This study is part of a larger action research project on the role of secondary school language programmes in the maintenance and spread of community languages in Melbourne. The study focuses on bilinguals learning another community language (Greek or Spanish) as a third language, some of them having a home language with a connection to the target…

There have been few Australian studies of language maintenance amongst immigrant languages from the Indian subcontinent. The present study focuses on Tamil speakers in Melbourne from Sri Lanka or India, who are Hindus or Christians. Tamil is a pluricentric language that has been under the domination of English in these countries, at least amongst…

Analyzes responses to 1996 Australian census regarding language use and compares them with those in the two previous censuses. Discusses divergent trends in different states and between two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne. Comparison of language-shift rates between the three censuses and cross-tabulations with generation, age, gender, family…

Speech material gathered from Dutch-English bilinguals in Australia questioned in 1971 and 1987 was analyzed, showing no evidence of attrition in Dutch. It is concluded that first-language attrition does not necessarily occur in an immigrant setting and that immigrants who maintain their language in the first years of their stay will likely remain…

Discussion of languages in Australia looks at the multicultural makeup of the society, the role of English, dynamics of language contact situations (community language change, intergenerational language shift, other factors in maintenance and shift), societal and individual multilingualism, and support for multilingualism (language policies,…

Discusses language data from the Australian 1991 Census that indicates the vast resources available in languages other than English. Notes that two of the tenets of Australia's various language policies are language maintenance and the development of Aboriginal and community languages as well as the provision of opportunities for learning…

This paper compares two sets of data from the same year, 2001--the numbers of students taking languages other than English at primary and secondary level, and census statistics for the home use of languages other than English. The data draws attention to languages that are taught principally in day schools and those taken mainly in after hours…