, UTS, Linguistic Inclusion and Good Governance in Multilingual Australia

This presentation reports on my 2018-2021 investigation into ‘Good Governance in Multilingual Urban Australia’. That project included three studies: an audit of NSW legislation and policy that does (not) provide a framework for decision-making and standards of multilingual government communications (undertaken with A Severin); a case study of such communication outputs from the NSW government, across portfolios (undertaken with A Severin); and a case study of multilingualism in public Covid-19 communications from NSW and Commonwealth governments.

The Covid case study also includes an analytic review of international human rights about language and health, as well as the commentary of international organizations as to how to take a rights-based approach to pandemic communications in order to fulfill certain international law obligations upon Australia (and other nations). That review found new expectations emerging that governments’ multilingual health communications be not merely partially available, but rather produced without (unreasonable) linguistic discrimination; with minority communities’ involvement at preparatory stages; strategic planning; and an eye to effectiveness. In explaining what more effective communication could entail, I advocate assessing government communications’ Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability and Adaptability — that is, the ‘Four As’ recognized by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and crisis communications scholars.

In this keynote at Macquarie University’s Workshop on conceptual and methodological challenges in linguistic inclusion, I will explain my interdisciplinary methodology, present the key findings of each of these three studies, and draw them together by inquiring whether developments in governments’ public communications during the pandemic have given Australia any lasting improvements in the linguistic and social inclusion. The research leads to a novel suggestion for 3 Rs of response to recurrent problems in governments reaching, and including, linguistically diverse publics: (further) Research; Redesigning online communications; and Rights-based Regulation (or Standard Setting). I will end with a reflection on the path ahead for researchers by noting how three studies have each also given rise to an awareness of ‘dead-ends’ and a need for government-partnered research in this space.

Dr Trang Nguyen, Melbourne University, Language Policy and Individual Voices: Introducing “Individual Language Policy”

Language policy often refers to regulations and rules made by governmental or institutional bodies to determine and influence the use of languages in a society or community. Such a common understanding of the term may lead to an impression among the public and authorities that language policy making should be the task of officials and governors rather than ordinary people, thus potentially creating conceptual challenges in incorporating individual voices into the policy making process. Recognising that there is also a language policy at an individual level, which is a critical part of higher-layer language policies and a link of the complex language policy circle, may contribute to addressing these conceptual challenges.

In this talk, I will introduce the concept “individual language policy” which I built in reference to a combination of language policy theories in an attempt to attract attention to such a language policy at an individual level. I suggest that individual language policy is a kind of implicit policy that individuals discursively define and apply to themselves in their daily language behaviours under the influence of external forces and higher-level language policies in the environments where they are living. Individual language policy comprises three main components: practised language policy (guiding language practices), perceived language policy (informing language beliefs), and negotiated language policy (directing language management) (Nguyen, 2022). Individual language policy does not stand independent of other-level language policies, but can be considered as the first step on the path to the outcomes of the top-down policies (Grin, 2003). In our advocacy for policy change towards language inclusion and justice, we should, therefore, emphasise the importance of individual language speakers and their individual language policy, as “it is at the individual level that the success or failure of a language policy is finally revealed” (Spolsky, 2022, p.x).

Dr Jasna Novak Milić, Macquarie University, Language Preservation and Identity: The Story of Croatian Studies in Australia

Among the approximately 200,000 Croats believed to reside in Australia, a significant majority have undergone assimilation, with English often serving as their primary functional language. When the largest wave of Croatian immigrants arrived in Australia during the 1960s and 1970s, the struggle for linguistic identity accompanied them. This struggle led to the recognition of the Croatian language in Australia as early as 1979, well before the declaration of Croatian independence in 1991. Subsequently, ethnic schools were established, and in the 1980s, Croatian language courses were introduced at the high school level. In 1983, Macquarie University launched the study of Croatian language and culture, a program through which several thousand students have passed over its four decades of existence. Initially funded by the Croatian community in Australia, this program began receiving financial support from the government of the Republic of Croatia about two decades ago. This support reflects the recognition of the program’s significance in preserving the language and community identity. However, within the predominantly monolingual mindset, the future of Croatian Studies in Australia faces renewed uncertainty.

Abstracts, Multilingualism in Australian Families

Priyanka Bose, UNSW, Conceptualisation of family and language practice in family language policy research on migrants

Family language policy (FLP) is increasingly recognised as a distinct domain of language policy concerned with the family as an arena of language policy formulation and implementation. While FLP is a relatively new research area, its conceptualisation of family and language practice requires re-examination due to social changes and technological developments, including the expansion of digital communication within families and the rise of globally dispersed families, a product of global migration and transnationalism. In this systematic review of migrant FLP research, we investigate how the notions of family and language practice are conceptualised in research. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we identified a total of 163 articles for analysis. Our analysis reveals that the majority of studies were conducted in nuclear families, i.e., those consisting of a father, a mother, and one or more children. Studies also tend to conceptualise the family as fixed and physically located in one place. Paradoxically, around half of the studies acknowledge the presence of geographically dispersed family relations, but this does not necessarily affect their conceptualisation of what comprises a family. Language practice was conceptualised as physical and face-to-face communication in 51% of instances, with only 11% incorporating an analysis of digital communications. Based on our review, we recommend that FLP researchers researching migrant families reconceptualise the family as geographically dispersed and language practice as digital and multimodal when necessary. Such a reconceptualisation will help researchers understand the hitherto underexamined contributions of dispersed family members and multimodal digital
communications in migrant FLP.

Sithembinkosi Dube, MQ/UNSW, Bringing emerging African languages into the social inclusion agenda

When compared to other English-speaking nations, Australia is regarded as a leader in the provision of community language services (Edwards, 2004). Since the initial establishment of ethnic language schools, the government understood that community languages are critical for the equitable delivery of major community services (health, justice & social services). However, the current structures and policies for community language schools are blind to the smaller communities with emerging languages, thus undermining the social inclusion agenda (Piller & Takahashi, 2011). This talk will highlight how LangDentity, an online Shona-Ndebele Community school, is overcoming these hurdles to maintain Zimbabwean heritage languages.

Undarmaa Munkhbayar, MQ, Heritage Language Maintenance in the Mongolian Community in Australia

Maintaining heritage languages is of paramount importance to immigrants all over the world as the language is not just a communication tool. It carries our culture, tradition, belief, and identity. Australia is ideologically monolingual, yet factually multilingual and numerous minority languages exist here. Based on a small interview study with Mongolian families in Sydney, it was found that English is the main language of Mongolian children and parents struggle to support the heritage language. Sending children to Mongolian language community schools, opting for Mongolian language in the home, investing in extra tutoring sessions, joint reading, and perusing video contents can facilitate the preservation of Mongolian into the second generation.

Emily Pacheco, MQ, Sign language maintenance among children of migrant Deaf adults in the diaspora

About 90% of Deaf parents’ children are born hearing. Culturally, these individuals identify as Codas: Children of Deaf Adult(s). The linguistic practices of Codas have been minimally explored in sociolinguistics research. An aspect of this research is child language brokering (CLB), from which sign language brokering (SLB) emerged. This project aims to draw from these two concepts to investigate the experiences of children of migrant Deaf adults (Comdas). Through a scoping review and semi-structured interviews, data will be collected and later analysed through thematic analysis. By uncovering the experiences Comdas have towards SLB, this project hopes to highlight an often-overlooked population of sign language users in heritage language maintenance research.

Muhammad Iqwan Sanjani, UNSW, Constructing transnational family language policy through translanguaging

This study investigates the roles of home and school in constructing translanguaging spaces among Indonesian transnational families in Australia using an ecological approach to language policy. Data were collected from recordings of naturally occurring conversations, interviews, and diaries, and also interviews with teachers who teach the children of participant families. Preliminary evidence suggests that translanguaging serves as a means for transnational families to fight for epistemic inclusion in a context where monolingualism is prevalent and where their perspectives are often disregarded.

Abstracts, Language Polices for Inclusion in the 21^st Century

Jie Zhang, ZUEL/MQ, Between vulnerability and agency: crisis communication with Deaf communities in Wuhan during the Covid pandemic

Previous studies have demonstrated that deaf people are an underserved vulnerable community before, during, and after emergencies. At the same time, deaf people can also mobilize their agency to produce linguistically and culturally appropriate information and services to deaf communities in the absence of accessible crisis communication provided by the government, and even participate in crisis management. Adopting a community-based participatory approach to research, the study involves researchers and community members as equal partners in the research process. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this study describes the needs of and barriers faced by deaf people during the 76-day lockdown after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan in 2020 as perceived by a group of deaf volunteers, and how the deaf volunteers collaborated with the Wuhan Deaf Association, other civil groups, community workers, volunteers, medical staff, and psychological consultant to respond to deaf people’s needs. The study shows that challenges faced by deaf people include barriers to accessing information and aids, barriers to communication with stakeholders, as well as compound disadvantages caused by communication barriers. Deaf volunteers, apart from providing emergency services tailored to specific needs of deaf communities, helped empower ‘vulnerable’ deaf people in emergency responses and resilience building, and effectively raised the awareness of accessible communication among stakeholders and the public. The study demonstrates the critical role of deaf volunteers, who are highly motivated, fully aware of the needs of deaf people, well-networked both within the deaf community and with the broader community, in providing a bridge between stakeholders and deaf communities. Therefore, the study calls for a shift from a top-down emergency management approach in which emergency management organizations provide special services for deaf people to a participatory and inclusive approach that actively involves deaf people in designing and implementing plans tailored to specific needs of deaf communities in emergency settings.

Brynn Quick, MQ, How are language barriers bridged in hospitals?

This presentation explores how hospitals communicate multilingually to bridge language barriers experienced by linguistic minority patients by asking how hospital staff assess a linguistic minority patient’s language proficiency and identify the need for a multilingual communication strategy. It also examines the language support strategies that hospitals use to communicate with these patients. This is done through a systematic literature review of 50 studies. The findings show that current literature most often examines spoken language barriers bridged through interpreters. The problems identified with consistent interpreting service provision relate to time constraints and inconsistencies in procedures related to assessing a patient’s linguistic proficiency.

Natalie Skinner, MQ, Cultural and linguistic diversity in children with a disability affecting their communication

Communication disability is not typically included in discussion and research around linguistic inclusion. For children with a disability affecting their communication, there is a significant lack of research on cultural and linguistic diversity that can be used to guide the development and delivery of speech pathology services. Services incorporate language technologies, including Alternative and Augmentative Communication systems, that facilitate social participation. Interviews were conducted with 23 speech pathologists across Australia, exploring provision of appropriate services for children with a communication disability, in families who speak a language other than English. While cultural and linguistic diversity is acknowledged and valued, English is pervasive in services and associated resources.

Yixi (Isabella) Qiu, Fudan U/UNSW, Navigating epistemic injustice

Informed by the perspective of “epistemic (in)justice” and “epistemic agency”, this study explored how multilingual teachers and students negotiate a more epistemologically effective and equal access to knowledge negotiation in an EMI program in a Chinese university. A variety of data were collected in the study, including lesson recordings, multilingual notes, reflective journals, and stimulated recalls, to understand how the transnational teachers and students as epistemic agents negotiate disciplinary concepts and engage in knowledge co-construction to express silenced voices, countering epistemic oppression and enhancing participation.

Tazin Abdullah, MQ, Citizen science: inclusive practices in data collection

The field of sociolinguistics has seen an emerging method of data collection known as Citizen Science (CS), whereby members of the public are enlisted to collect data. The utilization of CS allows for large volumes of data collection and enables researchers to tap into the diverse sociolinguistic knowledge of the participants. This paper discusses the innovative use of CS in a Linguistic Landscape study, in which specific groups of participants were engaged to take photographs of signs that were used for analysis. The study notes how the utilization of CS acknowledges diversity and offers an approach to build inclusivity into sociolinguistc methodologies.

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(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

“What stops Australia from doing something like Sweden has done to promote multilingualism? Is it too hard to implement mother tongue instruction in the education system of Australia?”

These questions about language education planning in Australia (where I was born and grew up) and Sweden (where I became a researcher and now live and work) were asked during an online conversation I got involved with after a conference (#ICCHLE21) organized by the Sydney Institute for Community Languages Education (Sydney University). As the questions relate directly to the topic of my Phd research, they engaged me, to say the least!

Multilingualism is a fact of life

In our globalized world, many people speak languages in addition to the official language(s) of the country they live in. Different terms , for example “home language” “heritage language” even “native language”, are used in different contexts to describe these languages and the forms of education that may exist to promote their development.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

In Sweden they are labelled “mother tongues”, and education to promote their development is called Mother Tongue Instruction (hereafter MTI). In Australia the term “community language” is well-established, but terms “first” and “background” language are also used, specifically in the Australian National Curriculum. There are a range of different approaches to the study of community, first, or background languages in Australia.

Is Sweden really better at promoting multilingualism?

So why did the person who asked the questions above think that the Swedish model of MTI might be better for promoting multilingualism in Australia than the range of approaches that currently exist? In my thesis I argued that organizational, ideological and classroom factors impact on the opportunities for the development of multilingualism that the different models offered. Unpacking the organizational and ideological factors can help answer the questions.

How does Mother Tongue Instruction (MTI) in Sweden work?

In Sweden, since the Home Language Reform in 1977, students from primary to upper-secondary school have been entitled to apply for MTI in any language other than Swedish that they speak at home. If the student has basic proficiency in the language, more than five students in the local area apply for it and a teacher is available, the school is required to organize MTI in that language.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

National funding for MTI is administered by local municipalities, who collaborate with schools in the organization of MTI and who employ many of the 6,183 mother tongue teachers who work in Swedish schools. While teacher education is not mandatory for MTI teachers, there are a range of teacher education programmes and professional development courses offered at universities throughout the country that prepare and support MTI teachers for their work.

MTI has a syllabus, and grades in the subject at the end of lower-secondary school can boost the scores that give students eligibility to upper-secondary school programmes. During the academic year 2020-2021, 150 languages were taught through MTI in Swedish schools.

Mother tongue instruction (MTI) within a strong policy framework

Sweden’s system, offering MTI through the national school system, is relatively unique. Although other countries may have some form of support for the maintenance and development of languages other than the national languages, there is no other country where the right to study mother tongues that are different from the national languages, is offered such strong legal protection.

Community language schools in Australia

Education in first, background or community languages in Australia is organized quite differently. It is possible to study five languages as background or first languages through the school system. Education in the other 295 or so languages spoken in Australia is organized through the community language school network.

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

Community language schools have existed in Australia since 1857 and are located in most large cities and some smaller towns throughout the country. Each state has a different approach to organizing community language education. See for example how different the systems in the Victorian School of Languages is from Queensland. New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania have their own systems as well.

While many community language teachers have tertiary qualification, not infrequently in education, they often receive only symbolic payment or work voluntarily. Most community language schools hold lessons on weekends or after school hours, and it is not always possible for all students at community language schools to gain certification or formal recognition of their community language studies.

Community language schools are disconnected from mainstream schooling

Education in community languages in Australia thus usually takes place outside the mainstream school system, is concentrated in larger cities, run by volunteers and not always recognized by the formal education system. These organizational factors can impact negatively on equality of access (for bilinguals living in remote regions) and on student motivation.

It all comes down to language ideologies and policy frameworks

So how do ideological factors impact on the promotion of multilingualism in Sweden and Australia? Language ideologies are not about truth but rather are “beliefs, feelings and conceptions about language that are socially shared and relate language and society in a dialectical fashion” (Piller, 2015). Language ideologies are thus socially situated and dynamic.

Sweden underwent a political and social transformation in the 1970s, throwing off anything associated with the “old assimilationist Sweden” and embracing the vision of “the new Sweden” (modern and pluralistic). It has been argued that it is partly because these ideas were so powerful at a community and political levels that an educational reform as radical as The Home Language Reform, a reform that politicians from every party were committed to, was possible (Hyltenstam & Milani, 2012).

(Image credit: Cruickshank et al, 2021, NSW Community Languages Report)

Collaborations between researchers, activists, social scientists, and officials were instrumental in transforming attitudes in Sweden concerning the value of education in all languages (Wickström, 2015). As Sweden’s policies on mother tongue instruction have traditionally been influenced more by the academic field than the political field, it is clear that language ideologies held by policymakers in Sweden have been influenced by researchers, community members and collaborations between them, leading to the Home Language Reform of 1977 and the establishment of mother tongue instruction.

Australia’s monolingual mindset remains a barrier

In Australia, a major hindrance to funding and giving equal access to the study of a wider range of languages other than English is a very particular set of beliefs about language that researchers have called, the monolingual mindset. This is a deep-rooted, widespread belief that “Standard Australian English” is the most important language and that being monolingual is common and expected.

There is a lot of research that discusses the negative impact of the monolingual mindset on language learning and use and multilingual identity in Australia. However, policy makers do not appear to have engaged with this research, or if they have, they have not had the political means to enact legislation that would make the study of community languages more widely accessible.

Two diverse societies with different approaches to multilingualism

Although Sweden today is not socially or ideologically the same place as it was in the 1970s and there is no longer unanimous support in the Swedish parliament for MTI, the number of students who study the subject has increased steadily since its introduction. Almost one-third of the student population (Table 8A) in the compulsory school was eligible for the subject in the 2020/2021 academic year. MTI thus remains an important, elective subject in the Swedish curriculum, part of a national and systematic approach to language education.

Australia is also home to many people who speak languages in addition to English. The person who asked the questions at the beginning of this blogpost and many researchers as well believe that a national, systemic approach to education in community languages would benefit these individuals, their families, and the Australian community.

So what is stopping Australia from doing something like Sweden then? To answer this, I ask another question: Are Australian policymakers ready to listen to and collaborate with their multilingual citizens and researchers? Until they are, an Australian version of the Home Language Reform is still a way off.

Diversity of international students is celebrated through images that map students onto nations represented by their flags

International education is often touted as a golden road to fluency in another language and the development of a global vision. However, ethnographic research into the language learning and settlement experiences of international students in a variety of national contexts has painted a less rosy picture, as the Language-on-Move archives devoted to international education show.

Such research has found many discontinuities between the promises of international education and students’ actual experiences.

One of the problems in the existing system of international education is the nation-based categorization of seeing international students of diverse backgrounds as a homogeneous group (Piller, 2017).

This categorization is further complicated when international students return to their ancestral homelands for their international education. Such “return migrants” may be positioned in often conflicting ways on the continuum of local and migrant, native and foreigner, as our recent research explores (Li & Han, 2020).

Ethnic Chinese students migrating to China for their international education

As one of the largest diasporas, ethnic Chinese constitute a population of over 50 million. The great majority of them live in Southeast Asia. Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia have been perceived as a powerful nexus between China and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, mostly due to their remarkable economic performance and their historical contribution to China’s nationalist movement in the early twentieth century. As China is emerging as one of the largest receiving countries for international education, ethnic Chinese may get the first admission ticket to higher education institutions in China.

However, the prioritization of ethnic Chinese migrating to China for their international education is not without problems. These students are confronted with several linguistic and cultural challenges.

Some of these challenges are similar to what has been reported in previous studies, and others are specific to this group and have to date mostly been overlooked in the existing literature on international education.

One big challenge relates to a conflict between students’ self-perceptions of their identities and the ways in which others perceive them. An ethnic Chinese student from Myanmar, for instance, expressed her shock and confusion since coming to China: “我以为我的根在中国，来中国我发现我没根了！” (“I used to think that my roots are in China. However, coming to China has made me rootless.”)

Like this female student, ethnic Chinese students from Myanmar used to be oriented towards China. Learning Putonghua in Myanmar was a top priority for their transnational empowerment (Li, 2017; Li, 2020; Li, Ai, & Zhang, 2020). However, once they move to China for their studies, their trajectories gradually gear them to identify Myanmar as their true homeland and as their land of opportunity. How is this possible?

Linguistic and cultural essentialism

To find out, we (Li & Han 2020) examined the learning experiences of 14 ethnic Chinese from Myanmar who were enrolled in Putonghua-medium degree programs at a Chinese university. We found that the language ideologies of speaking standard Putonghua and writing simplified Chinese characters challenged these students’ sense of being authentically Chinese. In the process, they were turned from proficient Chinese speakers in Myanmar to deficient Putonghua speakers in China.

Ethnic Chinese students from Myanmar are often made to feel weird for engaging in practices that are considered “Burmese”, such as putting on thanaka, a protective white-paste face mask

National essentialism was another ideological force that challenged their Chinese identity. In their classrooms and everyday interactions, the students found themselves positioned not as ethnic Chinese but as Burmese nationals. This “one nation, one culture, one language” mindset not only erased our participants’ Chinese identity but also reinforced an essentialist view of Myanmar as the country of the Burmese, the dominant ethnic group in that highly diverse country.

Neo-essentialist curriculum

Most research into international education is based in Anglophone countries, where a monolingual mindset prevails and exclusive use of English is promoted while languages other than English are devalued.

This is not the case in China. China’s promotion of Putonghua as an international language follows a reciprocal approach that also values the languages international students bring. Their bilingualism is regarded as an asset. In our case, both Burmese and Putonghua constitute desired linguistic capital to achieve mutual cooperation and promote the regional economy and integration between China and ASEAN.

However, this promotion of bilingualism is not unproblematic, either. Linguistic diversity is not unconditionally valued but rests on its convertibility in an international communication market – between the Chinese and Burmese state in this context.

This orientation to the nation as a market applauds bilingualism in Burmese and Putonghua but marginalizes bilingualism in non-standard Chinese varieties and languages that are not official to a nation.

In short, our research demonstrates that the neoliberal valorization of bilingualism is not in and of itself better than the monolingual mindset: it only reproduces the cultural superiority of essentialized linguistic icons while devaluing and erasing non-privileged cultural forms and identities.

The future of Chinese international education

While the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the language challenges confronting diverse populations worldwide (Piller, 2020; Piller, Zhang, & Li, 2020), it has also reconfigured the global economic and political order.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 early last year, China has shifted its global strategy by strengthening its regional connectivity with Asian countries. In 2020, ASEAN replaced the USA and EU to become China’s largest trading partner. A recent trade agreement, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has reinforced the regional integration between China and its region. As the largest free trading zone covering 30% of the global populations and 30% of global GDP, RCEP will mark a new era for Asia-Pacific cooperation in various social dimensions.

Will the free movement of goods and people in this vast zone also lead us to a greater valorization of linguistic and cultural diversity? Will it open a space for embracing diversity and bringing greater equity and social justice?

Our research suggests that, as long as the ideological foundations of linguistic and cultural essentialism stay in place, the international education in RCEP may just be old wine in a new bottle.

References

Li, J. (2017). Social Reproduction and Migrant Education: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography of Burmese Students’ Learning Experiences at a Border High School in China. (PhD). Macquarie University.
Li, J. (2020). Transnational migrant students between inclusive discourses and exclusionary practices. Multilingua, 39(2), 193-212. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2019-0125
Li, J., Ai, B., & Zhang, J. (2020). Negotiating language ideologies in learning Putonghua: Myanmar ethnic minority students’ perspectives on multilingual practices in a borderland school. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 41(7), 633-646. doi:10.1080/01434632.2019.1678628
Li, J., & Han, H. (2020). Learning to orient toward Myanmar: ethnic Chinese students from Myanmar at a university in China. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 1-19. doi:10.1080/07908318.2020.1858095
Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural communication. Edinburgh University Press.
Piller, I. (Ed.) (2020). Language-on-the-Move COVID-19 Archives.
Piller, I., Zhang, J., & Li, J. (2020). Linguistic diversity in a time of crisis: Language challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multilingua, 39(5), 503-515. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/multi-2020-0136/html

The Language on the Move team is here to help!

After the Language on the Move Reading Challenges of 2018, 2019, and 2020, this is the fourth time we are running the Language on the Move Reading Challenge.

This year, we have created a monthly calendar of reading recommendations to keep you company throughout the year.

As was the case previously, the Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2021 is designed to encourage broad reading in the discipline and beyond, and to make linguistics reading fun. Anyone with an interest in the intersection of linguistic diversity and social life can join.

Throughout the year, make sure to watch out for in-depth reviews and interactive conversations related to each reading, both here on this site and over on Twitter @lg_on_the_move.

Enjoy the recommendations from our team and feel free to add your own recommendations in the comment section below! We are interested in any good reads illuminating the intersection of language and social life.

January

Hanna Torsh recommends The Sydney Language by Jakelin Troy (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2019, 2^nd ed.).

“Jakelin Troy documents the language of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Sydney Region, which no longer has any speakers. Drawing on historical sources, the book provides a classic example of language contact and intercultural communication. Shadows of those encounters between Aboriginal people and colonizers continue to exist in the vocabulary of Australian English. “Waratah” is a good example. The flower to which it refers is the name of the NSW floral emblem and of a major rugby team.”

February

Pia Tenedero recommends Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (Crown Publishing, 2012).

“I like having Reading Group via Zoom because I feel more confident to express myself in this digital platform than in our face-to-face meetings – possibly an indication of my introvert side. This is partly why Susan Cain’s exploration of communication styles and the stereotypes linked to them appeals to me. There is a dominant belief that the ideal self, successful students, model employees, or the best leaders enjoy the spotlight, act quickly, and talk fast, aloud, and a lot. Extroversion is also perceived as a “Western” communication style. As a result, those who do not fit the pattern are oftentimes viewed through a deficit lens, as I have found in my research with globalized accountants in the Philippines.”

March

Vera Williams Tetteh recommends Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa by Nwando Achebe (Ohio University Press, 2020).

“In 2009, I gifted Ingrid (Piller) a glossy catalogue celebrating 50 years of Ghanaian history. She was puzzled at this short time span and asked where all the history before that was. Not having an answer at the time, I have become an avid reader of African history since. Nwando Achebe provides a brilliant African-centred history of women in leadership roles on the continent during pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial times. The book opens with my most favourite African proverb – “Until the lions have their own historians, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter” and, throughout, addresses the question: whose histories, whose stories, whose archives?”

April

Loy Lising recommends Challenging the Myth of Monolingual Corpora edited by Arja Nurmi, Tanja Rutten, and Paivi Pahta (Brill, 2017).

“This book addresses how the monolingual mindset pervades even the discipline of linguistics itself, specifically the sub-discipline of corpus linguistics. The monolingual mindset manifests in the compilation, annotation, and use of corpora, and multilingual practices are converted into monolingual corpora at each of these levels. As one of the contributors to the Philippine component of the International Corpus of English, I am concerned that any non-English data in that corpus are either marked as <indig>, if they are in a local language, or <foreign>, if they are in Spanish. The book offers many helpful lenses through which to query these practices and to consider how non-English elements could be better incorporated so that they can serve as meaningful evidence of language contact and language change.”

May

Madiha Neelam recommends Language Policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches by Elana Shohamy (Routledge, 2006).

“This book inspires me to think more deeply about how language can serve as a means of control and categorisation. Shohamy explains how perceptions of language as a limited entity, governed by fixed boundaries, and strict rules of correctness make language amenable to manipulation for political, social, and economic purposes. Language tests, in particular, are powerful tools of control and social categorisation.”

June

Samar Al-Khalil recommends Neoliberalism and English Language Education Policies in the Arabian Gulf by Osman Z. Barnawi (Routledge, 2017).

“Barnawi shows how education in the Gulf region is changing as societies move from oil-based to knowledge-based economies. In this context, education has become entirely subject to the needs of the job market and economic agendas. This has resulted in a series of tensions as this form of neoliberal and globalized education comes into conflict with Islamic values and Arab identities. The book helps me to think more critically about the broader socioeconomic context in which my research about the promotional discourses of private English language teaching institutes in Saudi Arabia is embedded.”

July

Shiva Motaghi-Tabari recommends Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia edited by Anita Heiss (Black Inc., 2018).

“Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia is an anthology of fifty short life stories written by Aboriginal people from all walks of life and spanning a variety of generations and regions. It is a compilation of diverse voices and perspectives which have identity, culture, and racism at their core. One of the themes that stands out throughout the book is the contributors’ struggles to understand their identity, and to find a sense of belonging and acceptance. The book enriched my own learning and understanding about Indigenous people in many ways, and I would recommend the book particularly to migrants to Australia, who can too easily avoid confronting Australia’s colonial history and the ongoing struggles of its First Nations people.”

August

Alexandra Grey recommends Language Investment and Employability: The Uneven Distribution of Resources in the Public Employment Service by Mi-Cha Flubacher, Alexandre Duchêne and Renata Coray (Palgrave, 2018).

“This book reports on a 9-month institutional ethnography inside various offices of Switzerland’s public employment service across the officially French-German bilingual Canton of Fribourg. It is a brilliant example of an institutional ethnography. The study demonstrates that language policy research should not always take a specific official language policy as its starting point. Instead, it is important for researchers to look at sites and processes where both overt and covert language policy is made and applied without taking on the official guise of ‘a policy about language’. Here, the rules, official policies and official discourses are, on their face, about eligibility for state assistance and employability, but the study shows how language practices, migration histories, and language repertoires are constructed within them.”

September

Ana Sofia Bruzon recommends Home advantage: social class and parental intervention in elementary education by Annette Lareau (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, 2^nd ed).

“Working-class families want their children to succeed in school, just like middle-class families, but they are not endowed with the same resources. Lareau shows that social class has a powerful impact on educational success; that is, parental involvement in schooling correlates strongly to children’s educational attainment. For working-class families, school and family life are strictly separated. By contrast, school and family life are interconnected for middle class families. Parental possession and activation of cultural resources yields social and educational profits for middle class children, which results in the strong connection between social class and educational outcomes. The book challenges me to think more deeply about how the class-school relationship is complicated when linguistic difference and migrant status also come into play. Schools should help fill the gap by providing inclusive multilingual information.”

October

Jinhyun Cho recommends Language and Symbolic Power by Pierre Bourdieu (Polity, 1992).

“I have read this book numerous times and treat it as my sociolinguistic bible. I continue to find new perspectives and insights into the relationship between language and society at each reading. By shifting the focus from language per se to its situatedness in complex social relations, Bourdieu’s theory of language as capital works seamlessly in the theorisation of linguistic markets, in which a price is formed on language, and censorship operates in order to distinguish legitimate language from other varieties. Although Bourdieu’s theory was formed in the French context of the 2^nd half of the 20^th century, it has been foundational to my own research related to translation and interpreting in contemporary South Korea, where English serves as a key instrument of distinction.”

November

Tazin Abdullah recommends Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia by Samia Khatun (University of Queensland Press, 2019).

“Much of the narrative surrounding Australian immigrants posits migration as a recent phenomenon. Australianama (“The book of Australia”), in contrast, is a refreshing insight into the historic connection immigrants have had with land and people. Khatun traces the South Asian Muslim presence in Australia using literature in South Asian languages and stories found in Aboriginal accounts. She explains, convincingly, that an understanding of immigrant history is found not in languages associated with European/colonial knowledge systems, but within the literature of immigrant and Aboriginal languages. The stories that Khatun unearths definitively illustrate the influence of historical, social and cultural factors that produce the linguistic representation of immigrants. I thoroughly enjoyed this fresh perspective on the story of Australia.”

December

Ingrid Piller recommends The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns edited by Dohra Ahmad and with a foreword by Edwidge Danticat (Penguin, 2019).

“I’ve probably learned more about language – and life in general, I might add – from literature than from linguistics. And this anthology offers a kaleidoscope of the many facets in which language is entwined in the experience of migration. Ahmad has brought together a brilliant collection of migrant literature with pieces focused on the experience of leaving home, arriving in a destination, and creating, or trying to create, a new home. Although the US and UK still loom large among the destinations, Ahmad has made a huge effort to include a wide variety of origins and destinations. Another strength of the anthology is that, in addition to some well-known names, it features many newer writers who have not yet been widely anthologized – I’ve discovered a number of authors to add to my favorite writers list.”

The Twitter thread below offers a quick teaser for each episode. Indulge yourself, head over to the Earshot website, download the 5 episodes, and enjoy 2.5 hours of linguistic bliss!

In Episode 1, you will learn about the global #language hierarchy, and discover why a #multilingual person may not be able to say "take a shower" in all their #languages https://t.co/JfTzWUyqDV

— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 23, 2019

Part 3 takes us to #Armenian–#English #bilingual Galstaun College, an #Arabic community school, and to a frustrated #Japanese teacher in a Sydney public school … and you will begin to understand why #language #education in Australia is such a disasterhttps://t.co/L5OL2d3yG6

— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 23, 2019

And in Episode 5 @birdpham and @masakofukuisyd finally figure out that #English is a #migrant #language, too …

Ultimately, #multilingualism is not about #languages but about creating more inclusive societieshttps://t.co/DY5u9MzLvH

— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) December 23, 2019

Building the Danish boar fence (Image credit: NDR)

Fences are popular these days: not only in the US with its border-wall-to-Mexico saga but also in Denmark, which recently started to build a fence to ‘secure’ is border to Germany. The official reason for the Danish fence is to keep out wild boars who might be crossing into Denmark from Germany. Its efficiency is highly contested … Although not directly related to issues of language, there are striking parallels between the swine fence and what I, a linguistic ethnographer with 15 years of experience in the area of multilingualism and linguistic diversity, have witnessed, researched and documented in Danish schools.

With the notable exception of English, Denmark is a country strongly beholden to the norm of monolingualism. That is, there is a wide-spread understanding that the normative situation is such that everybody speaks one language. In our case, this language is Danish. Monolingualism may seem paradoxical in Denmark, a country with only 5.7 million inhabitants, which is located in close proximity to countries such as Sweden, Norway, Germany and Poland, and which depends on international trade and exchange. As a result, Denmark is home to people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and in terms of human mobility, efficient fences are even more of an illusion than a realistic substitute for policy. Yet, for the political establishment such insights seem hard to reach and to integrate with an increasingly strong focus on the idea of the nation.

The norm of monolingualism affects many citizens with a linguistic repertoire which includes resources associated with multiple languages. Despite this diversity, the monolingual norm is produced and reproduced in various ways and in many societal domains, but particularly in education. Accordingly, it is not uncommon to witness statements such as the following: “In Denmark we speak Danish. You have the right to learn all the languages you want, but it needs to take place in your spare time.” (Inger Støjberg, now Minister for Children, Gender Equality, Integration and Social affairs; the statement was made in 2012, when she was a member of the opposition). In the quote, “Danish” is used in three different meanings: as the first language of the majority population; as the official language of Denmark; and as the most important language taught in schools. The point argued for was that the state had no responsibility towards minority children’s mother tongue education.

In fact, there is only one educational setting where so-called immigrant languages are legitimate: Mother Tongue (MT) education. MT education is located within the regular school system but outside compulsory education  (for details on MT education in Denmark, see Salö et al. 2018). In my team’s research with MT classrooms in and around Copenhagen we found that MT education is still filtered through the lens of Danish monolingualism as MT education is almost exclusively viewed with regard to its effects on Danish.

The official aim of MT education is to ensure students’ linguistic competences in the language regarded as their mother tongue, and their cultural and societal competences with respect to what is formulated as their “country of origin”. Furthermore, MT education is supposed to foster metalinguistic development, enable general participation in school and society in the “host country,” i.e., Denmark, and encourage a global perspective on language and culture (Ministry of Education 2009: 3).

In terms of public opinion (as articulated in letters to the editor, editorials, interviews with politicians, and even academics), there is a general consensus to focus on MT education in terms of its effect on Danish. This aligns with the quote above. As everyone holds that in Denmark we speak Danish, the teaching of those other languages that are associated with immigrants needs to be justified with reference to Danish. This understanding of MT education is widely shared among both supporters and opponents.

The rationale for MT education according to the Danish Ministry of Education

Yet, such effects of positive transfer were never in focus in the classrooms we followed, nor were they part of regular assessment. In fact, MT classes are entirely marginalized. They are ‘fenced’ in relation to general education, and have no relation to whatever else goes on in schools. None of the mainstream teachers or school authorities seem interested in MT education classes. This makes it completely mysterious how the “effect on Danish” should ever come about. To us, there seemed to be more obvious ways to evaluate the relevance of such educational initiatives. For instance, in terms of the classes’ effects on the students’ Arabic, Persian, Polish, or Turkish competences.

Another point is that MT classrooms include participants from a range of backgrounds, a range of relations to the supposed country of origin, and to the language taught. Consequently, one cannot expect consensus about what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘bad’ language, or more or less ‘appropriate’ language (Karrebæk & Ghandchi, 2015).

In the Persian MT classrooms we followed, for example, children came from families who were political, religious, or other types of refugees, who were supporters of the current Iranian government, or who had no explicit political stance and had moved to Denmark for job opportunities or family reasons. In recognition of this diversity, the teacher aimed to create an “ideology free” space. This would enable all students to meet, regardless of their backgrounds. Yet, one way of doing this was to exclude anything that could be associated with the current Iranian government, and even with Arabic language and culture. The use of Arabic loanwords often caused controversy in the classroom. This approach made sourcing educational materials difficult because the teacher refused to use any materials that included pictures of women in hijab. Such images, he felt, would compromise his “ideology free” classroom. On the other hand, the traumas of refugee children went unrecognized. They largely remained unspoken and if they were articulated, they were ignored and suppressed. This created awkward situations and made it difficult for some children to find themselves reflected in the classes.

In the Turkish MT classroom, the diversity among the participants created other difficulties. In this class, the most striking difference concerned the teacher. He was of Kurdish origin and his Turkish language included features that revealed this background. In general, there are strong negative associations with Kurdish-Turkish, and we saw children, and a few parents, voice this in more or less direct ways (Karrebæk & Nergiz, 2019). The teacher, however, had few options to find another job, and we doubt that anybody had thought about how an internal Turkish conflict would play out in a Copenhagen MT classroom, and how this could or should have been handled by the employing authorities.

My work with linguistic diversity in education has shown how immigrants are evaluated and valorized in relation to their Danish competences; how languages other than Danish are, by and large, ignored, devalued and suppressed by the authorities; and how children growing up in this linguistically narrow-minded atmosphere struggle to integrate their mother tongues into an attractive public identity. This is not to say that these outcomes are planned or even desired by Danish authorities. Rather, they result from a severely limited imagination when it comes to multilingualism and cultural diversity. The discursive means to imagine cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity differently are currently lacking. After all, “in Denmark we speak Danish”. These beliefs and attitudes create a difficult work climate for MT teachers as they have to stay in fenced-in areas in a national setting very unfavorable to the use of immigrant languages. They curtail a good educational climate and obstruct any constructive engagement with MT education.

Nobody really seems to care what goes on in MT education because it is understood as being of little relevance and value – to society at large and ultimately to the children themselves. MT classes were fenced off from the children’s regular schooling experiences. Arguably, this neglect even paved the way for  “importing” conflicts from elsewhere.

In short, the orientation to standard Danish and monolingualism leads to marginalization of some children, alienation of others, poor learning conditions, and lots of missed learning opportunities, a linguistically poor society, and a society haunted by globalization and a world which it tries to keep out with a fence.

References:

Karrebæk, M.S. & Ö. Nergiz (2019). Language ideologies, the soft g, and parody in the Turkish mother tongue classroom. Multilingua https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2018-0086

Karrebæk, M.S. & N. Ghandchi (2015). ‘Pure’ Farsi and political sensitivities: Language and ideologies in Farsi complementary language classrooms in Denmark. Journal of Sociolinguistics 19(1): 62-90.

Sahlö, L., C. Hedman, N. Ganuza & M.S. Karrebæk (2018). Mother tongue instruction in Sweden and Denmark: Language policy, cross-field effects, and linguistic exchange rates. Language Policy 17(4), 591-616

Here’s That Awkward Video Of Scott Morrison Saying “Ni Hao” To A Korean Voter: Scott Morrison is being skewered on social media after he greeted a Korean-Australian voter with “ni hao” hello in Mandarin while campaigning in Strathfield, Sydney. excerpthttps://t.co/4ttITsJXwM pic.twitter.com/WOpPjZWh4l

— lynlinking (@lynlinking) April 13, 2019

Chinese warning against illegal parking in Sydney apartment building

Australia today is a de facto multilingual society. According to 2016 census data, 22.2% of Australians speak a language other than English (LOTE) at home. In the major cities the number of multilinguals is much higher (38.2% in Sydney; 34.9% in Melbourne).

Mandarin is the most frequently spoken LOTE and is the home language of 2.5% of the Australian population (4.7% in Sydney). This means that no LOTE strongly predominates nationally although this may differ across localities. In Strathfield, the Sydney suburb where the ministerial gaffe occurred, Korean is spoken by 10.9% of residents and thus slightly ahead of Mandarin with 10.6%.

That politicians would try to reach these diverse groups is not surprising. However, a gauche attempt to greet an Asian-looking person in Chinese exposes the gap between our predominantly white Anglo monolingual politicians and the diverse population they are supposed to represent.

Multilingual warning against trolley dumping in Sydney apartment complex

Multilingualism in Australia is largely restricted to the immigrant population and their children. This means that proficiency in a LOTE is, by and large, also a marker of an ethnic identity that is not Anglo/white.

The Anglo/white population has been struggling to come to terms with this reality. For the longest time, the key strategy has been to simply ignore LOTEs and carry on as if Australia were a monolingual English-speaking society – the infamous monolingual mindset. However, our multilingual reality has become increasingly difficult to ignore, and as a result we see more and more efforts at multilingual communication.

The problem with these multilingual communications is that the LOTE speaker is not imagined as a conversation partner but as a dupe. “Greet them in their language and they will be pleased”, “Provide campaign posters in their language and they’ll vote for me”, seems to be the thinking.

The red lines are the visual equivalent of shouting at Chinese residents to do their laundry properly

In short, most of the time when Anglo-Australians use a LOTE, they do not imagine interacting with another complex person but talking at some uni-dimensional simpleton. These multilingual practices do not engage but otherize.

That multilingual practices can exclude just as much as they can include is most apparent in multilingual prohibition signs. When prohibitions are stated in more than one language in an otherwise largely monolingual space, these prohibitions position LOTE speakers as trespassers and interlopers who cannot be relied upon to do the right thing. Signage stating bathroom etiquette is one such example.

Chinese-English signs placed over toilets during open houses (when a house that is for sale is open for inspection by potential buyers) are another. I find it difficult to imagine that toilet use during open houses is such a problem that it requires intervention with a specifically designed sign. The sign in all probability serves less to deter inappropriate toilet use than to disseminate its implicit message: that Chinese customers have questionable hygiene. Multilingual prohibition signs related to illegal parking, illegal use of shopping trolleys, or illegal use of washing lines all invite the same conclusion: Chinese residents are offenders against the norms of everyday interaction.

Open house toilet sign

LOTE use, and specifically the use of Asian languages, predominantly Chinese, in the public space in Australia – in cases where it emanates from outside the LOTE community – is the latest incarnation of the fear of Asians that has been inscribed into Australian culture ever since it became a British outpost far away from Europe but close to Asia.

Australia’s fear of Asia manifested itself most explicitly in the “White Australia” policy, which excluded Asian immigrants for most of the 20^th century. While a racist immigration policy has given way to a non-discriminatory immigration policy for almost half a century now and most immigrants today come from Asia, Anglo-Australia is still struggling to come to terms with the reality that Australia is an Asian country geographically and is increasingly becoming an Asian country demographically.

Another open house toilet sign

But what do these realities mean for our diverse society? The linguistic evidence at present suggests that “Australian” and “Asian” continue to be imagined as mutually exclusive categories. But our collective embarrassment at this state of affairs is palpable, and change is in the air.

Related content

• Diversity made invisible in 2010 federal Australian election [yeah, we’ve been blogging this long …]
• Monolingual mindset in the lucky country
• Multilingual prohibitions
• Toiletology
• The monolingual mindset goes to war
• Banal multilingualism
• Banal cosmopolitanism

Map of European languages (Source: SB Language Maps)

Invitation to public seminar about “Minority Languages” at Macquarie University

What: Minority languages: what are we talking about? And why are we talking about it now?
When: Wednesday, November 22, 12:00-2:00pm
Where: Macquarie University Y3A 211 Tute Rm (10HA)
Who: Professor Josu Amezaga, University of the Basque Country

Abstract: Minority (or minoritized) languages can be defined as languages historically excluded from the nation-state. Following the French Revolution, which imposed the need of a common and unique language on the French state, many countries applied the “one-language-one-nation” pattern and, in the process, minoritized numerous languages. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, many countries almost seemed to have reached this monolingual ideal. However, in recent decades major changes in mediated communications together with growing migration flows have called this state of affairs into question as minority languages – both “old” and “new” – reassert themselves. At the same time, the reemergence of linguistic diversity has provoked state reactions in the form of new re-nationalization policies focused around language.

In my presentation I will first explain what minoritization of languages means. Then I will show how changes in communication and migration flows have affected the linguistic landscape of Western societies. The focus will be on commonalities and points of difference between regional and immigrant minority languages. Finally, I will discuss why minority languages should be addressed not only as a matter of cultural heritage but also a need for the future. This will lead me to close with some questions about the monolingual paradigm.

Bio blurb: Josu Amezaga is Professor in the Department of Audio-Visual Communication and Advertising at the University of the Basque Country, Spain. After completing his Ph.D. in Sociology about Basque culture, he started researching Basque language and media, from where he moved to a more comprehensive view of minority languages in media and as identity tools. This interest has led him to immigrant languages, as yet another type of minority languages. Currently, he is a visiting professor at Charles Sturt University.

Fliers for Persian community events (Persian Library Parramatta, Nov 2010)

Editor’s note: In the second instalment in our series “Explorations in Language Shaming”, Dr Shiva Motaghi-Tabari examines children’s attitudes towards the perception of home languages other than English in Australia highlighting that home-language use may often be associated with a sense of embarrassment.

***

Home-language (HL) maintenance as a concern for many migrant families has recently gained prominence. Much of the research has focused mainly on the role of parents and HL educators in child HL learning processes, while the role of children in this effect remained almost invisible. In my doctoral research on “Bidirectional Language Learning in Migrant Families”, I demonstrated that children’s language attitudes, which in turn are influenced by language ideologies and wider social structures, can have significant impacts on their HL maintenance.

In fact, the broad impetus for my research germinated from my own observation of my child’s language learning and use, and my engagements with other parents in a similar situation since we came to Australia in 2008. Like many migrant parents coming from a non-English-speaking background, maintaining my child’s HL has been a concern in our new home in Australia. When we first came, my daughter was around seven years old. At the time, she knew some English, as we had sent her to language schools since she was four years old back in Iran. After arrival, I observed how quickly her English language, particularly her conversational skills, were progressing. As her English language progressed, I began to wonder if it might not be a good idea to use some English at home. After all, her father and I also needed to improve our English communication skills …

At the same time, we did not wish to put our daughter’s Persian at risk. Her Persian maintenance was not only important to us, but it was also a promise to her grandparents who relentlessly reminded us of the importance of preserving their grandchild’s Persian language. For this very reason, we also sent her to a Persian Saturday School in Sydney so that she would become literate in the language.

In our search for effective ways of managing the two languages, Persian and English, we heard many parents’ stories of success or failure related to their HL maintenance. For some of the parents, despite their investments of time and money, they found it challenging to get their children to learn and use their HL. Some of them blamed the Community Language School teachers for not being able to teach the HL properly, and some of them blamed themselves for not spending enough time to practice the language with their children. Some of them also seemed confused as they had been advised by their children’s mainstream teachers to speak English with their children.

Eventually, these observations shaped my interest in doing further research in the area, and that’s how my PhD research ‘Bidirectional Language Learning in Migrant Families’ came into existence. That my research struck a chord is obvious from the fact that it won the 2017 Michael Clyne Prize. The Michael Clyne Prize is awarded annually by the Australian Linguistics Society for the best postgraduate research thesis in immigrant bilingualism and language contact.

‘Bidirectionality’ in parent-child interactions is a notion that I have borrowed from family studies and extended to the field of second language learning. In a bidirectional model, the process of socialisation of a child into a set of language and cultural rules involves not only a parent-to-child direction of influence but also a child-to-parent direction. Central to the bidirectional model is the concept of agency. Agency in this framework means “considering individuals as actors with the ability to make sense of the environment, initiate change, and make choices” (Kuczynski, 2003, p. 9). The core assumption in this framework is that both parents and children as active agents interpret and thereby reconstruct social messages (Kuczynski, Parkin, & Pitman, 2014, p. 138). This means that, in the field of language learning, children, like adults, adopt a certain way of thinking about languages based on the language ideologies they encounter in their daily lives. Based on these social perceptions, they make choices about what languages to learn and use. Therefore, to find more effective ways of HL maintenance, it is essential to bring children’s language attitudes and practices to the forefront alongside parents’ language attitudes and investments, and HL teachers and their teaching methods.

Despite parents’ wishes and efforts, children often show a disinclination to learn and use the home language, the language of their family, relatives and loved ones. Instead, they often tend to prefer English, as one of my child participants said: ‘I mostly speak Iranian, but I prefer English’. Reasons for this preference that the children gave to me included the following: ‘Because Persian is so hard’ or ‘it is Australia!’

It is true that for many children, their limited HL skills could make it difficult for them to communicate in that language. However, the same child who felt that Persian was too hard also made the comment ‘it is Australia!’ This adds another dimension to children’s choice of English as their preferred language. In effect, in a process of linguistic and cultural mainstreaming through the educational system and social practices, the dominant language and culture are inscribed as legitimate while other languages are devalued. In circumstances where communicative norms are constituted into a homogenised form, it comes as no surprise that children who do care about belonging and acceptance, internalise and reproduce the underlying message that ‘to be an Australian, one must speak English’. For them, using their HL may be perceived as a marker of lack of belonging or difference, and ultimately, making them feel a sense of shame and embarrassment over different forms of language other than what is seen as ‘normal’, as in this example:

Child participant: I get embarrassed [laughs] to speak Persian.
Shiva: Why is that?
Child participant: Because I don’t want anybody to think I’m weird.

Under circumstances where children  feel that they may be viewed as ‘weird’ if they use their home language, it is obvious that they may not show much interest in practising that language; and so, they exert their agency in different ways to use their preferred language despite their parents’ wishes, as is evident from the following conversation I had with two children:

Shiva: Then you are asked at home to speak in Persian?
Child participant 1: Yeah.
Child participant 2: A lot.
Child participant 1: Yeah.
Child participant 2: A lot.
[Both laugh] Shiva: And then you don’t?
Both [giggling] No! [more laughter] Shiva: No?
Child participant 1: maybe for one second, but then after that [laughs]

In sum, raising a child bilingually can be a difficult task when the onus is only on the family, particularly in a context where the value of the HL is not tangible for the children and is not acknowledged by the wider society. So, before any language instructions can be successful, children need to truly feel and understand the importance of preserving their home language alongside learning the English language. To achieve this, it is essential that families, community languages schools and mainstream schools come together around the same positive message: English is not the only language of Australia and bilingualism is cool and worth encouraging.

References

Kuczynski, L. (2003). Beyond Bidirectionality: Bilateral Conceptual Frameworks for Understanding Dynamics in Parent-Child Relations. In L. Kuczynski (Ed.), Handbook of dynamics in parent-child relations (pp. 3-24). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Kuczynski, L., Parkin, C. M., & Pitman, R. (2014). Socialization as Dynamic Process: A Dialectical, Transactional Perspective. In J. E. Grusec & P. D. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization: theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 135-157). New York; London: The Guilford Press.

Motaghi-Tabari, S. (2016). Bidirectional Language Learning in Migrant Families. (PhD), Macquarie University. Available from http://languageonthemove.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Thesis_Shiva_Motaghi-Tabari_BidirectionalLanguageLearning.pdf

Now imagine that, on top of all that, you want to raise your child bilingually. If ‘bilingualism’ is one of your considerations, you are left with a minuscule number of facilities … in many countries anyways and most definitely in Australia.

Or maybe ‘bilingualism’ wasn’t on your list at all but, as luck would have it, a bilingual childcare centre round the corner from where you live just happened to offer you a spot? What would you think about that? How do other parents in the centre feel about the bilingual programme? What are their reasons for sending their children there? And what are the odds that your child will really become bilingual in a bilingual preschool?

My book Bilingual childcare: hitches, hurdles and hopes provides answers to these questions through the voices of parents who enrolled their children in a bilingual German-English childcare centre in Sydney. I examine their expectations for the language learning of their children, the importance they place on bilingualism (or not), and also their hopes for their children’s bilingualism beyond the early years.

Any childcare centre is a dynamic hub, where people from different backgrounds (economic, educational, attitudinal, linguistic, you name it) and with different expectations come together. Catering to these diverse backgrounds and expectations is a difficult job. To understand educators’ perspectives, Bilingual childcare: hitches, hurdles and hopes also highlights the voices of educators working in bilingual childcare – voices that often remain unheard. Readers will find out about the ways in which they implement the bilingual programme, how they are trained, prepared or qualified for their job, their attitudes towards early language learning and how they perceive parental attitudes about this very topic (and how this affects their work).

All of this is framed by and explained through Australia’s monolingual mindset and the hegemony of English. It is alarming to see how heavy these weigh on the implementation of the bilingual programme – from the inside and from the outside. The outside refers to issues on a larger socio-political scale, for instance to the hostile policy environment towards bilingual daycare. Issues from the inside refer to educators, directors, and internal structures as well as the centre’s clientele, the parents. The dynamics between the factors parents, centre and language policies is what creates major hitches and hurdles, but also enormous potential for future development: hope.

An example of policies that are hostile – or, at best, indifferent – to languages other than English comes from the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), the early childhood curriculum which governs the provision of early childhood education in Australia. Language-related learning outcomes in the EYLF are very vague: while educators are expected to ‘respect’ and ‘support’ home languages, no implementation guidelines are provided.

By contrast, the requirements for starting primary school are very explicit – explicitly monolingual: the NSW primary school entrance test ‘Best Start’ is focussed on testing literacy in English only.

For early childhood educators, monolingual English measurements of school readiness and vague EYLF references to home languages create a conflict of interest: it’s either bilingual development or English literacy. This conflict obviously creates a barrier to the use of any language other than English, even in a ‘bilingual’ childcare centre. As long as English is tacitly equated with ‘literacy’, educators will always struggle to implement bilingual programmes.

Bilingual childcare: hitches, hurdles and hopes shows how bilingual early childhood education ‘works’ (or doesn’t work) in practice in an environment that is notorious for the barriers it puts up against bilingual learning. The multiple perspectives on bilingual early childhood education it features also show potential pathways to solutions that will help improve the bilingual education experience for parents, educators, policy-makers and, above all, for the young learners who are at the heart of this enterprise.

NAIDOC Week 2017 Logo

Every year, the first week of July marks NAIDOC Week – a time to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and recognise the achievements of first Australians. The 2017 NAIDOC theme is “Our Languages Matter”, a reference to the importance of languages to Aboriginal culture and identity.

The fact that Aboriginal languages matter barely needs explaining. All Aboriginal languages have been threatened by the European colonization of Australia and discriminatory government policies. Despite this, Aboriginal communities have worked hard to maintain and revive their languages. Today around one third of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children speak an Indigenous language, with even higher rates in remote areas. Yet, speakers of Aboriginal languages are often forgotten or ignored by policy makers, educational institutions and other services.

Take the Northern Territory (NT) for example, which has some of the largest groups of Aboriginal language speakers in Australia. Over the last 40 years, the NT Government has swayed to the differing (and often ill-informed) opinions on bilingual education. Devlin, Disbray and Devlin (2017) give a thorough chronology of these events which I will summarise here to demonstrate the issue. Throughout I have also sought out the views of Aboriginal authors, as the research on Aboriginal issues is too often dominated by ‘white’ colonial voices.

Bilingual education for Aboriginal students in the NT was first introduced in 1973, influenced by emerging international theories about bilingual education, and with the aim of “recognising and supporting the culture and language of the children and communities who speak those languages” (Devlin, Disbray & Devlin, 2017, p.49). Aboriginal teachers worked alongside non-Aboriginal teachers to develop teaching materials and resources, and this approach was soon producing results, with many schools reporting that bilingually educated Aboriginal students were outperforming Aboriginal students who were taught in English only.

In the 1980s and 90s, however, political opinions against bilingual education and in favour of English-only teaching gained greater attention, under the guise of it being better for children’s futures, yet clearly coming from a monolingual ideology that ignored the positive results of bilingual schools. The NT education department responded by, at first, rewriting the goals of bilingual education to have a focus on learning English, and then later, in 1998, under the pressure of funding cuts, phasing out bilingual education altogether. While it is true that servicing the needs of the many Aboriginal language groups in the NT is more costly than a ‘one size fits all’ English-as-a-second-language (ESL) program, it fails to take into account the savings associated with higher student engagement, better educational outcomes and, as a result, greater employment opportunities.

NT Intervention area (Source: http://everydayracism-au.tumblr.com/)

As funding cuts rolled out across the territory, the NT government was heavily criticised for failing to properly consult with schools, parents and communities, with protests and petitions happening around the nation. Unfortunately, the influence of the monolingual Anglophone mainstream proved to be stronger, and with it the belief that teaching in English was the best way to improve the students’ English skills.

Towards the late 2000s, two major events caused the NT government to tighten the reins on bilingual education even further. The Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (better known as the NT Intervention) legislated a series of changes to government services which ultimately took decision-making and control of out of the hands of Aboriginal communities and into those of government. Thomas (2017) links this shifting of power to subsequent policies that then took community control away from education. After all, bilingual education was based on a model of self-determination for Aboriginal communities, so, as the NT government took steps to remove self-determination, the suppression of Aboriginal languages in education followed.

The second event was the beginning of a new national literacy and numeracy test known as NAPLAN, which, despite many early concerns that it was biased against students in remote settings (Piller, 2016), was rolled out to schools all over Australia. As educational experts predicted, the first round of results found that students in remote parts of the NT could not compete on these tests, which was quickly labelled as ‘underperformance’. The NT government responded with further attacks on bilingual education in 2009, this time implementing the rule that the first four hours of every school day must be conducted in English.

Source: treatyrepublic.net

These forms of schooling, which Piller refers to as ‘submersion education’, often have long term detrimental effects on the children who are not only trying to learn the language, but also the content of the lessons. It can be a stressful and demotivating experience for children, with lowered attendance being one of the first indicators that schooling is not meeting their needs. By 2011, a number of NT schools were reporting large drops in attendance following the implementation of the new policy.

Submersion education can also have lasting effects on children’s linguistic identities and the status of their home languages. Most Aboriginal languages are highly endangered (of the 250+ languages that once existed in Australia, only 120 are still spoken in some way, and only 13 are considered strong), and compulsory education in English is partly to blame for this. If children are led to believe that their home languages hold no value, they may forfeit the use of their languages for English. Yalmay Yunupingu, a teacher in the NT who teaches in both Yolngu Matha (a group of languages of the Yolngu people) and English, speaks of the importance of children receiving an education that balances English with their home language:

“The decision to make English the only important language in our schools will only make the situation for our young people worse as they struggle to be proud Yolngu in a world that is making them feel that their culture is bad, unimportant and irrelevant” (Yunupingu, 2010, p. 25)

Yunupingu goes on to say that, if forced to teach in English, her students will not understand what she is saying, potentially becoming bored and misbehaving, and ultimately missing out on learning.

Despite insistence from governments that they are working to ‘close the gap on Indigenous disadvantage’, policies like the ‘first four hours in English’ only serve the interests of those who want to further suppress Aboriginal cultures and promote a monolingual society. Yingiya Mark Guyula, a NT politician (quoted in Thomas, 2017), states “that gap grows when Yolngu children are forced into English-only schools, taught in a language they do not speak or hear in their community”. Williams (2011) goes even further to say that forced teaching and learning in English not only contradicts the federal government’s promises to Aboriginal people but “it strikes at the very heart of all that we Indigenous peoples claim in the name of reconciliation, and what the international and national literature clearly asserts regarding the dreadful risks of Indigenous language and culture loss” (p. 120).

While discussing the topic of this paper with a colleague of mine who is a Gomeroi Aboriginal woman, I made reference to the NAIDOC theme “Our Languages Matter” but straight away realised how strange it was for me, a non-Aboriginal person, to say ‘our languages’ in reference to Aboriginal languages. My colleague was quick to point out: Aboriginal languages are the first languages of this country, so as Australians, they should matter to all of us. All Australians have a role to play in making sure that Aboriginal languages are appropriately respected and that they can be used by the communities who have a connection to them.

References

Devlin, B. C., Disbray, S. & Devlin, N. R. F. (2017). History of bilingual education in the northern territory: People, programs and policies. Singapore: Springer Singapore.

Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic diversity and social justice: An introduction to applied sociolinguistics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Yunupingu, Y. (2010). Bilingual works. Australian Educator, 66, Winter 2010, 24-25.