Current Issues In Language and Society
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Volume: 4 Number: 2 Page: 94–119
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Managing Language Diversity and Second Language Programmes in Australia
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Michael Clyne
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This paper discusses the position of community languages in Australia against a background of changing anti-social policies across all areas, in the direction of economic rationalism and user pays. The
paper also explores languages-in-education policies in relation to school second language programmes which need to cater for students with no background and different degrees of learning in the language.
Some suggestions are made for managing linguistic diversity. There is a discussion of what happens when a community language also becomes a coveted commodity for the whole of the population. The historical
context for the development of pluralistic policies in the 1970s and 1980s and for more recent challenges to them, especially from the political fringe, are discussed. It is hoped that these considerations
of the Australian situation may be of wider application.
© Multilingual Matters 1997
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