Multilingual Australia
Investigating Australia’s use of languages in the past and present
We explore how users of different languages experience Australia and examine the role of language in how people engage with and, ultimately, think of themselves as ‘Australian’ – or not.
Understanding Australia requires more than knowledge of the English language. Australia has always been multilingual in a variety of ways since it was populated by humans.
We offer a forum for those who investigate and document how migrants, travellers and others from non-English speaking countries have recorded and represented Australia in their own languages, and how being multilingual continues to shape Australia.
Our research seeks to change the way people imagine what an 'Australian community' might be when this idea is challenged and enriched through the multiple perspectives offered by sources in various languages.
The first way we aim to do this is to look at the way language usage has been shaped since 1788. By putting together stories of experience in multiple languages, our project aims to reorient the story of Australia.
Rather than treating language groups as separate ‘ethnic’ communities, we will link and compare stories in which identification with being ‘British’ is not at the centre of being Australian.
The second focus of our work is on contemporary uses of different languages and their relationships to culture, social relationships and politics in Australia.
Our research interests include:
We also look at changes within different languages in relation to migration, for example, the tensions between dialectical usage and standardised forms, which reflect distinct ways diasporic groups identify themselves; and processes of language maintenance/shift across generations.
Hero image credit: View from Sims Island, Northern Territory with the Malay (Indonesian) fleet at the bay and the Indonesians whom Admiral King met in northern Australia. From the ‘Phillip Parker King album of drawings and engravings, 1802-1902’ collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.
