Australian Review of Applied Linguistics - Volume 15, Issue 1, 1992

Language attitudes have frequently been included in investigations of language shift, language maintenance, second language acquisition and bilingualism. Speakers’ attitudes about and towards such language issues contribute toward the planning and provision of language services and education in the speech community. The data gathering methods adopted for the collection of speakers’ language attitudes usually consist of sociolinguistic questionnaires and/or social psychological matched guise experiments. In this paper I will present some exploratory ideas about discourse analysis as a method for the collection and analysis of language attitudes. The data for the investigation is a series of group negotiations among female and male speakers from Anglo-Australian and Greek-Australian backgrounds. The speakers were participating in group ‘negotiations’ discussing various issues of language planning and policy in an Australian context.

This paper is a description of some typical differences in conversational routines in French and Australian English, and the kinds of tensions that arise when speakers with two different sets of rules come into contact. This conflict exists for most French people in Australia, who speak English, but who tend to retain their French conversational strategies. The paper shows that even simple questions contain a variety of assumptions ranging from whom it is suitable to ask, to the kind of answer or the amount of detail expected. These differences lead to an analysis of the different underlying cultural values governing the rules of interaction in the two languages. This study is based on visits to a French company operating in Australia, with employees being taped on the job as well as being interviewed individually.

The article discusses the attitude of the second generation Dutch in Australia to language maintenance. It gives a profile of the group’s language maintenance activities, and examines factors related to language maintenance attitudes and the use of Dutch.

The research involved detailed personal interviews with 100 members of the target group. Some of the information collected was evaluated quantitatively using computer-aided statistical analysis; other responses were analysed primarily in qualitative terms.

The results revealed a more positive attitude to language maintenance and greater frequency of use of Dutch than might have been expected on the basis of the (limited) previous research on the second generation or the national census data. On the other hand, there was relatively little participation in activities with the potential to influence the use of Dutch: visits to the Netherlands, association with Dutch organizations, and attendance at Dutch classes. Overall the research provided no evidence of a continuing decline in frequency of use of Dutch to the point of a complete shift to English only. It was also clear that many informants valued their current use of Dutch.

If we are to ensure that language and communication skills for national needs are developed through education, then we cannot afford to neglect the existing language resources which Australia’s children bring to early childhood and primary school programs.

Conservation of these resources can range along a continuum from home language support in mainstream educational programs to full bilingual education programs. The greatest range of national needs will be met through full bilingual education. However, in the current educational and political climate, such programs are unlikely to expand. In such a climate, it is important to ensure that no avenue of linguistic conservation is neglected. The Home Language Support Project, described in this paper, is one attempt to help mainstream teachers include children’s home languages in educational programs.

The Project is described briefly, and one of the questions which arose during its implementation is discussed -language delivery patterns in home language support programs and the issue of code switching.

Polish immigrants, who otherwise seem to have a fairly good command of English, often sound excessively formal or shy on the one hand, and too direct, sometimes even rude, on the other. The paper presents a comparative analysis of English and Polish forms of addressing people and the sociocultural rules of their use. It is pointed out that numerous similarities in the repertoires of English and Polish forms of address lead Polish ESL learners to assume wrongly that the similarities extend also to the sociocultural rules of use. It is argued that systematic training in the area of differences between the cultural aspects of linguistic behaviour between immigrants’ mother tongue and English should be an integral part of all ESL courses.

This paper assumes the unified nature of language behaviour including verbal, kinesic and prosodic forms. In the light of this, it proposes that Interlanguage Theory should be expanded to include kinesic and prosodic modes of behaviour. It presents the hypothesis that the acquisition of second language kinesic and prosodic forms takes place in a similar fashion to acquisition of second language verbal forms acquisition is developmental; it is subject to mother tongue interference; it can undergo fossilization. It is further hypothesised that fossilization in kinesic and prosodic forms may have cognitive and emotional implications and may even impede the second language learner in his/her development on the verbal level.

The bold, but realistic working assumption of a recent report from a ‘round table’ of European industrialists, including people from Volvo, Philips and Lyonaise des Eaux-Dumez, was that there would eventually be a Europe of 20 nation-states and half a billion people (Monod et al.1991). The imminent prospect of a single, unified European marketplace on 1 January 1993, which may, ultimately, extend up to, or even beyond the Urals, has focused much debate on the extent to which linguistic and cultural barriers will obstruct economic and political progress towards unification. Within the report, it is the human dimension and, in particular, the issue of inter-personal communication which was at the centre of the policy agenda. At the top of the list of indispensable basic skills, which would be needed, came ‘linguistic skills (notably in three languages, including English), enhanced communication skills, an open mind and sensitivity to cultural differences’ (Monod et al. 1991:14). What is significant in this short document is that prominence is given, firstly, to multilingualism – almost as a basic requirement for European industry – and, secondly, to the link with cultural competence.

Video in the classroom has been used mainly as source material for teacher and student exploitation. It is also used to a lesser extent as a medium for oral language development and self-evaluation where the content of the video is the learner’s own performance. This second use involves camera-work and providing feedback on learner performance.

This paper, based on a video programme conducted in an ESP course for Thai Government Officers over 2 years at the ELICOS Centre University of Sydney, argues that video is still under-utilised and can play a more integral role in programme development. We discuss how a more systematic approach to using video can develop learner self-monitoring strategies and communicative competence in a range of contexts.