Spanish language maintenance and shift in Australia

Abstract

The thesis examines the factors that affect Spanish language maintenance and shift in Australia. The data examined comes from four main sources: an Australian-wide survey, open ended interviews, participant observation and historical sources. There are two intermingled aims in the work. At a descriptive level, to provide a sociological account of the use of Spanish and English in the Spanish-speaking community, in which the use and transmission of Spanish are given prominence as they are the main social variables under examination. However, the study of the sociological and historical social variables which allow for a comprehension of the use of Spanish taking into consideration power issues is given an important place in the work. At the theoretical level, the thesis presents an examination of the theoretical and epistemological pitfalls of reasoning in terms of factors affecting language and shift which has become customary in sociolinguistics. A redefinition of "factors" as particular values of social variables allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the degree toward which social variables favour or not favour the transmission of the Spanish language. Such understanding depends, crucially, in the study of the interrelation between such variables through a sociological account of the community. Another axiomatic view of sociolinguistics, the one that reifies language assuming that language reflects society, is rejected in favour of including language as just another social variable under study.