Money for language: Indigenous language funding in Australia

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how language development aid is managed and distributed via grant programs administered by federal and state Aboriginal affairs departments across Australia. While these departments are not the only organisations offering grants for development and language-related projects in Australia, they are in a good position to administer such grants as they often work across government departments to provide leadership on Indigenous matters. This paper uses data collected from Aboriginal affairs departments’ websites about grant programs offered for the financial years ending 2014–2016. Each grant program was reviewed for: the goals of the program, amount of funding available, recipients of the grant, and whether any language component was included in the grant. This information is then compared across states, looking at the types of projects grants are used for and how language is, or is not, integrated into the projects. Findings of the study show that language-related projects attract only a small amount of grant funding compared to the wider pool available from federal and state/territory Aboriginal affairs departments. No grants appear to have been given for projects that include language as a component of a broader socio-economic development program. The paper also discusses the implications of the findings in relation to social and economic impact, well-being, education and translation. It argues that governments need to both increase funding for language-focussed project and to encourage other non-language-focussed development projects to consider the role of language in the context of Indigenous communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Aboriginal
• Indigenous
• languages
• funding
• Australia
• policy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Maïa Ponsonnet and Ghil'ad Zuckermann for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript; to our (five) anonymous reviewers, and to our fantastic editor, Kerry Taylor-Leech.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Ahmar Mahboob is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. He is interested in the application of language sciences to developmental issues, with a particular focus on education. His primary research interest is on an examination of policies, practices, and implications of language variation in local and global contexts.

Britt Jacobsen is a Master of Applied Linguistics student at the University of Sydney. She also holds a Master of Commerce from Swinburne University of Technology. Her professional experience includes corporate, not-for-profit and government roles in Aboriginal affairs and Diversity and Inclusion. Her research interests include Australian Aboriginal languages, language revival and language and identity.

Melissa Kemble is a Masters of Applied Linguistics student at the University of Sydney. She also holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Technology Sydney. Her professional experience is in the publishing industry. Her research interests include language, identity and power, language in the media, and heritage language recognition and revitalisation.

Zichen Catherine Xu is a Master’s student in Applied Linguistics at the University of Sydney. She also has a background in translation and interpreting and holds a Master of Advanced Conference Interpreting from Macquarie University. She works as a professional translator and freelance interpreter. Her research interests include multilingualism, heritage language recognition and revitalisation, and language and migration.

ORCID

Ahmar Mahboob http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5730-5970

Notes

1 We acknowledge the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and their cultures, languages, communities and ways of life. We acknowledge there are differing usages of the terms “Aboriginal,” “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander,” and “Indigenous” within Australia. Following the Social Justice Report (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, 2009) and the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are respectfully referred to as “Indigenous peoples” or “peoples” and their languages as “Indigenous languages” or “languages” throughout this paper. When referring to a government policy or report we retain the language used in that document.

2 Walpiri Women's Yawulyu in the Yuendumu Today is the full name of the project. Yawulyu is the name of the language and Yuendumu is a town in the Northern Territory.

3 “Stolen Generations” is a term used to refer to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families between the late 1800s and 1970s.

4 The Koorie Heritage Trust is an Aboriginal cultural centre based in Melbourne.