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This paper outlines the general influence of Halliday's (1994, 2014) systemic functional linguistics on TESOL curriculum. Halliday's explanation of language as a social semiotic and language learning as learning to mean has been applied internationally in genre and textbased teaching. The concept of register in systemic functional linguistics describes linguistic variation of texts for the expression of different meanings. SFL studies document teachers' explicit instruction in the lexicogrammatical construction of text types linked to function and social context. The explicitness informs students' decision-making for formulation of meanings in different text types. Reference is made to SFL applied in teacher education. There is mention of the relevance of SFL to Australia's concern with literacy standards in education.

Within discourses on education and transnationalism, much importance has been given to language, both for the educational success of migrants and their transition into the labor market. Among the many perspectives on multilingualism, there is a growing body of research on language brokering. In contrast to professional interpreting, this is often associated with interpreting without formal qualifications or payment in mostly informal settings. However, language brokering is embedded in complex social structures, and students who interpret often act within complex power relations. In our article, we address experiences with education-related language brokering. While focusing on the perspectives of the students, we will address the roles they take during language brokering activities between different actors and the power relations they experience. Our data were collected as part of an ethnographic research project which aimed to explore the experiences of refugee students following their arrival in Austria and during the adjustment period in their new sociolinguistic and educational context. Empirically, the article is based on a data set of small stories and reflections about language brokering. The analysis was carried out through contrastive comparisons between different cases. The paper will conclude with suggestions on the introduction of critical language brokering practices and policies in educational institutions.

This paper reports students' experiences of a coursework task in a Japanese linguistics course that embraces certain aspects of collaborative learning--aspects that are not practised widely in Japanese language learning situations. These involve the students looking at themselves as well as their fellow students as producers of knowledge and understandings rather than simply developing learners of a foreign language. The task asked students to examine language use in a TV drama script in light of sociolinguistic norms described in the Japanese linguistics literature. The task had two phases and was designed so that it was not possible to complete the second phase without using a peer's findings from the first phase. Using their peers' findings as a "previous study" gave students an opportunity to take a critical interest in the work of their peers as a crucial step in achieving their own academic outcomes. This paper discusses students' experiences of this task in relation to particular benefits of the collaborative mode of learning that have been reported in the literature, such as positive interdependence, widening one's point of view, and developing awareness that knowledge is a social construct that can be challenged. It also discusses the assessment design of the learning task, which allowed students to be assessed on their individual learning outcomes while requiring their peers' support in completing their work.

This paper explores the function of bilingual advertising by analyzing a case study of bilingual advertising in the Chinatown of Melbourne, Australia. The use of bilingual advertising in an immigrant setting differentiates itself from those in Asian settings where English is not used by dominant proportion of speakers in the society, and this phenomenon has its significance from a sociolinguistic perspective. In this paper, I will adopt the concept of "linguistic landscape" to discuss in detail the general functions of bilingual advertising. By integrating the theories into my case study, I aim to demonstrate how the Chinese and English versions of bilingual advertisements in Melbourne's Chinatown differ in literal meaning, and to explain why they are designed this way.

The paper will explore the challenges students from selected South East Asian countries (Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia) face while studying English in Australia before entering into Australian University courses. These students must contend not only with different styles of teaching and learning, but also with the challenge of adapting to a new culture. The study was conducted at one of the largest language institutions in Melbourne (affiliated with a major University), and the results collected draw on the English learning experiences of nine students (three Vietnamese, three Thai and three Indonesian) and two language teachers. Semi-structured interviews were adopted as the primary data collection method, and this allowed the major problems that these students experience while studying English for University entry to be identified. The findings of this paper include reasons why Vietnamese, Thai and Indonesian students find it difficult to study in Australia, and possible solutions for overcoming these difficulties and improving the English proficiency of students from these countries.

This paper examines the usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals (i.e. "gonna," "wanna," "gotta") in Present-day English. It is assumed that in distinct sociolinguistic and discourse contexts, the use of reduced modals is dynamic. To collect the data, there are five corpora used in this study, "Corpus of Contemporary American English" and "Global Web-Based English" as the representatives of Present-day English, Brown and LOB corpus as the representative of earlier years of Present-day English, and "A Representative Corpus of Historical English" to provide language data from Early Modern English to Present-day English. The analysis focuses on usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals over period of time, in different regions or countries, different medium of language use, and different text categories. The frequencies were further interpreted based on sociolinguistics and text category perspective to reveal the factors triggering the dynamic of use. The results of this study show the use of reduced modals is dramatically escalating in the last decades. According to regional observation, the use of reduced modals is more frequent in the United States than in other English-speaking countries. In relation to medium of language use, reduced modals are more commonly used in spoken language than in written language. As for text category, the usage frequency of reduced modal in fiction texts is the highest compared to academic texts and news texts. Academic texts seem to avoid these linguistic units since this sort of text must obey the use of standard language in which reduced forms are less standard and more colloquial. This phonetic reduction is plausible to occur since language system and language use apply economy principle. The use of phonetically reduced modals, however, varies in different context and is influenced by colloquialization: the more colloquial the context, the more frequent the use of reduced modals. In general, language use is phonetically simplified and sociolinguistically colloquialized.

This article explores the textual properties of arguably one of the most influential textual domains in contemporary society; that of mass-media discourse. Within this genre, it examines English-language hard news media reports from the United States, Great Britain and Australia focussing on the concepts of objectivity within this domain. Drawing inspiration from White's (2001, 2002a) and Martin's (2000,2004) heteroglossic engagement perspective, and Halliday's (1978, 1994)semiotic theory and model of transitivity, this paper examines a range of linguistic mechanisms employed within the genre of hard news. In particular it focuses on the linguistic resources of the so called neutral projecting clauses of attributed messages and the ways that reporters can indirectly convey attitudinal positions and engagement using these neutral mechanisms. The analysis shows that even with these so called neutral attribution framers it is still possible through semantic and linguistic means for reporters to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positioning and relations within the genre of objective hard news.

Despite well-established Pasifika communities in Australia, there has been no examination of the English spoken by members of these communities in the sociolinguistic literature. Yet, research shows that Pasifika English may exhibit key differences from local 'mainstream' varieties. In this paper, we present a case study of members of a drill rap group with Pasifika heritage to examine whether Pasifika English features are evident in their speech. We first analyze their monophthong productions and compare these to those of mainstream Australian English speakers. We also analyze their dental fricative realizations to examine whether there is evidence of th-stopping and dh-stopping, commonly described as markers of Pasifika English. Finally, we investigate whether their speech is more syllable-timed than mainstream Australian English. The results show that these speakers produce monophthongs generally consistent with mainstream Australian English vowels, despite some small differences. We also show consistent th-fronting and dh-stopping in their speech, which serves as a marker of their Pasifika heritage. We find a tendency towards more syllable-timed speech; however, this occurs to a lesser extent than has been reported for other Pasifika varieties of English. The results suggest that these speakers index their Pasifika identities by employing indicators/markers of Pasifika English that diverge from mainstream Australian English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documenting sociolinguistic variation in lesser-studied languages presents methodological challenges, but also offers important research opportunities. In this paper we examine three key methodological challenges commonly faced by researchers who are outsiders to the community. We then present practical solutions for successful variationist research on indigenous languages and meaningful partnerships with local communities. In particular, we draw insights from our research with Australian languages and indigenous languages of rural China. We also highlight reasons why such lesser-studied languages are crucial to the further advancement of sociolinguistic theory, arguing that the value of the research justifies the effort needed to overcome the methodological difficulty. We find that the challenges of sociolinguistics in these communities sometimes make standard variationist methods untenable, but the methodological solutions we propose can lead to valuable results and community relationships.

The role of linguists employed in Aboriginal community language centres requires three considerations to be addressed by the language centres themselves, by the linguists and by the organisations that prepare them: what is required of the linguist by language centres; to what extent does the linguist's own skills, interests and ideology match what is required by their position; and how the linguist's capabilities can best be matched to the requirements of the language centre. These three considerations are complex, in part specific to each language centre, and can involve skills that are not immediately oriented to, or transferable from, academic knowledge and skills. The sensitive and urgent nature of language revitalisation means that high expectations are often placed on the linguist by the language centre, which can lead to disappointment for all parties in various ways, and could even compromise the effectiveness of the language revitalisation. This paper attempts to critically address these three dimensions in relation to a Western Australian language centre, focussing on a case study of a community-based languages exhibition that took place in 2008. It describes the context of the language centre and then considers the role of the linguist operating within a sociolinguistically-oriented theoretical and methodological framework to revitalize languages, identifying different conceptualisations of the role. The case study explores the range of requirements made of the linguist during the languages exhibition project, and presents some reflections on the role in that context.

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Australia is a multicultural society in which over 300 different indigenous and migrant languages are spoken. While its cultural diversity is often celebrated, Australia's linguistic diversity is still at risk due to the inherent monolingual mindset (cf. Clyne 2005) of its population. In this paper, we use a cross-disciplinary approach, drawing on both historical and sociolinguistic sources, to investigate some of the major causes of language shift among first- and subsequent generations of post-war German-speaking migrants in Australia. While historical and societal changes have provided greater opportunities for German to be maintained as a heritage language in Australia, these developments may have come too late or have not been effective in the face of English as the dominant language in Australia and as a global language. Our investigation indicates that Australians with German as a heritage language, like many other migrant groups, are still at a high risk of shift to English, despite recent opportunities for language maintenance provided by modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s and 1980s John Carroll published three papers concerned with analysing talk in drama classrooms. It was Carroll's belief that "Drama, by its very nature as a creative force, demands a different sort of discourse from both teacher and pupils in the classroom" (Carroll, 1988). According to Carroll, the act of role-taking in the classroom is central to this. Carroll used socio-linguistic analysis to discuss the particular way in which role-taking affects classroom dynamics and the effect drama has on student learning. Since this early work from Carroll, the detailed analysis of talk in drama has received little attention. In this paper I aim to draw on both this early work by Carroll, and my own recent work using conversation analysis (Freebody, 2009, 2010) to continue the discussion around the significance of drama, role and talk in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The level and rate of learning the mother tongue of individuals whose mother tongue is different from the language of the society they live is not the same compared to people who learn their mother tongue in their homeland. Turkish people who live in abroad, have to study more in order to learn Turkish compared to people in Turkey. The language students learn who live in abroad and the language they use in their homes may negatively affect either their success in their lessons or the relationships they have with people who speak the same mother tongue. It is expected from students who live in abroad to be academically successful and build healthy relationships and to learn their mother tongue as well as the language they are educated in order to sustain their culture. Providing opportunity to learn their mother tongue in schools they receive education live positively affects their success. It is extremely important especially in multi-cultured societies. Countries which adopt multi-culturalism also give importance to mother tongue education. Australia, which is a multi-cultured country, provides opportunity for different societies to learn their mother tongue. Certain hours in schools is spared for migrants to learn their mother tongue. Australia prepared and executed Turkish curriculum in 2005. In this paper, Turkish curriculum being applied in the state of Victoria in Australia was evaluated and obtained data were compared in accordance with the purpose, approach and grammar that is applied in Turkey. On the basis of this purpose, the research was conducted with document analysis among qualitative research methods. As a result, it was concluded that Turkish curriculum in Australia is prepared in order to develop metacognitive skills and corresponds to constructivist approach that is being applied in Turkey since 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an account of social integration and professional recognition of non-English-speaking-background (NESB) teachers of English in Australia. The case study profiles two Iranian postgraduate students of English teaching in an Australian university and describes their struggle to construct a social and professional identity. The students' intercultural interaction strategies within their academic and professional community are explored and compared with those of their native colleagues. This paper emerged from a larger-scale qualitative study on identification of second language interaction strategies of postgraduate international students in Australia. The discussions can help Iranian English teachers to gain a foretaste of the ongoing struggles they may face as nonnative English teachers in English-speaking countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how immigrants' proficiency in speaking English, and preference for retaining their native tongue as the language of the home, affect their occupational attainment in the Australian labour market. In particular, it investigates how well three approaches - an assimilationist approach, a Neo-Marxist approach, and an ethnic enclaves approach - account for differences among groups in how important language usage and skill are in occupational mobility. The data are drawn from the 1981 Census public use sample. The findings show that monolingual English usage is of no benefit in the labour market and that weak English skills harm the occupational opportunities of some groups much more than others, a finding that is fully consistent with the ethnic enclaves approach. Generalising from the differences among Australian immigrant groups, the paper provides some hypotheses about language effects among immigrants to industrialised societies more generally, and develops some hypotheses about conditions fostering development of ethnic enclaves in such societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

to determine whether second language (L2) proficiency and exposure to work environments influence language learners' pragmalinguistic knowledge of implicatures, I surveyed 76 native and non-native participants in Australia. Thirty non-native respondents were from working contexts and 31 from tertiary education institutes, and 15 native speakers were drawn from a university context. Analysis revealed no working context effect on understanding of implicature items but substantial L2 proficiency effect, and some length of residence effect on pragmatic knowledge of implicature. I concluded that formulaic implicature is more difficult to understand than idiosyncratic implicature in which the conversation's principles are violated. This study has potential implications for policy making in the areas of Australian language, curriculum development, pedagogical approaches, and English teacher professional development and standardisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes Auslan/English interpreters' use of translation style when interpreting for a university lecture. Some interpreters switched translation style, between free and literal methods of interpretation, as a linguistic strategy for dealing with the sociolinguistic influences of the discourse environment. In particular, attention was paid to the interpreters' educational background (and therefore their familiarity with academic discourse), the linguistic features and lexical density of the text, and their influences on the interpretation. The key finding of the study was that Auslan/English interpreters predominantly used a free or literal interpretation approach, but switched between translation styles at particular points of the text, leading to the suggestion of the concept of “translational contact.” The findings of this study are not only significant in Australia but can also benefit interpreters and interpreter educators internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article compares the language policies between Australia and the Philippines. Attempts to build monolingual states was based upon the identification which many people had developed between the consciousness of being a separate national group and the native tongue. Language then is often perceived as a symbol of a country's national identity and the core value of its culture. The link between cultural identity and language persists today. It is the contention of this research that there is no need for a nexus between language and a state. It follows that attempts to artificially suppress minority languages through policies of assimilation, devaluation, reduction to a state of illiteracy, expulsion or genocide are not only degrading of human dignity but are also invitation to fragmentation into smaller states.