The meta-pragmatic discourses of Australian high school students on language, migration and belonging

Abstract

Recent years have seen a backlash against multiculturalism in many Western countries and increasing calls to restrict migration and citizenship rights to those who can pass language tests. This paper explores the sentiment of high school students who were born and raised in Australia towards issues of language and migration, including the need for migrants to speak English and use Australian dialect and accent. Results show that Australian youth have diverse and sophisticated understandings of what is a complex and often polarising issue of public debate. While public multicultural backlash discourse may be influencing some students who support the idea that migrants should learn English before coming to Australia, many students believe that individual circumstances should be considered when evaluating migrant language issues. Student views about migrants' use of Australian dialect and accent also vary but these responses include less mitigation than to those about migrants' English language abilities, suggesting that the role of English is more contested than the role of dialect and accent. We close by reflecting on the design of our data instruments for eliciting opinions in this controversial area and what our findings might mean for future Australian discourse on language, migration and belonging.

In den letzten Jahren steigt in vielen westlichen Ländern der Widerstand gegen kulturelle Vielfalt. Dieser Widerstand ist von steigenden Versuchen begleitet Einwanderung und Einbürgerung mit Sprachkompetenz zu verbinden. In diesem Aufsatz untersuchen wir den Ausmaß in dem solche Einstellungen in Bemerkungen von australischen Sekundarschülern zu finden sind. Schüler Einstellung über australische Umgangsprache und Aussprache wurden bemerkt, aber nicht als so wichtig bewertet in vergleich zu allgemeinen englische Sprachkenntisse. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass australische Jugendliche ein vielfältiges und differenziertes Verständnis dieser komplexen und häufig polarisierenden Streitfrage besitzen. Der Diskurs der Gegenreaktion zur multikulturellen Vielfalt mag manche Schüler zu der Meinung gebracht haben, dass alle Einwanderer vor der Einwanderung Englisch vollständig beherrschen sollen. Im Gegensatz dazu zeigen viele Schüler ein starkes Bekenntnis zum ‘alltäglichen Multikulturalismus’ (Harris 2013). Zum Schluss diskutieren wir den Entwurf unserer Methoden die Meinungen in diesem kontroversen Bereich heraus zu finden, und was das für weitere australische Diskurs uber Sprache, Einwanderung und Zugehörigkeit bedeutet.

Keywords:

• Migration
• integration
• language ideologies
• adolescents
• Australian language policy

Acknowledgements

We thank Howard Nicolas and Heike Reich for their assistance in preparing the abstract and acknowledge the contribution of Kerry Taylor-Leech for data collection and collaboration on the wider project on which this paper is based.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Donna Starks is a senior lecturer in Language Education at La Trobe University. Her interests focus on multilingualism, language ideologies and the development of new varieties of Englishes. She recently co-authored, Language Education and Applied Linguistics: Bridging the two fields, Routledge.

Louisa Willoughby is a lecturer in Linguistics at Monash University. Her research focuses on three intersecting areas of language and identity, language teaching and service delivery for speakers of minority languages. She has published widely, including in Journal of Multilingualism and Multicultural Development, International Journal of Multilingualism and Current Issues in Language Planning.

Notes

1. The actual issue is more complex as it involves acceptance of linguistic behaviours by other migrants as well as by members of the dominant group.

2. In reproducing responses from the questionnaire we have retained the author's original spelling and punctuation.

3. The Australian lexical item for friend, colleague and acquaintance is mate, and its meaning is the subject of testing on the Australian citizenship test.

4. See Willoughby, Starks and Taylor-Leech (2013) for a more complete discussion of the issue of these Australian adolescents' ideologies of Australian English.

5. Hatoss, van Rensburg and Starks (2011) note a similar mix in responses about accent in their study from the perspective of migrants; the Australian Afrikaans community.

6. In her paper, I think is referred to as a deliberative.

7. Given the written nature of our comments, we have no access to prosodic features to argue that think functions as a strengthener. We note that numerically think patterned similar to other strengtheners, for example, by having a much higher rate of use in ‘no’ responses to Question C.