Indigenous and immigrant languages in Australia

Abstract

Australia as a product of setter colonialism and of mass immigration is a society that is characterised by widespread multilingualism, although at the same time, it is also a society characterised by widespread monolingualism in the dominant language, English. It is thus a society in which many heritage language speakers are present but also one in which prevailing beliefs about the desirability and sufficiency of English language monolingualism have influenced how languages are understood and treated (Clyne, 2008). The presence of linguistic diversity and the dominance of English have shaped Australia’s educational responses to languages and its language-in-education policies. This chapter will explore how language-in-education policy has addressed the needs of heritage language learners who speak either indigenous or immigrant languages. Before beginning this discussion, however, there is a need to consider some of the terminological issues that exist in Australia around heritage language learning. The term ‘heritage languages’ is not actually a widely used term in the Australian context and languages are more usually referred to as ‘community languages’, meaning immigrant languages, which are contrasted with ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages’, ‘Australian languages’ or ‘indigenous languages’. The term ‘community languages’ has been preferred in Australia over ‘heritage languages’ because it does not imply that the languages concerned are being lost or associated with the past and so has a particular discursive resonance. At the same time, this terminology creates a division between speakers of types of languages, which is consequential for how Australia understands minority languages. In Australia the term ‘background speaker’ is often used to indicate a person who has a heritage connection with a language. This term typically refers to a speaker of an immigrant language and has a rather fluid definition ranging from those who acquire a language other than the dominant English language at home as a first language to those with a family connection to the language but who do not speak it. In this chapter I will use ‘immigrant languages’ and ‘indigenous languages’ to refer to the two distinct groups of languages and will break with Australian usage to use heritage languages, when it offers a convenient way to make connections across these categories, which could not be done easily using the more conventional Australian terminology. This chapter will examine government language-in-education policy for provision of education programs for immigrant and indigenous languages and trace the ways that these policies have evolved over time and how they interact with other aspects of language in education policy.