Language profiles, language attitudes and acquisition planning

How can the social and psychological contexts of a language affect the policy to increase the number of people who speak it? It is crucial to investigate this question at a time when Australia’s ability to compete in a changing world has brought the study of LOTE to the forefront. As the implementation of the National Policy on Languages proceeds, it becomes increasingly evident that a deeper understanding of the nine or ten key languages, namely Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian/Malay, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Modern Greek, Arabic, Spanish and Russian (cf. Lo Bianco 1987 and Leal 1991:167-168), taught in our schools is required. This paper argues that a sociolinguistic profile of each of these languages and the attitudes towards them are some of the relevant and crucial empirical data which need to be integrated in the design of educational programs.