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This paper reviews a sign language planning project conducted in Australia with deaf Auslan users. The Medical Signbank project utilised a cooperative language planning process to engage with the Deaf community and sign language interpreters to develop an online interactive resource of health-related signs, in order to address a gap in the health lexicon of Auslan. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the outcome of the bottom-up language planning model that was used in this context, and to make recommendations for similar future sign language planning projects.

This paper explores the concept of social inclusion from the perspective of recent migrants, from language backgrounds other than English, at work in Australia. We adopt an understanding of social inclusion that acknowledges the importance of economic independence, while also considering migrants' feelings of connectedness at work and their sense of belonging. Based on qualitative interviews with migrants collected two years apart, we explore the ways language and language practices can lead to feelings of inclusion or exclusion at work. The data suggests that migrants who felt included at work often had colleagues and/or bosses who actively supported and encouraged them in learning new skills, and made an effort to connect with them through small talk. In contrast, participants who felt excluded were unable to fully participate in work activities and/or workplace interaction because of limitations they or others placed upon them based on their English proficiency. We suggest that social inclusion, as it relates to employment, can also encompass different things for different people. For some, a sense of belonging is not promoted solely by having work or the ability to connect with colleagues, but also by obtaining employment of a type and level commensurate with their pre-migration status.

In this paper we focus on the perspectives and practical needs of a group of adult immigrants from language backgrounds other than English as they encounter the pragmatic demands of communicating in the workplace and in the community. Drawing on a subset of data from a large-scale longitudinal study of recent adult immigrants with low levels of English, we explore what they notice about the pragmatics of communication in Australia and the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic skills they need to ‘fit in’ and function successfully through English. The pragmatic issues they identify encompass a range of sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic issues not normally addressed in interlanguage research, including the importance of small talk and how to participate in it, the role and interpretation of informality and indirectness, different perceptions of sociability and the ‘need to be nice’, recognition of the need to be pragmatically flexible, and differences between the language taught in the classroom and that used every day in the community. We consider the implications for language classes in an ESL setting and suggest some activities designed to help immigrants prepare for the transition from classroom language learner to competent language user in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently no linguistic research had been carried out on Australian Sign Language (Auslan) with regard to its use in healthcare settings, although anecdotal information suggests that the health lexicon of Auslan is strikingly under-developed. This paper describes a study that examined health terminology from the perspective of deaf people. Based on a thematic analysis of focus group data, the paper outlines strategies that deaf Australians report using when communicating about health concepts that do not have established signs in Auslan. Participants described a variety of communicative strategies -- including the use of fingerspelling, depiction and explanations -- that they employ in order to circumnavigate lexical gaps when talking about health. The study provides a crucial starting point for a discussion of the implications of lexical gaps in Auslan and highlights issues of particular relevance for interpreters who take responsibility for brokering health terms and mediating health communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]