Ellis, Elizabeth M

2011

Australia can be characterised as a multilingual country with a monolingual 'habitus' (Ellis, Gogolin and Clyne 2010). On one hand there are major achievements which reflect a valuing of linguistic diversity: an inclusive ESL system in schools; a professional adult migrant ESL sector; a national broadcasting service in some 20 languages; the availability of telephone interpreting and community information in immigrant languages. On the other hand we see evidence of profound misunderstanding of language and languages in public policy: the opposition to bilingual education for Indigenous children, the lack of concern as generations of bilingual children shift to English monolingualism; hostility to new ways of teaching about language in schools; the under-resourcing of language teaching. This paper will look at some recent approaches to characterising the conflicted nature of public discourse about language: constructions of monolingualism; approaches to multilingual awareness in education; alternative thinking about multiple languages and multilingual speakers, such as translanguaging and metrolingualism. How can educational linguists work with language and knowledge about language to achieve social justice?

Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association National Conference Abstracts, p. 12-12

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/11515

en

University of New England

Language in public discourse in Australia

Conference Publication

Publication