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Lo Bianco, Joseph (1987). The National Policy on Languages. Australian Review of Applied
Linguistics 10(2), 23-32.
THE NATIONAL POLICY ON LANGUAGES
Joseph Lo Bianco
Commonwealth Schools Commission
This article is an introduction to and a brief overview of the National Policy on Languages. It traces the
development or the Policy, concentrating on some major contributing factors. It then describes the
content of the Policy and assesses its present status and future prospects.
IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT LANGUAGE POLICIES
All societies undertake actions which influence and direct language. These actions may take as
undeliberate a form of language planning as the mere stigmatization or ridiculing of particular ways of
speaking and writing, attaching, therefore, higher prestige value to alternative and preferred forms. In
other cases, however, explicit language planning occurs, involving consciously taken and instituted
decisions about language. These decisions can be of a relatively technical linguistic nature in which
specialists apply their skills to language, for example in the creation of orthographies. Even such
clearly linguistic actions will include some socio-political and cultural action since the success of the
norms which are established by the technical-scientific work of linguists will require propagation to
ensure or promote their acceptance. There is, too, language planning (which perhaps ought best be
labelled language policy formulation) which is primarily or exclusively socio-political, cultural and
educational. The policies which societies as different as Sweden, New Zealand and the United States
have formulated and enacted on behalf of linguistic minorities (whether indigenous or immigrant or
both) are of this type. So too are the policies which result from political arrangements institutionalizing
(and thereby containing) conflict for territorially defined linguistic minorities. Examples would be the
complex legislative and procedural arrangements for enrolling children in Dutch or French medium
schools in Belgium, situations in India, Finland and Canada. There is, then, a socio-political context to
all language planning.
The absence of explicit statements about a nation's goals, principles and values on language
questions does not mean that decisions - perhaps more accurately positions - on language questions
do not exist. Rather, these positions are implied in actions which the society takes, usually through
the schooling system, on language issues. It is common in those societies without explicit policies on
language that some key issues or some aspects of language issues have required decisive and
deliberate action. Examples would be legislative measures in Australia during the 1914-1918 war to
ban the bilingual education of German Lutheran parishes, or the so called Lau remedies in the USA
which, following class action taken by Lau against the Nicholls school district in 1974 mandated either
bilingual education or English as a Second Language teaching in pre-specified situations. Pressing
needs producing clear policy. But the absence of an overall guiding set of principles still requires, in
both cases, that policy is induced from practice. It is common for problems relating to the place,
status and use of minority languages to be addressed directly in societies dominated by another
language at high levels of decision making, while jurisdiction for making decisions about aspects of
the dominant language is delegated to other bodies (e.g. spelling and writing style in Australian
English). Australia's language policies are of this type - de facto, ad hoc and (to diversity the lexical
lending source) laissez-faire. At some points in history direct forceful and unambiguous decisions
were made about language questions. The amendments brought in to the education acts or several
states to repress bilingual education in the second decade of federation are the clearest examples.
Despite this, and the only recently repealed regulations restricting electronic media use of languages
other than English, English has no officially sanctioned status in Australia.
At other times powerful social psychological factors have dictated the approach to languages in this
country. The stigmatization of Australian English and its contradistinction from southern British norms
is a case in point. The latter have been characterized as educated and sophisticated, the Australian
as, at best, colourful, but "rough hewn". Australian metaphors and proverbs used to be treated as
parochial. These sorts of attributes are, of course, made to associate with the speakers of the two
dialects of English.
Aboriginal languages have been subjected to a wide array of both deliberate and accidental
measures, reflecting the socially dominant groups' beliefs about, and desires towards, them. These
have ranged from deliberate denigration, forced separation of families to inhibit or prevent their
transmission, punishment for their use, to some belated but nonetheless welcome and positive
attempts to promote their use, acknowledge their socio-cultural and social-organizing role in
traditional society and to study seriously their characteristics.
Australian language planning has been, insofar as broad generalizations are possible, firmly within
the implicit and often unconscious categories of the continuum of socially directed actions on
language. This has been punctuated by occasional deliberate intervention usually for negative
purposes to assert explicitly particular positions and the values which have underlain them (Rubin and
Jernudd, 1979; Jernudd and Neustupny, 1986; Whiteley, 1979).
ENGLISH MONOLINGUALISM
If the statements by Ministers of the Federal Government calling for an Australian monoculture in the
late 1960s have a linguistic correlate in the ruling ideology about language then it is that of English
monolingualism. The study of a select few foreign languages in the secondary schools by relatively
small numbers of students was not perceived to constitute the creation of non-English speaking, or
bilingual, enclaves within the general population. English monolingualism seems an accurate brief
description of Australian practices in education in relation to immigrant and Aboriginal students until
relatively recently. If these practices have changed it is only slightly. The prevailing slogan could now
be said to be English proficiency with residual family or immediate community directed skills in the
mother tongue. Even if this is the desired result neither side of the equation has been actively
promoted. It was as though policy makers had intuitively understood the language ecology
trends revealed by sociolinguistic research in North America, that shift to English by non-English
speakers, whether immigrant or Aboriginal, would occur primarily as a result of the greater prestige
of English, its exclusive association with social and economic mobility. Multicultural education in
Australia, when assessed in financial terms at both State and Federal levels, has been
overwhelmingly about ESL teaching. Even so it is both inadequate and frequently inappropriate. (For
discussion of the social and historical background to theses issues, cf. Clyne, 1985; Selleck, 1980;
Faulkner, Lo Bianco and Storer, 1979:7).
TOWARDS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE POLICIES
The accretion of single policy actions over the past decade and a half on a wide range of issues and
the coincidence of these with external pressures has made language policy a social issue in Australia.
These linguistic policy questions have usually been regarded as a subset of more expressly social,
economic or educational policy making. Two very significant educational measures were the
establishment of the ESL programs for migrant children in the late 1960s and early 1970s (the Child
Migrant Education Program) and the establishment of the programs of bilingual education by the
Federal Government in the early 1970s in the Northern Territory (then a Federal jurisdiction).
Immigrant adults had entered the workforce, primarily in the then buoyant secondary labor market of
the 1950s and 1960s, in employment where English language skills were only incidentally required.
Some effort, commencing with the shipboard classes of the late 1940s and the beginnings of the
Adult Migrant Education Program during the 1950s and 1960s, had been made for adults to be taught
English. This seems to have reflected a belief by policy makers that adults required assistance to
learn English whereas children would "pick it up". The public policy measure on their behalf was, it
would appear, compulsory education.
After the establishment of the Child Migrant Education Program the English language needs of
migrant children were studied by academics and advocated by newly articulate second generation,
ethnically based community groups. Out of the research, the new found confidence and the agitation
(which was a general feature of urban Australia in the early 1970s) emerged the advocacy of mother
tongue education. Migrant languages were relabeled "community languages" to connote their greater
immediacy for Australian schools and to imply a priority over the traditional languages of school
curricula.
All these measures were sustained and carried by the advocacy of multiculturalism and were
packaged into multicultural social policies firstly by the Whitlam government and then by the Fraser
government (NACCME, 1987; Campbell et al., 1984).
The other factors which coincided with these were primarily the crisis in foreign language education
generally and the emergent economic crisis. Since the removal of the requirement for a foreign
language for admission to certain university faculties in the late 1960s, the numbers of students opting
to study languages other than English at school had declined dramatically by the early 1980s. This
was only partly ameliorated by the growth of community language programs at the primary level. A
major effect of this decline was to propel the advocates of modern/foreign language teaching into
agitation for an explicit national policy on languages.
Britain's accession to the European Common Market hastened another significant external factor.
Australia's trading partners have increasingly become the non-English speaking countries of the
Asian-Pacific region. It is no exaggeration to assert that Australia's self-perception of its cultural-
political and economic dissonance with its geographic neighbours had in its post World War Two
History produced a heightened attachment to its British heritage - and to the USA in Britain's place.
The economic interdependence of Australia with the region has however provoked a movement for
change with a strong linguistic correlate. Australia's economy has traditionally depended on strong
agricultural and minerals-resources extraction sectors; and a highly protected, mainly domestic
market oriented, manufacturing sector. Several economic changes, particularly the recent decline in
commodity prices, have necessitated a re-evaluation of Australian economic infrastructures. There
appears to be a widespread consensus that greater diversification is required and that a revitalized
export-oriented manufacturing base is necessary. Since such a sector cannot possibly compete
against low labor cost imports, its indicated direction is to target pre-specified niches in the
developing economies or the region and to produce and to market and thereby succeed in
penetrating these economies. These economies are predominantly non-English speaking and these
economic strategies require language skills not common in Australia. The sociological, cultural,
economic and other knowledge required to predict demand trends, to speculate about desired
products, to market goods, services and policies, to enter joint-ventures and to gain competitive
advantages over competitors inevitably requires intimate knowledge of the societies and their
languages (Commonwealth of Australia, Senate, 1984; Ingram, 1986).
Thus, both external and economic imperatives were added to the equality and enrichment demands
of the community in calling for explicit language policies. Spearheaded by organized ethnic
community lobbying, a broad constituency for language policy was created. Sufficient common
interest underlay sectoral differences. The response was the reference directed by the Senate to its
Standing Committee on Education and the Arts in May 1982.
Two and a half years and a change of government later, the Senate's report was published. Its
extremely detailed investigation and its title (A National Language Policy) notwithstanding, its first
recommendation was:
"Language policies should be developed and co-ordinated at the national level on the basis of four
guiding principles, namely:
Competence in English;
maintenance and development of languages other than English;
provision of services in languages other than English; opportunities for learning second
languages. (Commonwealth of Australia, Senate, 1984:312).
A further eighteen months elapsed before any specific response was made to the Senate's important
report.
I have tried to identify, albeit somewhat discursively, the main demographic, historical and geographic
factors provoking the shift from policies on language which are implied in and discerned from
general public policy practice to the call for and development of explicit treatment of language in
policy. I will now describe the proposed policy briefly and then comment on its status.
NATIONAL POLICY ON LANGUAGES
The National Policy on Languages espouses particular values about bilingualism and language
maintenance, development and learning in the context of broad social goals. These are summarized
as enrichment, economic opportunities, external relations and equality. These goals attempt to
encapsulate the broad social correlates of language, to be comprehensive or language interests and
to sustain a wide and strong constituency for language policy. The all pervasive nature of language
and the fragmented, different interests of language based interest groups are unlikely to cohere
otherwise. The content of the policy is very briefly described below under the relevant section
headings in the National Policy on Languages.
The status of languages
It is necessary to deal with the issue of status but also important to be careful. Important principles
require assertion but provocative statements are possible and need to be avoided lest a backlash
against perceived minority rights becoming excessive is created. This seems to have occurred in the
USA (Marshall, 1986). There are, or course, major differences between Australia and the USA, not
the least being the absence of a tradition or legal involvement in social policy due largely to the limited
possibilities under Australian law for class actions and the absence here of a Bill of Rights.
English/Australian English is asserted as the national language in the context of an acceptance of its
internal diversity and range.
Aboriginal languages are explicitly recognized, and their use in education and service delivery and
their rights are advocated. Similar statements are made about community languages, including the
languages of the deaf.
The teaching and learning of languages
The three guiding principles are as follows:
1. English for all.
2. Support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages.
3. A language other than English for all.
The first contains specifications for public expectations about English learned as a first or second
language in Australia. It promotes specific programs to address identified inadequacies. It also deals
briefly with adult literacy and dialect questions as well as with English as a foreign language.
The second strongly endorses bilingual and bicultural education and advocates greatly improved
general awareness and appreciation of the value and endangered state of Aboriginal languages.
The third contains two major dimensions. It deals firstly with mother tongue education for non-English
speaking background children and secondly with second language learning for English speaking
background children. A range of specific measures is put forward at both school and tertiary levels to
take the advocated programs towards implementation.
Language services
Four sections are contained under the heading of language services:
1.
Interpreting and translating;
2.
Public libraries;
3.
Languages, the media and modern technologies;
4.
Language testing.
The first deals with aspects of interpreting and translating, i.e., the provision of services to those
sections of the Australian community not proficient in standard oral English: non-English speaking
migrants; Aboriginals and the deaf.
This section also deals with the need for skilled interpreters and translators in languages of key
external need and demand for Australia.
Public libraries are addressed in terms of their capacity to enhance language maintenance, promote
language learning and provide information services to the communication disabled.
The media and modern technologies are similarly addressed in terms of their potential to diversify and
enrich Australia's language resources.
Language testing is at present ad hoc and in serious need of improvement. It is in these terms that it
is dealt with.
Advisory and monitoring mechanisms
A representative Advisory Council is described and proposed. Its terms of reference would be to
permit an ongoing evaluative monitoring role over the National Policy, to develop and refine it further,
and to permit the major interest groups an opportunity to influence and direct decision making at a
national level on language issues.
The best summary or the overall purposes of the policy would be to substitute the unconscious
language policies of the past with explicit policies and to replace the trend towards English
monolingualism with a trend towards widespread bilingualism, including the continued use of
languages other than English. A further dimension is to harmonize language policy with national
economic, cultural and external needs and to provide equitable language services.
THE STATUS OF THE POLICY AND ITS FUTURE PROSPECTS
In a speech in Melbourne on the 26th of April, 1987, the Prime Minister, Mr. Hawke, announced the
Government's endorsement of the National Policy on Languages. The report was tabled in the Senate
by the Minister for Education, Senator Susan Ryan, on the 4th of May. She stated "… the government
is committed to funding an integrated package in the August budget to implement a national policy on
languages" (Commonwealth of Australia, Hansard, Senate, 4th Hay 1987: 2240). In the discussion
which followed the major directions of the policy were endorsed by the Opposition.
It would appear that there is some consensus on the outline of explicit language policy in Australia.
This must augur well for its implementation. It is, however, unlikely to be realized unless the
constituency, which has helped bring it about the community and academics - sustain the principled
nature of policy on language questions and actively seek its implementation. The Advisory Council
may well represent the forum which will collect and direct the energies and ideas of those committed
to these questions.
References
Australian Government, Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet (1987) Prime Minister's Speech, Ethnic
Communities Meeting, Melbourne, 26 April 1987. Canberra, Office of Prime Minister and
Cabinet, Parliament House.
Campbell, W.J., J. Barnett, B. Joy and M. McMeniman (1984) A review of the Commonwealth ESL
program. Canberra, Commonwealth Schools Commission.
Clyne, M. (1985) Multilingual Melbourne nineteenth century style. Journal of Australian Studies 17:69-
81.
Commonwealth of Australia, Hansard, Senate, Hay (1987). Canberra, Commonwealth of Australia,
Parliamentary Records, AGPS.
Commonwealth of Australia, Senate (1984) A national language policy. Canberra, Senate Standing
Committee on Education and the Arts, AGPS.
Faulkner, A., J. Lo Bianco and D. Storer (1979) Migrants and education in a rural community: a case
study of the Ovens and King Valleys. Fitzroy, Victoria, Centre for Urban Research and Action.
Ingram, D.E. (1986) Languages and the export economy. Paper presented to the 6th Biennial
National Languages Conference of the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers
Association, Adelaide, September.
Jernudd, B.H. and J.V. Neustupny (1986) Language planning: for whom? Comments presented at the
International Colloquium on Language Planning in Ottawa, Canada, May.
Marshall, D.F. (1986) The question of an official language: language rights and the English language
amendment. IJSL 60:7-75.
NACCME (National Advisory and Co-ordinating Committee on Multicultural Education) (1987)
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Center Cultural Learning Institute.
Selleck, R. (1980) The trouble with my looking-glass: a case study of the attitudes of Australians to
Germans during the Great War. Journal of Australian Studies 6:2-25.
Whiteley, W.H. (1979) Sociolinguistic surveys at the national level. In J.B. Pride (ed.) Sociolinguistic
aspects of language learning and language teaching. London, Oxford University Press.
