EDUC373Dr Robyn Moloney

Thursday 12 August 2010Overview of Australian context – a multicultural society?- relationship

between language and multiculturalism

This lecture

1. Australia language history

2. multiculturalism- a tolerance discourse?

3. Intercultural awareness and your cultural plunge

Chantal CrozetAustralia’s Linguistic culture…

Babel, 42, 3, 19-23 • White Australia’s attitudes to other cultures

and languages• Re-cover some ground from EDUC260 lecture

Australian linguistic history

• 200-250 Aboriginal languages spoken at invasion, multilingualism common

• To the 1870s, significant use of non-English languages for social economic and educational purposes, bilingual schools, newspapers.

• between 1872-1880 ‘education acts’ “ in various colonies imposed English monolingualism on mainstream schools.

• Use of ‘foreign language’ Aboriginal language discouraged, shameful.

• Preceding Federation, and WW1, hostile and restrictive attitude to language issues.

• Monolingualism for national identity and “egalitarianism”

History ctd…

• War Precautions Act• Anti-Alien league • Post WW2 immigration: monolingual

assimilation• White Australia policy, language as a tool of

exclusion for undesirables

“Multicultural”

• 1970s multiculturalism :food and festivals• Crozet; MC policies promote difference in

abstract and distant terms at macro level.• Not sufficient at personal level to support

individuals to use new patterns for relating across difference on equal terms.

• Hage, G. (1998) White Nation- “white” control of the multicultural debate

National Policy on Languages 1987

• Jo Lo Bianco• “if language can be a source of inequality in

society so too are attitudes about language…very low levels of awareness exist about language in society generally”

Threads of this: 2 aspects of languages in schools

• 1.what factors influence kids when choosing subjects? Who do they talk to? What values, rationales?

• Curriculum planners, principals, parents- Which languages are more useful? Valuable?

• 2 mins

Multicultural- a tolerance discourse?

a new word “intercultural ”

• Difference to MC ?

Intercultural learner…

• Has ability to not only understand other L &C, but also to explain it to his own home community.. Diplomats, able to view different cultures from position of informed understanding (Corbett, 2003)

• www.iltlp.unisa.edu.au

Making your home culture and values visible:

• What is different about Australia? • Saying “thankyou” to the busdriver ? • more?

Bennett & Hammer: Developmental model of intercultural sensitivity

Ethnocentric / ethnorelative stages• DenialDefenseMinimization• AcceptanceAdaptationintegration

• Australia is all I need. I think we would be better off if all different groups and countries kept to themselves, and didn’t mix. I am not interested in them. English is the main language and everyone should speak it.

• I do not like to hang around with people from different cultures, they are strange, and might be dangerous

• Australia’s way of life and values should be a model for the rest of the world..

• I mostly enjoy the differences that exist between myself and people from other countries. I accept that people from other cultures don’t necessarily have the same values as Australians, and that’s OK.

• ………………………………………………………• (a)I like to imagine how a person from the other culture would think about

things. I can shift into communicating in my second language without a lot of stress. I think its good to be able to have more than one perspective, know about French/German/Japanese ways of doing things.

• (b) When I’m in my second language class, I find I change my behaviour a bit to adapt to it, be like the teacher. If I were in France/German/Japan I wouldn’t mind changing my behaviour to fit in there.

• I can move in and out of English/second language without any problem. I can fit in in either Australia or France/Germany/Japan equally easily, without any problem. I sometimes feel I am “in between two cultures” and can see good things and bad things in both of them.

Your experience?

• A challenge?• culture- language, gender, ethnic group,

disability etc

Cultural plunge• I think I need to be in Japan to realise that I am really

Western. I am really western in my body language. I am the only person in the train that wears a loud parka and sits clumsily and has a bag that is shabby…. That’s me… I mean I do take on the Japanese woman’s tone of voice…I tend to be less brash in Japanese because that is appropriate as a woman speaking Japanese. I still laugh more loudly than a Japanese woman does and I want to use superlatives the way we do in English. I think I am still reasonably authentically myself even though I’m moderating that to some extent.

DMIS stage?

• you feel the need to understand behaviour and how your behaviour can fit in better. Not to the point of mimicry or diverting from your own self but unconsciously you adapt. …I think you feel an obligation to understand Japanese people and to have an empathy and to expose yourself to experiences that help you understand better. (Armour 2004, p.119)

WA

A journey

Where we have travelled• Australian history- attitude to difference• Multiculturalism and positive benefits• Multiculturalism as a discourse of tolerance rather than

engagement• Intercultural-what difference does it make• One way to describe our response to difference- Bennett and

Hammer• Robyn’s cultural plunges

• Compare Cornell notes- take turns with partner to explain these subheadings above

• Write 30 word summary