Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Supplement Series - Volume 8, Issue 1, 1991

The recent White Paper, Australia’s Language – The Australian Language and Literacy Policy, is the latest contribution to the history of language policies in Australia. This article explores that history, giving particular attention to each of the string of policy documents released since the early 1980s. Features of the current debate in Australia are drawn out, and a comparative assessment is made of Australia’s policies and those of other countries.

This paper is a review of the achievements of the National Policy on Languages. The National Policy on Languages was adopted by the Federal government in May 1987 and implemented from that date until June 1991. In September of 1991 the Federal government adopted a White Paper entitled Australia’s Language; The Australian Language and Literacy Policy. In the companion volume to this it stated that the White Paper is an extension and maintenance of the National Policy on Languages.

The Green Paper The Language of Australia released in December 1990, is the first step in a reworking of language policy in Australia. This paper reviews some of the issues raised in the Green Paper and looks at the implications the agenda the Green Paper sets. The Green Paper contains some good ideas in a flawed cover. The positive aspects of the document will need to be developed in a context based on a holistic view of language and literacy policy and a strong commitment to the consolidation of language policy initiatives.

The establishment of a languages institute has long been seen as an important step in the development of Australian language policy. After the adoption of the National Policy Languages, renewed impetus for a languages institute gave rise to the establishment of the National Languages Institute of Australia, a languages institute with a broad charter and wide-ranging functions. This paper reviews the development of the structure of the NLIA and examines the role the institute has in language policy development and implementation in three main areas: research, policy advice and service provision.

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.

This paper reports policy research into how the administrative policies in the NSW state secondary system affected the delivery of Languages education in the period 1980 to 1986. It traces how schools were timetabled and led in the post-Wyndham era and how this increasingly marginalised Languages, often on the grounds that the subject area was ‘elitist’. It is shown, however, that, by the mid 1980s, three forces were able to challenge the trend; demand by clients, the findings of policy research, and lobbying at the national level concerned with multiculturalism.

The learning of a second language must be regarded as a necessary part of total personality formation in the modern world ... Somehow, therefore, a second language must become part of the total educational process, not something reserved for the gifted, but a normal educational experience for the ordinary child.

(Dutton 1972)

It is claimed that language planning models need to account for the impact of bureaucratic interference on their processes, initiatives in language engineering involve dealing with the same technical unknowns as do developments in industrial and environmental engineering. Taking the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal bilingual programme as a case study, and using the principles enunciated by Squires (1986) that are judged mandatory for the effective management of technological innovations, the effect that bureaucracy can have on the language planning process is examined. The ignornace among political and bureaucratic officials of the nature of language, of linguistics in general, of the character of linguistic results, and of the appropriate form of linguistic enquiry can shape the language consequences of even the best planning.

This paper examines the relationship between the Deaf1, their language, Auslan2 (Australian Sign Language), and the encompassing dominant hearing society and its culture in the context of the development of effective language policies for the Deaf, not only within the context of schooling but in the years prior to formal education and beyond the school. The paper has developed out of an initial response by AUSLAB (the Australian Sign Language Advisory Board, formed by the Australian Association of the Deaf) to the Federal Government’s Green Paper, The Language of Australia: Discussion Paper on an Australian Literacy and Language Policy for the 1990s. (Commonwealth of Australia 1990), later superseded by the White Paper, Australia’s Language: The Australian Language and Literacy Policy (Commonwealth of Australia 1991a & b).

While the area of I/T has had an ambivalent place in Australian language policy, the area of I/T is of interest because Australia serves as a model a kind if I?T which is becoming increasingly common throughout the world. The present summary article explores the particular place of I/T within language policy, identifies some of the significant issues confronted by I/T, and connects them to other areas of language policy.

This paper analyzes problems in language management in six case studies of tourism shopping situations involving Japanese tourists. It utilizes a language planning and language management framework and argues that language planning can only proceed after actual problems in discourse are identified.

The examination of server and customer discourse in native Japanese situations or contact situations which are either Japanese-based or English-based reveals that problems occur in all three types of communicative situations and that they characterize not only the discourse of the tourist but also the server’s side. These problems are analyzed in terms of deviations and are categorized according to their nature as propositional, presentational or performance deviations.

The findings from these case studies are then examined in relation to the language planning activities of corporate agencies, the government and industry associations in relation to tourism and some recommendations pertinent to language planning are offered.