Some aspects of national language maintenance among children of Dutch and Polish origin in Canberra

Abstract

The large-scale migration of non-English speaking peoples to Australia since the Second World War has led, for the first time in the country's history, to widespread, diverse multilingualism. Half a million young people in Australia were raised speaking languages other than English, but have had English as their language of school instruction. Thus, they are at least nominally bilingual. Little is known either about the fate of their mother tongue, however, or of the attitudes of such youngsters to their own bilingualism. The acquisition of English is officially encouraged, with at least some attention being paid to those with difficulties. The retention or cultivation of migrant laneuages has not been explicitly discouraged, (although English has been the compulsory language of school instruction since before Federation,) but little has so far been done officially to preserve the cultural wealth represented by these numerous native speakers of non-English languages. Show more