Universität Duisburg-Essen

Campus Essen

Summer Term 2005

Pro / Hauptseminar:

The English Language in Asia and the Southern Hemisphere

The development of Community

languages and the role of

Ethnolects in Australia

(Proseminar Leistungsnachweis)

Sabrina Weihrauch

Magisterstudiengang Anglistik

3. Fachsemester

Table of contents

1. INTRODUCTION

3

2. IMMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA

3

3. COMMUNITY LANGUAGES

4

3.1 THE CHANGING ATTITUDE TOWARDS COMMUNITY LANGUAGES

5

3.2 LANGUAGE DEMOGRAPHY IN 1991 AND 1996

6

3.3 THE ROLE OF GERMAN AS AN EXAMPLE OF A COMMUNITY LANGUAGE

7

4. ETHNOLECTS

9

4.1 LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHNOLECTS

9

4.2 THE ROLE OF ETHNOLECTS WITHIN THEIR COMMUNITIES

11

5. CONCLUSION

12

6. REFERENCES

14

APPENDIX

15

2

1. Introduction

I have chosen this topic as I am very interested in Australia′s multicultural society and

its unique history. The following paper aims to give an overview of community

languages and their development in Australia from the very first settlers to Australian

society nowadays.

At first, there will be a brief outline of the history of immigration to Australia in order to

show the development of the different ethnic groups coming to Australia.

Furthermore, the changing attitudes will be outlined since community languages had

to undergo changing situations within Australian society. I will consider the past as

well as the latest situation in Australia by means of a demography comparison. The

language demography of the years 1991 and 1996 will be analysed in order to point

out the development of the widely-used community languages and their status.

Interesting from a German point of view, is the evolution of German in Australia as

many people would not expect German being one of the major community languages

in the early settlement of Australia. A significant fact to analyse will be the changing

role towards German after the two World Wars in the 20th century.

Besides, I will integrate the role of Ethnolects in Australian society and within their

communities in this paper. I will exemplify linguistic characteristics of Ethnolects and

will analyse them with regard to the aspect of different generations.

Literature of Michael Clyne will be considered primarily. Michael Clyne is Professorial

Fellow in Linguistics at the University of Melbourne and one of the leading scientists

of community languages in Australia, nowadays.

2. Immigration to Australia

Australia offers a vast majority of all kinds of ethnic varieties nowadays due to its

unique history. The first settlers, aside from Aboriginal people, were largely prisoners,

prison officers and their families from Britain, who established the first penal colonies

3

at Sydney Cove / Port Jackson (New South Wales) in 1788.1 Not only British

convicts, but also migrants from other European countries were amongst political and

religious refugees in order to escape from their regime in the course of time.

"Such migrants included: the Old Lutherans from Eastern Germany fleeing

from religious suppression to South Australia as from 1838; the refugees from

the 1848 German and Italian revolutions; the Polish Jews fleeing from anti-

Semitism between the wars; the refugees from racism and political oppression

in Nazi Germany and the territories it had annexed." 2

Also economic migrants emigrated to Australia from the very beginning. Amongst

those migrants were many single men, who came to Australia during the gold rush

period, which was in the middle of the 19th century, in order to find an improvement of

work and living conditions. Especially South Australia and Victoria illustrated "workers

paradises" for overseas workers by occupying universal suffrage, payment of

parliamentarians, secret ballot, and the eight ­ hour working day. Migrants of the 20th

century came from the mother country Britain, including Maltese, Greek, Dutch,

German and Italians in the 1950s and 1960s, Yugoslavs in the late 60s and early 70s

as well as Lebanese and Turks in the early 70s. (Clyne 1991:5)

On the one hand, many different languages and dialects were mixed in order to

communicate, for instance Gaelic, Irish and Welsh, which were subjected to

language assimilation. (Clyne 1991:7) On the other hand, however, languages

maintained as community languages.

3. Community languages

The term "Community languages", a relatively new one, denotes languages other

than English and Aboriginal languages employed within the Australian community.

(Clyne 1991:3). In the early time of settlement, from 1860 onwards, the main

community languages were Irish, Chinese, German, Gaelic, Welsh, French, the

Scandinavian languages, and Italian.

1 Burridge, Kate and Jean Mulder. 1999

. English in Australia and New Zealand

. Melbourne [u.a.]: Oxford

University Press, 36

2 Clyne, Michael. 1991

. Community languages

. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 4

4