Languages other than English in Australian Higher Education: Policies, Provision, and the National Interest

262 Pages·2019·1.953 MB·

by  Jennifer Joan Baldwin

Language Policy
Jennifer Joan Baldwin
Languages other
than English
in Australian
Higher Education
Policies, Provision, and the National
Interest
Language Policy
Volume 17
Series Editor
Joseph Lo Bianco, University of Melbourne, Australia
Terrence G. Wiley, Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University, USA
Editorial Board
Claire Kramsch, University of California at Berkeley, USA
Georges Lüdi, University of Basel, Switzerland
Normand Labrie, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Anne Pakir, National University of Singapore, Singapore
John Trim, Former Fellow, Selwyn College, Cambridge, UK
Guadalupe Valdes, Stanford University, USA
The last half century has witnessed an explosive shift in language diversity not
unlike the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, but involving now a rapid spread of
global languages and an associated threat to small languages. The diffusion of
global languages, the stampede towards English, the counter-pressures in the form
of ethnic efforts to reverse or slow the process, the continued determination of
nation-states to assert national identity through language, and, in an opposite
direction, the greater tolerance shown to multilingualism and the increasing concern
for language rights, all these are working to make the study of the nature and
possibilities of language policy and planning a field of swift growth.
The series will publish empirical studies of general language policy or of lan-
guage education policy, or monographs dealing with the theory and general nature
of the field. We welcome detailed accounts of language policy-making - who is
involved, what is done, how it develops, why it is attempted. We will publish
research dealing with the development of policy under different conditions and the
effect of implementation. We will be interested in accounts of policy development
by governments and governmental agencies, by large international companies,
foundations, and organizations, as well as the efforts of groups attempting to resist
or modify governmental policies. We will also consider empirical studies that are
relevant to policy of a general nature, e.g. the local effects of the developing
European policy of starting language teaching earlier, the numbers of hours of
instruction needed to achieve competence, selection and training of language teach-
ers, the language effects of the Internet. Other possible topics include the legal basis
for language policy, the role of social identity in policy development, the influence
of political ideology on language policy, the role of economic factors, policy as a
reflection of social change.
The series is intended for scholars in the field of language policy and others
interested in the topic, including sociolinguists, educational and applied linguists,
language planners, language educators, sociologists, political scientists, and com-
parative educationalists.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6209
Jennifer Joan Baldwin
Languages other than
English in Australian Higher
Education
Policies, Provision, and the National Interest
Jennifer Joan Baldwin
Faculty of Arts
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
ISSN 1571-5361 ISSN 2452-1027 (electronic)
Language Policy
ISBN 978-3-030-05794-7 ISBN 978-3-030-05795-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05795-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019931022
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
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Dedicated to Amanda Marie Burritt
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Australia: The British Colony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Discussion of Literature and Other Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 Overview of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 The Founding of Australian Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 The Foundation of Universities in the Colonies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2 Two British Colonies: Canada and New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3 A Second University in Melbourne, Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4 A Third Colonial University in Adelaide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.5 The Later Colonial Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.6 The Language Offerings of the Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.7 The Importance of the Classical Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.8 Modern European Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.9 The Melbourne Solution for More Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.10 Asian Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.11 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3 Post-War Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1 Post-World War II Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2 The Mills Report: The First Reckoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3 Murray Report and More Commonwealth Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.4 Martin Report: A New Framework for Higher Education . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5 The First Survey of Language Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.6 Auchmuty Report: The First Asian Languages Report . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.7 Concurrent Language Surveys: Kramer and the Academy
of the Humanities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.8 The Galbally Report: Migrant Services and Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.9 National Policy on Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
vii
viii Contents
3.10 The Dawkins Era: Reforms and More Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.11 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4 Australia: Both Multicultural and Multilingual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.1 Migration to Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.2 Academic Interest in Migrant Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.3 Assimilation to Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.4 The End of the White Australia Policy and the White
Zealand Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.5 Kramer Report: A Timely Report into Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.6 A New Government in a New Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.7 Galbally Report: A Report for Migrant Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.8 The Consequences for Community Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.9 The Fortunes of Ukrainian and Yiddish: Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.10 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5 Three Trade Languages: Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian . . . . . . . . 105
5.1 Australia/Japan Contact Begins with Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.2 Japanese Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.3 Defence Needs Japanese Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.4 From Defence Needs to Trade Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.5 The Influence of Universities on Japanese in Schools . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.6 Chinese Migration to Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.7 Trade and Diplomacy with China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.8 The Imperative for Chinese Language Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.9 Oriental and Asian Studies Expand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.10 Official Recognition of China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.11 Indonesia: Trade First Then Security and Defence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.12 Government Commitment to Indonesian Language Teaching . . . . . 127
5.13 Auchmuty and Kramer Reports: Stocktakes for All Languages . . . . 129
5.14 The Testing of Diplomatic Relations and Language Popularity . . . . 130
5.15 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6 Three Strategic Languages: Russian, Korean and Arabic . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.1 Early Australian Relationships with Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.2 Russian Language Begins at University of Melbourne . . . . . . . . . . . 141
6.3 Collapse of Soviet Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
6.4 Australia’s Relationship with Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
6.5 Arabic: A Pluricentric and Religious Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
6.6 Arabic as a Scholarly Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
6.7 Arabic as a Migrant Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
6.8 Arabic as a Trade Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
6.9 Waning Support for Arabic in the Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
6.10 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Contents ix
7 Languages in the 1990s: The Context and the Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
7.1 Comparison of University Languages Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
7.2 A Case Study of the University of Melbourne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
7.3 A Review of Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
7.4 The New School of Languages at the University of Melbourne . . . . 173
7.5 Other Universities’ Languages Structures in 1999 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.6 Political Implications for Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.7 Reports from the Academic Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
7.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
8 The Asian or Global Century? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
8.1 Government Languages Policy from Mid 1990s to Early 2000s . . . 184
8.2 Internationalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
8.3 Differing Understanding of the Role of Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
8.4 Australia in the Asian Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
8.5 The New Colombo Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
8.6 The Languages Component of the Australian Curriculum . . . . . . . . 193
8.7 The Stakeholders for Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8.8 Current Issues: Collaborative Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
8.9 New Models: University of Melbourne and UWA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
8.10 New Countries (and Languages) of National Interest? . . . . . . . . . . . 200
8.11 The Global Perspective: Languages Elsewhere
in the English-Speaking World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
8.12 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Abbreviations
AACLAME Australian Advisory Council on Languages and Multicultural
Education
AAH Australian Academy of the Humanities
ABC Australian Broadcasting Commission
ACPEA Australian Council on Population and Ethnic Affairs
AFMLTA Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations
AHRC Australian Humanities Research Council
AIMA Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs
ALLP Australian Language and Literacy Policy
ALP Australian Labor Party
ALTC Australian Learning and Teaching Council
ANU Australian National University
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
AUC Australian Universities Commission
AVCC Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee
BHP Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited
BRITAC British Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
CAAR Council for Australian-Arab Relations
CAE College of Advanced Education
CEDA Committee for Economic Development of Australia
C of A Commonwealth of Australia
CLOTE Community Language Other Than English
COAG Council of Australian Governments
ComDepEd Commonwealth Department of Education
CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
CTEC Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission
CUC Canberra University College
CURA Centre for Urban Research and Action
DEET Department of Education, Employment and Training
DEETYA Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs
DEST Department of Education, Science and Training
xi