Seeing things as they are, not just as we are: investigating linguistic racism on an Australian university campus

ABSTRACT

Globalisation in higher education has brought linguistically diverse students and staff to Australian campuses. Universities have a range of language policies/practices around diversity, however, these often reflect national language planning policies in their strong monolingual tendency, with almost exclusive use of English dominant in most areas. This study was based on the premise that linguistic racism is present on Australian university campuses, because while some students experience linguistic invisibility others experience linguistic privilege. Specifically, the study examined the micro-ecology of one Australian university campus in order to explore (1) the extent and nature of linguistic racism present on the campus and (2) how discussions about linguistic racism can inform overall language policies in Australian higher education. Qualitative data were collected from in-depth interviews with students and staff and were contextualised by the examination of university policy documents, staff development materials and the university's visible signage. Findings suggested a mismatch between current academic thinking on the importance of translingualism in education and the relative invisibility and lack of privilege given to languages other than English on campus.

KEYWORDS:

• linguistic racism
• linguistic privilege
• linguistic invisibility
• interculturalisation
• translingualism
• bilingualism
• multilingualism

Acknowledgement

Thank you to the Guest Editor of this Special Edition, Dr. Sender Dovchin, and numerous reviewers, for their invaluable guidance in the revising of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Toni Dobinson is an Associate Professor at Curtin University where she coordinates and teaches the Post Graduate Programmes in Applied Linguistics and supervises HDR students. Her research interests are in transcultural learning, language education, language and identity, language and social justice, multiliteracies and translanguaging. She has published widely in high ranking journals and is co-editor of the book, Literacy Unbound: Multiliterate, multilingual, multimodal.

Paul Mercieca is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Curtin University where he teaches and supervises postgraduate students. His research interests are cultural identity, translanguaging and critical transcultural literacy. His 2013 book, ‘To the Ends of the Earth: Northern Soul and Southern Nights in Western Australia’, explores cultural identity and literacy via engagement with popular culture.