Language and Social Inclusion: unexplored aspects of intercultural communication

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Language and Social Inclusion unexplored
aspects of intercultural communication

• Simon Musgrave Julie Bradshaw
• School of Languages, Cultures and Communication,
  Monash University
• Workshop Linguistic Diversity Social Inclusion
  (Macquarie University, October 12 2012)

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Overview

• A Stronger, Fairer Australia
• Aspects of inclusion
• Connectedness and belonging
• Acts of social inclusion
• Future directions widening the questions

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A Stronger, Fairer Australia

• Australia - Social Inclusion Board advises the
  Government on ways to achieve better outcomes
  for the most disadvantaged in our community and
  to improve the social inclusion in society as a
  whole.
• Key issues include jobs, economic issues,
  homelessness
• Policy document 2009, A Stronger, Fairer
  Australia a social inclusion strategy
  emphasizing economic aspects of inclusion (and
  exclusion the discourse treats these as
  mutually-defining complementaries)
• Language and culture few mentions
• language 7 mentions
• culture 12 mentions (but several refer to e.g.
  recovery-oriented culture amongst services)

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Language social inclusion in the document 3
areas mentioned briefly

• Language (i.e. English L1) development in early
  childhood (pp. 27-28)
• includes note there are children in Australia
  who only speak English, but are reported as not
  proficient in English. These children are likely
  to be developmentally vulnerable on all the AEDI
  Australian Early Development Index domains
  (SFA p. 28 no sources for claim)
• i.e. semilingualism (Aboriginal English?), cf.
  Piller Takahashi (2011) on ideology of
  linguistic discreteness in social inclusion
  policy
• Investment in language learning centres in
  secondary schools (i.e. LOTE for mainstream
  children)
• A project in a Western Sydney primary school
  developing language (i.e. English), literacy and
  numeracy skills for ESL learners (4 out of 7
  mentions of language in the document)

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Language social inclusion in the policy
document

• Assimilatory and economic aspects of policy are
  foregrounded
• Language means English, normatively viewed.
• Ideology of monolingualism informs social
  inclusion policy (cf.Piller and Takahashi 2011)
• NO mention of home languages other than English
  just an implied deficit model

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A strength based approach

• One passage advocates a strengths-based
  approachrespecting, supporting and building
  on the strengths of individuals, families,
  communities and culture. Recognising the
  varied and positive contributions of people from
  culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
  will be an important feature of the social
  inclusion approach. (p72)
• BUT there is no evidence of recognition of the
  linguistic implications of this.

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Linguistic and cultural inclusion

• We ask what would a truly inclusive policy look
  like if it took a linguistically informed
  approach to social inclusion?
• Begin by asking inclusion in WHAT?
• (cf. discussion in Piller and Takahaski 2011)
• Social inclusion policy has a default assumption
  of assimilation to an imagined community (cf.
  Anderson), the mainstream, and particularly the
  nation state.
• BUT Piller and Takahashi note that
  inclusion/exclusion are enacted at local level.

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Inclusion in what?

• Steinert (2003) sees various dimensions of
  exclusion as independent
• Political (i.e. citizenship)
• Economic
• Social (isolation)
• Cultural (education)
• More useful formulation Piller and Takahashi
  (2011) see economic issues as the core of
  inclusion, nested within a level of human
  development, and more peripherally, a sense of
  participation or belonging.
• While we acknowledge the priority given to
  economic factors, our interest is in the
  linguistic aspects of participation and
  belonging.
• Cf. Han (2011) paper on Church participation

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Inclusion in what?

• Inclusion in the social sense means becoming part
  of the (a?) social fabric
• BUT that fabric may be varied and complex
• Individuals lived experience of social inclusion
  may also depend on multi-layered connections
• nuclear and extended family ties
• links with others of shared linguistic and
  cultural repertoires
• affiliations with
• wider common interest groups
• religious groups
• work colleagues

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Dimensions of social inclusion

• belonging v. connectedness (Crisp 2010)
• belonging involves becoming an insider within a
  group, organisation or a somewhat less structured
  network of people with common attributes or
  beliefs (i.e. community of practice)
• connectedness relates more to participation in
  societal organisations or social networks
• While network diagrams may show patterns of
  connectedness, belonging is more nuanced.
• Belonging has identity implications and needs
  discursive analysis to tease out.
• Social inclusion policy may attempt to enhance
  connectedness, but belonging is beyond top down
  approaches, and relies on situated engagement
  through language.

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Examples from current policy

• Connectedness is linguistically supported
• Interpreters are available for e.g. medical and
  legal
• Government documents are available in translation
• Belonging is supported but not always with
  linguistic resources
• Government supports community activity based on
  ethnolinguistic groups
• SBS provides access to media and entertainment in
  various languages
• Belonging NOT connectedness e.g. homeland news
  in native language, main (Australian news) in
  English
• Cf. Yates 2011 on difficulties in forming
  English-based networks
• Linguistic basis of belonging discouraged in at
  least one case bilingual education in NT

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Inclusion / include

• Shift from a nominal form, inclusion to a
  verbal framing of include
• Focus on a process or series of processes in
  which people construct identity through
  performing acts of identity (Le Page and
  Tabouret-Keller 1985), in relation to imagined
  communities.
• Allows examination of the participant roles
  associated with the process of inclusion
• who or what includes whom,
• in what,
• how and why does this happen,
• using what language or languages?

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Processes of inclusion

• Involve communication between diverse groups
• Static aspects e.g. dependence on shared
  understanding of key cultural terms
• Dynamic aspects e.g. membership of a group is
  linguistically mediated and dynamically
  negotiated
• Example a group of immigrants from South Sudan
  living in Melbourne hold their weekly church
  service in Arabic (Musgrave and Hajek, 2009).
• What factors led to this decision about language
  use?
• How did these people balance their identity as
  non-Muslim Sudanese against the desire to include
  as large a community as possible in their
  worship?
• South Sudanese Christian focus group members want
  Arabic language maintenance for 2nd generation
  but classes are run through mosques (Bradshaw et
  al. 2008)

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Opportunities

• Evidence suggests linguistic assimilation is not
  enough
• Recent migrants to Australia and Canada with high
  English proficiency converge less than earlier
  generations (cf. discussion in Piller Takahashi
  2011)
• Inclusion which is not solely assimilation means
  intercultural communication
• In super-diverse communities (Vertovec 2007) the
  dimensions of intercultural communication may not
  simply radiate between minority and mainstream
  but between changing and transforming communities
  of practice (e.g. Speakers of Sudanese Arabic in
  church or mosque).

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A tentative conclusion

• What can be an evidentiary basis for linguistic
  aspects of social inclusion policy?
• focus on the immediate and local
• immigrant groups are important, but research
  cannot be limited to them
• range of processes examined must acknowledge
• connectedness AND belonging
• inclusion in social processes beyond the
  mainstream
• We need to examine the daily habits of perhaps
  quite banal intercultural interaction
  (Sandercock 2003, in Vertovec 20071045)

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References

• Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined communities
  reflections on the origin and spread of
  nationalism. London Verso
• Bradshaw, J., A. Deumert and K. Burridge, (2008)
  Victorias Languages Gateway to the
  World.Melbourne VITS Language Link
• Crisp, Beth R. (2010) Belonging, connectedness
  and social exclusion. Journal of Social
  Inclusion1 / 2 123 132.
• Le Page, R.B. Andree Tabouret-Keller (1985)
  Acts of IdentityCreole-based approaches to
  language and ethnicity. Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press.
• Musgrave, Simon John Hajek (In press) Minority
  language speakers as migrants some preliminary
  observations on the Sudanese community in
  Melbourne. To appear in International Journal of
  Multilingualism.
• Piller, Ingrid and Kimie Takahashi (2011)
  Linguistic diversity and social inclusion.
  International Journal of Bilingual Education and
  Bilingualism. 14/4371-381.
• Steinert, H. (2003) Introduction the cultures of
  welfare and exclusion. In H Steinert and A
  Pilgram (eds), Welfare policy from below
  struggles against social exclusion in Europe.
  Aldershot, Hampshire Ashgate Publishing.
• A Stronger Fairer Australia (2009) Launched Jan
  28 2010. Available from http//www.socialinclusion
  .gov.au/Resources/Pages/Resources.aspx, accessed
  12/10/2010.
• Vertovec, Steven (2007) Super-diversity and its
  implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30/6
  1024-1054.