Develops a comprehensive, descriptive, and sociohistorical view of mainstream Australian English and of the social processes that have made it possible for it to become the national language of Australia reaching out into the Asia-Pacific region.

For the first time the story of Australian English is about to be told in full. It is written for people who want to know where Australian English came from, what the forces were that moulded it, why it takes its present form, and where it is going. Australian author and content.

Australia's English raises many questions among experts and the general public. What is it like? How has English changed by being transplanted to other parts of the world? Does the rise of AusE and other varieties endanger the role of English as a world language? Past studies have often been selective, focusing on the esoteric and non-typical, and ignoring the contact situation in which Australian English has developed. This book and its companion, Australia's Many Voices. Ethnic Englishes, Indigenous and Migrant Languages. Policy and Education, develop and apply a comprehensive and integrative approach that anchors English in the entire 'habitat' of Australia's languages that it both upset and transformed. Based on a wide range of data and on the assumption that all manifestations of Australian English must cohere as a system, this book retraces the social, psycholinguistic and linguistic history of the language. It locates the contact with indigenous and migrant languages and with American English in the appropriate sociohistorical context and shows how several layers of migration have shaped it. As it stratified, it was gradually accepted and developed into a fully-fledged national variety or epicentre of English that could be raised to the status of national language. Implications on educational policy and attempts to reach out into the Asia-Pacific region have followed logically from national status. The study is of interest for specialists of English and Australian Studies as well as a range of other disciplines. Its discursive, non-technical style and presentation makes it accessible to non-specialists with no background in linguistics.

Australia is host to many languages - English, indigenous, migrant, and contact. Its multilingualism, the sociopolitical changes that have been impacting upon them, and its wide-ranging language policy efforts are well-known. What has been missing so far is a comprehensive, integrative study of the entire 'habitat' of languages - the contacts and interactions that have been taking place from the beginning of colonization to the present day with their linguistic outcomes. This book and its companion, Australia's Many Voices. Australian English - The National Language, develop and apply such an approach. The present book deals with non-mainstream varieties of English, indigenous, migrant, and contact languages. Based on census and other data to 2003, it addresses themes such as language demographics, language shift, and socio-psychological factors that bear upon it. Language change is discussed from the angle of the uprooting of indigenous languages from their original context, of transplantation, and of contact with English. Pidgins and creoles are located inside the Pacific context of the nineteenth century. This study provides an analysis of language and language-education policies to 2003 and connects this theme with the role of Australian English, the national language. It suggests that Australia's habitat is reaching a new stage of plurilingual tolerance. The book is of interest for specialists from a wide range of language and policy disciplines. Its discursive, non-technical style makes it accessible to non-specialists with no background in linguistics.

Publisher Description

This unique collection fills a ten-year gap in studies on the nature of Australian English, and it is the first to deal exclusively with varieties of English on the Australian continent. The book contains chapters on the phonology, morphology, syntax and the lexicon of the dialect, and chapters on variation within the dialect that include Aboriginal and ethnic varieties as well as regional and generational differences with a focus on questions of Australian identity and intercultural relations. With selected contributions by Australia's leading linguists this volume records the most recent developments in the study of English within Australia.

This book traces language policy in Australia from World War II to the present, examining the changes in government policy over this time, and changes in major public institutions due to the presence of these languages. The major focus is on changes in the education and broadcasting systems, with attention also to interpreting/translating, industrial relations and the role of languages in diplomacy and trade. Dr. Ozolins places language in the context of multicultural politics and shows that government language policies that were once prompted by suspicion now accept and even encourage cultural and linguistic maintenance. In fact Australia has introduced many innovations of international significance in language policy, particularly with the National Language Policy, announced in 1987. This policy marked a decisive change in political assumptions toward languages in postwar Australia because it recognized the importance of languages other than English.

A sweeping account of the global rise of English and the high-stakes politics of languageSpoken by a quarter of the world's population, English is today's lingua franca- - its common tongue. The language of business, popular media, and international politics, English has become commodified for its economic value and increasingly detached from any particular nation. This meteoric "riseof English" has many obvious benefits to communication. Tourists can travel abroad with greater ease. Political leaders can directly engage their counterparts. Researchers can collaborate with foreign colleagues. Business interests can flourish in the global economy.But the rise of English has very real downsides as well. In Europe, imperatives of political integration and job mobility compete with pride in national language and heritage. In the United States and England, English isolates us from the cultural and economic benefits of speaking other languages.And in countries like India, South Africa, Morocco, and Rwanda, it has stratified society along lines of English proficiency.In The Rise of English, Rosemary Salomone offers a commanding view of the unprecedented spread of English and the far-reaching effects it has on global and local politics, economics, media, education, and business. From the inner workings of the European Union to linguistic battles over influence inAfrica, Salomone draws on a wealth of research to tell the complex story of English - and, ultimately, to argue for English not as a force for domination but as a core component of multilingualism and the transcendence of linguistic and cultural borders.

Linguists and non-linguists will find in this volume a guide and reference source to the rich linguistic heritage of Australia.

Identifies factors provoking shift from implicit language policies such as denigration of Aboriginal languages to the development of an explicit language policy where bilingualism replaces English monolingualism.