Belonging and Attitudes towards Ethnic Languages among African Migrants in Australia

Based on data from a research project on African identities in Melbourne, this paper assesses the attitudes of non-refugee African-Australians towards their ethnic languages in the context of the utility and prestige of English in Australia. The paper explores the tensions between discourses on rights to language(s) of choice and discourses on conforming to prescribed languages. It opens new questions about ethnic language loyalty and language maintenance among African-Australians. The following questions are addressed: how do African communities in Australia perceive their ethnic languages? What is the state of ethnic language maintenance among African-Australians? How do dominant monolingual discourses influence the attitude of African migrants towards their ethnic languages? How are African-Australian identities shaped and mediated by competing attitudes towards English on the one hand and migrant ethnic languages on the other?