RUMACCC Projects 2003
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- Community Language Programs in Secondary Schools
- Multilingualism in Early 21st Century Australia
- Address in Some Western European Languages
- Auslan/English Bilingualism
- Macedonian, Filipino and Somali
- Communicative Styles in Contact Situation: Two German national varieties in a third country
- Raising Children in More than One Language Seminars
Community language programs in secondary schools
Researchers: Professor Michael Clyne, Claudia Rossi Hunt,
Irene Liem, Tina Isaakidis and Germine Youssef.
Expected Completion date: early 2004
Funding: SPIRT Grant from the Australian Research Council
This project is a partnership between this University, the Department of Education, Employment and Training, the Catholic Education Commission, and the Victorian Multicultural Foundation, with funding (SPIRT Grant) from the Australian Research Council. The motivation behind the project is the need to explore and advance the role of the secondary school in building on Melbourne's (and Australia's) valuable and diverse linguistic resources for the good of the individual, family, community and nation. The school has an important part to play in supporting the maintenance and development of community languages and has the opportunity of drawing on community resources in languages that are very much alive in this city. An important aspect of the project is to develop models that address the needs of students with and without a background in the community language and of students with different types and degrees of background. The early stages of the project have therefore been devoted to finding out about the students' language background, use, attitudes, and aspirations and about school streaming policies and where languages other than English. The languages of this project are Chinese (Mandarin), Greek, Spanish, and Arabic. Each of these languages has a different script/writing system. Two of them are non-Indo European languages. The languages all represent different stages of Australia's migration history and come from different sociolinguistic contexts. Due to problems in finding an appropriate school, the Arabic section of the project has been slower to commence than the others. It is hoped that this project will contribute to the feasibility and long term viability of community language programs in secondary schools and to their usefulness to those from a range of backgrounds (e.g. first, second and third generation bilinguals, those with productive and receptive skills, those using related languages, those who have taken it in LOTE or bilingual programs at primary school) and those without any background).
Multilingualism in Early 21st Century Australia
Researchers: Professor Michael Clyne, Dr Sandra Kipp,
Sue Fernandez and Felicity Grey
Expected Duration: 2002-2004
Funding: ARC Discovery Grant
Data from the 2001 Census is being analysed, both in terms of language distribution (including the concentration of languages at the LGA level in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth) and the linguistic retentiveness of different community language groups. An inventory of provision for community languages in the public sector is also being undertaken, and includes such areas as school programs, radio, television, print media, library holdings and public notices. This data will be compared with that from the 2001 Census in order to ascertain to what extent provision is keeping pace with Australia's changing language demography. Another component of the study is examining 'period of residence' as a factor in language maintenance, particularly in so far as it relates to the multicultural 'climate' in Australia at the time of migration (rather than the length of residence per se). For this purpose, the Hungarian-speaking community has been selected, as it encompasses a number of 'vintages' - from the 1930s to the late 1940s and early 1950s to 1956/7 to the 1970s and beyond. Hungarian speakers have also come from countries such as Serbia, Rumania and Slovakia, and have brought with them a wide range of language maintenance experience from the homeland. A focus group for Hungarian speakers has been held, and a survey is being prepared for individual informants.
Auslan/English bilingualism
Researchers: Meredith Bartlett and Sandra Leane with assistance from Prof.
Michael Clyne
Editing assistance: Yvette Slaughter
Funding: Grant from the Deafness Foundation
This project involved the production of a resource and information booklet about raising deaf children bilingually, aimed largely at hearing parents. If you would like information about this booklet, to be released in early 2004, please email Felicity Grey
Macedonian, Filipino and Somali
Researchers: Professor Michael Clyne and Dr Sandra Kipp
Funding: Australian Research Council
This study was part of a 3-year project on the 'Dynamics of Language Contact'. A monograph on the maintenance of Macedonian, Filipino and Somali in Melbourne has been completed. Each language has its own special points of interest, and together they contribute to an understanding of the factors operating in language maintenance and language shift in an immigrant context, taking into account such issues as size, vintage, motivation and concentration of migration, pre-migration experience and developments and treatment in the host country.
Communicative Styles in a Contact Situation: Two German national varieties in a third country
Researchers: Professor Michael Clyne, Ms Sue Fernandez, Dr
Rudolf Muhr (University of Graz)
Funding: ARC
This paper reported on a small-scale exploratory study of metapragmatic perceptions of apologies, directives and modal particles in two national varieties of a pluricentric language in contact in Australia. Using data collected from ten marriage partners, where one partner is of Austrian background and the other of German background, the study investigates the way in which Austrians and Germans (believe they) communicate in German when they are married to each other and living in an environment where the national language is not German. The informants completed a questionnaire which sought their responses to a number of scenarios incorporating apologies and directives, a multiple choice test to elicit use or non-use of modal particles, and an interview. The study finds that those informants of Austrian background tend prefer lower levels of directness and to be concerned with negative politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987). They tend to focus to a greater degree on blame and guilt, and engage more in the art of conversation. Those of German background are more likely to prefer a higher degree of directness and to be concerned with positive politeness and the verbal fulfilment of respectability. There is some evidence of convergence between the two groups but a surprising amount of residual national variation in the realization of the speech acts, which would indicate the importance of verbal behaviour in early socialization. However, the limited use of modal particles amongst the two groups is evidence of a weakening of intuition in relation to their use. This study demonstrates that national variation within a pluricentric language is neither trivial nor temporary, and relates to cultural behaviour.
Raising Children in More than One Language seminars
RUMACCC conducts regular workshops for families raising their children bi- or tri-lingually and for interested professionals. These workshops have been free of charge due to the generous support of the Victorian Multicultural Commission. The workshops have included presentations from Dr Susanne Döpke and Professor Michael Clyne, two internationally respected authorities in the field of raising children bi/multilingually who have both successfully raised their own children to be bilingual, and Dr Robert Debski, an expert in computer-facilitated language learning. Three workshops were run in 2003 each organized by community groups. The venues were Broadmeadows Global Learning Centre, the Ukrainian Community Centre, Noble Park (Ethnic Schools Association) and St. Michael's Church, Bennetswood (St Michael's bilingual Anglican Church and the Chinese section of the Bible College of Victoria). If you would like information about upcoming seminars, please email Felicity Grey Dissemination of research findings Conferences Community Languages in Practice , organized by Sandra Kipp and Catrin Norrby to coincide with the visits of Peter Nelde and Sally Boyd, included 14 papers, in addition to responses by our guests, in a one-day workshop. Papers were mainly by Melbourne University staff and PhD students but Monash and VUT were represented by one paper each. A volume of papers from this workshop is currently being considered by a leading international journal. Maximizing your children's language potential was a conference organized for principals, teachers and school administrators from government schools. Most of the talks featured findings from RUMACCC projects. Michael Clyne gave a plenary and other talks were given by Dr Susanne Döpke (2), Dr Michele de Courcy, Prof. Michael Clyne (2), and a joint presentation by Germine Youssef, Irene Liem, and Tina Isaakidis.