Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/13477
Title: Australia's Language-In-Migration Policies: Another Site For Subtle Social Exclusion
Contributor(s): Ndhlovu, Finex  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2009
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/13477
Abstract: Australia's immigration policies have remained an unsettled area subject to political disputation since the promulgation of the Immigration Restriction Act (No. 17) of 1901. Section 3a of this Act required that all prospective immigrants from non-European countries, particularly those from the Asian and the South Pacific regions, had to pass a dictation test in any European language selected by the immigration officer. Far from being an objective assessment of language proficiency skills, the dictation test was a discursive construct ostensibly designed to be failed and to exclude people whose political and racial affiliations were considered undesirable. Although it was formally abolished in 1958, the dictation test was reinvented and re-written into Australia's language-in-migration policies that continue to insist on English as the sole language of citizenship and immigration testing. Given the abundance of World Englishes spoken by prospective Australian citizens, this paper brings to limelight the implied power imbalances underwritten by testing immigrants using the medium of only one particular language variety.
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Source of Publication: English and Asia, p. 233-259
Publisher: International Islamic University Malaysia
Place of Publication: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
ISBN: 9789833855988
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 160602 Citizenship
200405 Language in Culture and Society (Sociolinguistics)
200208 Migrant Cultural Studies
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 950201 Communication Across Languages and Culture
970116 Expanding Knowledge through Studies of Human Society
970120 Expanding Knowledge in Language, Communication and Culture
HERDC Category Description: B1 Chapter in a Scholarly Book
Publisher/associated links: http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/34685710
Editor: Editor(s): Normala Othman, Subramaniam Govindasamy
Appears in Collections:Book Chapter
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

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