Three Generations, Two Countries of Origin, One Speech Community - Australian-Macedonians and Their Language(s)

This book examines speakers of Macedonian as a transposed, immigrant language in Australia. Speakers’ reported use of Macedonian, English, and other languages is presented through domain-based sociolinguistic analysis. This is augmented by data on the ethnolinguistic vitality of Macedonian-speakers and by language attitude responses that record speakers’ affective feelings towards different language varieties. This description is based on data gained from 103 speakers across three generations and from two countries of origin: northern Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. The statistical data are complemented by excerpts taken from longer interviews and by vignettes that give an insight into the lives of Macedonian-speakers in Australia. This book focuses on a group that records one of the highest levels of language maintenance amongst Australia’s ethnolinguistic minorities and is a contribution to the fields of sociology of language, maintenance of minority languages and language attitudes. Dr Jim Hlavac is a senior lecturer in the school of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts at Monash University. He has published widely in the fields of multilingualism, contact linguistics, translation and interpreting studies, and language maintenance and shift.