This paper compares two sets of data from the same year, 2001 – the numbers of students taking languages other than English at primary and secondary level, and census statistics for the home use of languages other than English. The data draws attention to languages that are taught principally in day schools and those taken mainly in after hours programs, and to variation between States and between education systems. While it is acknowledged that the strong presence of a language in the community is not the only reason for offering it in schools, the paper demonstrates that some important international languages are now among the major community languages and that some of them are marginal in the mainstream education systems in Australia. The presence of large numbers of speakers will facilitate the utilization of community resources in language teaching. Consideration needs to be given especially to Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin and Spanish, community languages with increasing numbers, the first two especially among the young.
This paper explores ‘period of residence’ as a factor in the maintenance of an immigrant language, based on the example of Hungarian in Australia. Hungarian speakers arrived in Australia from several different source countries including Hungary, Romania (Transylvania), and areas of the formers Yugoslavia (Vojvodina) and Czechoslovakia (Slovakia). The distinct waves of Hungarian speaking migrants to Australia - 1938-40; 1947-54; 1956-57; 1960s, 70s and 80s; and 1990s - reflect the close connection between sociopolitical events and immigrant source countries for speakers of Hungarian.
The data for the study comprises interviews with 22 families, encompassing all vintages and source countries noted above, supplemented by two focus groups. The study demonstrates that ‘period of residence’interacts with a number of other factors, notably country of origin, reasons for migration, and the prevailing attitudes and policies towards the reception and integration of immigrants in the host country at the time. It highlights the contradictory and ambivalent effects on language maintenance of situations of multiple identity and individual responses to conflict situations.
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