40 ONE CHILDHOOD MANY LANGUAGES

TYPES OP BILINGUAL SITUATIONS

Romaine (1991) provides a typology of bilingual acquisition in
childhood. She identifies six categories:

Type One: one person-one language;

Type Two: non-dominant home language with community support;
Type Three: non-dominant home language without community
support;
Type Four: double non-dominant home language without commu­
nity support;
Type Five:non-dominant home language with dominant-language
Figure 2.2: parents;
Dominic's father
speaks Spanish to
Type Six: mixed languages.
him at all times. A brief description of each of these categories follows.
Type One:
One person-one language
The parents each speak a ditier­
en t home language but have
some degree of competence in
eac h other's language. The
dominant language spoken in
the community is spoken by
one of the parents. Both parents
speak their respective languages
to the child from birth. Some
studies in this area include
R o njat (1 913) , Leopold
(1 93 9-49) and Taeschner
(1983) .
For example, Dominic's
father, who is a Spanish speaker,
speaks Spanish to him at all
times. His mother, although she
can speak Spanish as a second
language, chooses to s peak
English to her son. When the
family are together, they speak
Spanish as the home language.
In this scenar i o, Dominic's
 GROWING UP BILINGUALLY 41

mother reads stories and sings songs in Spanish in order to reinforce

concepts. In day-to-day interactions, when she is alone with him,
she speaks English.
Type Two:
Non-dominant home language with community support
The parents each speak a different home language, and the lan­
guage of one of the parents is spoken as the dominant language in
the community. Both parents speak the same, non-dominant lan­
guage in the home to the child, who is exposed to the dominant
language outside the home-for example, in an early childhood
education or care setting. Studies in this area include Fantini
(1985).
For example, Isabella's parents and grandparents speak Italian to
her in the home and take an active part in the Italo-Australian
community. Isabella attends a preschool in which only English is
spoken. Isabella's father speaks English as his first language but only
speaks Italian to his daughter. Isabella's family speak English at the
preschool and elsewhere in the community when it is appropriate.
Type Three:
Non-dominant home language without community support
The parents share the same home language, which is not the domi­
nant language of the community. They speak their language to the
child, but do not have the opportunity to take part in any commu­
nity organisations and may have no other family members in the
area. Studies in this area include Haugen (1953) and Oskaar (1977).
For example, Ayshe and Emil are new arrivals from Turkey.
They have been in Australia for 12 months and are learning English
but are not fluent in it. They do not have any Turkish organisations
close enough to join, and no Turkish neighbours. They speak
Turkish in the home. The children do not attend an early child­
hood program.
Type Four:
Double non-dominant home language without community support
The parents speak two different home languages. The dominant
language spoken in the community is not that of either parent. The
parents each speak their language to the child. Studies include
Elwart (1959, cited in Romaine 1991).
For example, Olaf speaks Norwegian. His wife speaks Tagalog.
They want to maintain both sides of their child's cultural heritage,
but find it very difficult, especially as their child is asthmatic and
needs regular access to mainstream medical services. Both parents
42 ONE CHILDHOOD MANY LANGUAGES

speak a little English, but prefer the use of interpreters where possi­
ble because they are not confident in their ability to understand
technical terms. Peter, aged four, is given instructions in the use of
his nebuliser by English-speaking medical staff.
Type Five:
Non-dominant home language with dominant-language parents
The parents are both bilingual. One of the languages is the domi­
nant language spoken in the community. One of the parents always
speaks to the children in the non-dominant language. Studies
include Saunders (1982).
For example, Ann and Bill are both native English speakers.
They lived for several years in Indonesia and speak the language
well. Bill speaks to the children only in Indonesian. There are no
other Indonesian speakers in the neighbourhood or at the early
childhood education and care programs attended by the children.
Type Six:
Mixed languages
In this situation the different languages spoken by family members
and the local community are used interchangeably, and there may
not be any specific decisions about how languages are used in the
home or in the community. The parents are bilingual, and sectors
of the community in which they live are also bilingual. The parents
code switch their languages. Studies include Ellul (1978).
For example, Minka's father speaks Cantonese. Her mother
speaks Mandarin and the Shanghai dialect as her native languages.
Until recently, Minka, who is three years old, has been living with
her grandparents in mainland China. They also speak Mandarin
and the Shanghai dialect. Minka has just arrived in Australia.
Minka's mother has been learning Cantonese from her husband.
The two languages are used interchangeably. The local community
is made up of people from Vietnamese and Chinese backgrounds,
and these groups actively participate in the commercial activities of
the community. Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese are all used
in commercial activities.
As the above typology shows, language interaction between par­
ents and children can vary widely. Early childhood educators need
to be aware of the diversity of linguistic environments which the
children who are already in their care or who are seeking enrol­
ment may experience. They need to offer opportunities to families
to share family goals and practices.
There are similarities among the types of bilingual situations
 GROWING UP BILINGUALLY 43

listed. In Types One and Two, the parents speak different home
languages, but one parent speaks the dominant language in the
community. The difference between One and Two is the strategy
that the parents use when interacting with the child. In Type One,
the parents use their respective first languages, one of which is the
dominant language spoken in the community. In Type Two, expo­
sure to the dominant community language occurs only outside the
home. In Type Four, both parents speak their first languages, nei­
ther of which is the language of the dominant speech community.
Outside the home, the child is exposed to and must learn a third
language. In Types Three and Five, the languages of the parents are
the same, although the strategies used with the child are different.
In Type Three, the parents speak their own language to the child,
whereas in Type Five one parent speaks a non-native language
learned in later life.
Romaine suggests that Type Six is the most common, because
many children grow up in communities where individual and soci­
etal multilingualism coincide. However, this type of situation is not
sufficiently documented in the literature. Romaine suggests that
this may be so, because many of the studies of children growing up
bilingually have been undertaken by parent linguists and middle­
class professionals investigating their own children's development,
so the majority of the longitudinal studies deal with elitist and
additive bilingualism. Children growing up in this type of situation
need to develop bilingual competence which requires them to use
different languages in contextually appropriate ways.
A type of language environment not included in Romaine's
typology is context- and time-based language use. Many of the cate­
gories listed earlier would also fit within this one. The basis for a
separate listing is that parents have made a conscious choice of a
sometimes unnatural pattern. In this situation, families may choose
to use different languages in different contexts-for example, one
language at meal times, and another at other times; or one language
when certain people are present and another when they are not; or
one language in some rooms of the house, and a different one in
others.
For example, Teresa's parents were educated in Australia and
have always spoken English to each other both within the home
and in the wider community. However, they speak Portuguese
when family and other Portuguese community members visit the
home. Portuguese is spoken by the grandparents, and when Teresa
is with her grandparents, she speaks Portuguese.
44 ONE CHILDHOOD MANY LANGUAGES

Other omissions in the literature are bilingual family situations

which are nontraditional, such as children living with one parent in
one country when the other parent resides overseas; single parent
families; children being raised by members of the extended family;
and children living in co-parenting situations.
Often, a combination of the strategies listed is used by families.
There is no final choice which is unequivocally better than another
for every family. The main considerations are conditions that feel
comfortable for the family, conditions that maximise opportunities
for meaningful communication, and the desired outcomes-for
example, whether or not bilingualism is the goal, or the family's
socioeconomic goals. Whenever more than one language is used at
home or in an education and care setting, consistency of pattern
seems to help children to sort out the different languages.

LANGUAGE SOCIALISATION
Many young children who grow up in bilingual or bidialectal
environments are reported to have an impressive ability to interact
appropriately with the different adults with whom they have con­
tact. For example, Fantini (1985) reports that his two-year-old son
would speak English to a native speaker of English who could also
speak Italian, even when the English speaker addressed the child in
Italian. Lanza (1992) investigated the language use of a bilingual
two-year-old, Siri, who was acquiring Norwegian and English
simultaneously in Norway. Her parents had adopted the one per­
son-one language approach. The mother spoke English to her and
the father spoke Norwegian. At the age of two, Siri demonstrated
her knowledge of when it was appropriate to separate the two lan­
guages spoken, as opposed to situations when it was appropriate to
mix languages. The child was able to differentiate her language use
in contextually sensitive ways. Appropriateness depends primarily
upon the context of language use. Lanza points out that children
learn to differentiate between languages through a process of lan­
guage socialisation. Different social situations make different
demands on how languages are used.
Siri's attainment of early bilingual awareness from the age of two
years, three months showed sensitivity to context. She refrained
from mixing her languages when she was with her mother, who
negotiated more of a monolingual context; but used more mixing
with her father, who negotiated more of a bilingual context.
Similarly, Jones Diaz (1993) investigated the bilingual acquisi-
 GROWING UP BILINGUALLY 45

tion of three two- to three-year-old children who were acquiring

their languages at home and in childcare. Her study revealed that
the· children demonstrated an acute awareness of when and where
the appropriate languages were to be used. The children were more
likely to use their home language (Spanish) at home with parents
who spoke that language than with the carers in the childcare set­
ting who did not speak Spanish. The children were also able to
identify Spanish and English speakers in their environments both at
home and in the childcare settings, and displayed impressive lin­
guistic awareness in their ability to understand and talk about their
experiences.

SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUAL DEVELOPMENT

When a family has a conscious policy of bringing up their children
bilingually, they usually worry about the effects of their decision on
their children's language development. Some researchers (for exam­
ple, Dunn 1959 and Swain 1972) report that children who are
becoming bilingual simultaneously can be somewhat slower in cer­
tain aspects of their language development, and may use a smaller
range of vocabulary or less complex sentences in each language.
They may also combine elements of the two languages for a time.
Saunders (1982, p. 138) reports such utterances as 'Peter's dog
Smoochie has got a gebrochenes bein', which means, 'Peter's dog
Smoochie has got a broken leg'. For children who become bilin­
gual simultaneously, using two languages from birth, confusion is
usually limited and short-lived; by the age of five or six or even
earlier, they have usually caught up with their peers, as well as hav­
ing the advantage of speaking two languages rather than one.
Factors facilitating similtaneous language development
There are several factors which will assist children who are becom­
ing bilingual in a simultaneous situation. One of the most
important factors is to set up a situation in which there is a consis­
tent pattern of language use. The family, or family and carers, also
need to make sure that there is a need for the child to use two lan­
guages. Language for young children is a process of social
interaction and negotiation (Halliday 1975). If there is no need,
there is no motivation. There are many ways in which such a situa­
tion may be established. (See the Romaine typology listed earlier.)
The issue of how to set up a situation in an early childhood set­
ting in which there will be a pattern of consistency is one which
must be discussed among the staff and with the families of the chil-
46 ONE CHILDHOOD MANY LANGUAGES

dren in the program. This is particularly important when bilingual

st::iff are part of the program. Once decisions about language use
have been made, they must be monitored carefully, and revised
when appropriate.
Another important factor is the degree of community support
for both languages. A diglossic situation is helpful, i.e. one in which
the community provides venues in which both languages are need­
ed. Certain language communities such as the Jewish and
Armenian communities in Australia consciously maintain diglossic
situations. It may be that the dominant language in a community is
used in business and in formal personal interactions, while the
minority language is used in church and in close personal interac­
tions. If the minority language is used only in the home, with no
support in the surrounding community (in other words, Type
Three or Four), it will gradually die out-a phenomenon known
as language shift.
A particular danger point for families who are living in a com­
munity which is not diglossic, but who want their children to
learn and retain the home language, comes when the children
begin the compulsory years of schooling. It becomes very obvious
to the children if English is the only language valued by teachers
and peers. It is common for a situation to arise in which the par­
ents speak to the children in the home language, but the children
speak to their parents and to each other in English. Gradually, the
children's productive ability in the home language decreases,
although they may maintain their receptive ability, i.e. the ability
to understand what is said to them. By the time they have their
own children, they are more comfortable in English, and so
English will probably be used in the home, except perhaps with
grandparents.
A third factor which will influence whether children become
bilingual is whether there are opportunities for both languages to
, develop fully as the children grow older. When children enter an
early childhood setting, they are able to use their home language
(whether this language is English or a language other than English)
at that entry level. In other words, they are able to use their home
language in the way in which most three-year-olds or five-year­
olds or seven-year-olds use language. However, if they are to be
able to use their first language at a level beyond this, they must be
able to extend their language range to include the experiences of
school learning, literacy, discussion of abstract ideas and technical
information. This implies the need for both conceptual and lin-
 GROWING UP BILINGUALLY 47

guistic extension­
lear ning to use the
home language at an
increased level of
abstraction. Included in
such extension must be
the ability to hypothe­
sise, to compare and
contrast, and to explain
how and why things
happen. Children
should lear n to read
and write in the home
language; and they
need to learn to use the
language in new domains-for example, in hobbies such as pho­ Figure 2.3:
tography or sport. If such opportunities are not actively sought and Bilingual preschool
children sing songs
found, the child's home language may remain restricted, both in
and play games in
terms of age appropriateness and developmental appropriateness. their home
languages.
LA.NGUA.GE A. WA.RE:NESS
VERSUS BILINGUAL £ DUCA.TION
However supportive the home situation, it is unlikely that children
will become bilingual without support from both educational insti­
tutions and the community. On the other hand, however supportive
the educational institution or the community, it is unlikely that chil­
dren will become bilingual without family support. This is an issue
which must be faced and discussed when community language pro­
grams are introduced. One or two hours a week will not enable a
child to become bilingual unless this time is supplemented with
other experiences outside class time. Families and schools need to
cooperate in this area if programs are to have optimal effect.
However, even limited language programs may be useful in
developing all children's awareness of languages. There are many
reasons why language awareness is very important. One of these is
to counter an ethnocentric approach to language-Skutnabb­
Kangas (1988) calls it linguicism. It is important for young children
to know that there are many different ways of communicating,
both in spoken and written forms and in other forms such as braille
and sign language. Such knowledge should be part of the develop­
ment of initial metalinguistic awareness.
48 ONE CHILDHOOD MANY LANGUAGES

SUCCESSIVE BILINGUAL DEVELOPMENT

Many children do not become bilingual from birth. Instead, they
grow up in a home in which only one language is spoken. The
language may be English, or it may be a language other than
English. The second language is learnt at a later time. This phe­
nomenon, where in one language is learnt after the first language
has been established, is known as successive bilingualism.
For monolingual families, successive bilingualism is the norm.
Occasionally, even bilingual families choose successive rather than
simultaneous bilingualism for their children. In cases of successive
bilingual development, families may choose one of the following
strategies which do not involve the use of two languages from
birth. Successive bilingualism results from the choice to introduce a
new language at a particular time in a child's life. There are two
main pattern choices:

1. Type One: Home language only. This strategy is used when

family members are fluent in one language and choose to speak
this language only to their children. In Australia, this may hap­
pen with families who speak a non-dominant language. They
may feel that the children are bound to learn English at school,
so they do not have to worry at home about exposing them to
English. The use of English within the home is therefore dis­
couraged. When the children begin school, it is common for
them to use English in peer communication. This strategy of
using only the home language within the home is also com­
mon among monolingual Engl ish-speaking families in
Australia, who may wait until their children are in primary
school or high school before encouraging them to study a
language other than English.
For example, Robert and Paula are monolingual English
speakers, and English only is spoken within the home. They
want their eight-year-old son to learn a new language and so
have enrolled him in the school's Japanese community language
program. They plan to visit Japan during the summer vacation.
2. Type Two: Dominant language only, used by families in which
the dominant language of the community is not the dominant
language of the family. Type Two was often the pattern of lan­
guage use advised by Australian teachers and caregivers in the
past, who believed that it would help children to learn English
if families spoke it in the home as well as in the education or
care program. This approach is sometimes adopted by families
 GROWING UP BILINGUALLY 49

who feel it may be confusing for a young child to learn two

languages simultaneously. In this strategy, the family chooses to
speak the dominant language for the first few years of their chil­
dren's lives and to introduce the non-dominant language later,
after they feel the children have learnt the dominant language.
The introduction of the non-dominant language may occur
when a child begins to attend preschool or daycare, or when
the need arises because of some external reason,such as a visit
from grandparents from overseas. In other cases-for example,
when adults have been forced through political circumstances to
use a language which they do not consider to be their own­
Figure 2.4:
they may make a conscious choice to opt for language shift and
When children start
to adopt the dominant language of their new home. school, they often
For example, Tran and Nguyen are refugees. They have a new need to operate in
baby and a three-year-old child. They are anxious to become English only.
part of their new / ountry and
speak only English at home.
Their English is not very good,
but they hope that it will
improve with practice.

There are dangers with the Ty pe

Two pattern of language use. It may
severely restrict communication
among family members. Also, the
children often resist learning the
home language later if they have
not spoken it in the home from
birth.
Most children in Australia who
become bilingual do so after they
begin their education. For non­
dominant language children, this
usually means learning English in
an early childhood education or
care setting. English continues to
be the language of educational
instruction. For dominant language
children, it is usually because their
family wishes to offer them the
opportunity to learn another lan­
guage at an early age.
50 ONE CHILDHOOD MANY LANGUAGES

LEARNING LANGUAGE AT HOME

VERSUS IN E DUCATION AN D CARE SETTINGS
i Learning a language in an institutional setting is very different from
learning a language in the home environment. First, and probably
most important, is the fact that children already know what it is to use
language to communicate. Their level of frustration may therefore be
great if they find themselves in a situation in which the language that
worked in other situations does not work in the new situation.
Learning a language in an institutional setting also means a
change from the situation at home where the child is usually the
only learner (unless there are special circumstances, such as multiple
births or home is of the Type Two pattern described above). There
is usually a greater ratio of adult target models to child learners in a
home language-learning situation. In an early childhood setting,
there are many peers and relatively few adults. The personal
involvement and emotional connection between adults and chil­
dren are not the same-the teachers and caregivers are exfamilial
and more objective. The higher child-to-adult ratio also means
fewer opportunities for one-to-one adult-child interaction and less
individualised attention.
Shared content changes dramatically. Within the home, knowl­
edge, values, beliefs and friends are all held in common. They are
shared experience, the fabric of everyday life. In early childhood
education and care settings, however, children's peers may speak
many different languages and may come from homes which differ
in values, in cultural and linguistic experiences, in socioeconomic
status and in family composition.
Children in education and care settings also have less control
over the daily routine-its patterning, its content, and its require­
ments for conformity. Time, as determined by others, begins to
play a more important role. Time, for babies, is largely controlled
by internal concerns and physical experiences. In daycare settings
for children (birth to two years), the very fact of having to care for
a group of infants and toddlers often limits individual determina­
tions of feeding times, sleeping times, and so on. Even at the
preschool stage in children's lives, there may be pressures arising
from anxieties on the part of either or both the family and the edu­
cators that children must learn English before starting school. To
this end, children may find their grammar or their pronunciation
corrected, or they may be asked to repeat utterances, to clarify, to
explain. The emphasis may be more on how something is commu­
nicated than on what is being communicated.
 GROWING UP BILINGUALLY 51

A D DITIVE VERSUS SUBTRACTIVE

BILINGUALISM

In education, becoming bilingual is described as either an a dditive

(positive) or a subtractive (negative) process. If it is additive, a new
language is added to the existing language(s), and children are able
to function in both the new and the existing languages. If the
process is a subtractive one, the new language gradually replaces the
existing language(s).
The experience of becoming bilingual in a subtractive way is,
unfortunately, common for young children in Australian educa­
tional institutions. The most common situation is for all schooling
to be carried out in English, and for languages other than English
to be gradually replaced by English.
Learning English in this way can yave many negative results,
such as loss of confidence, social isolation, and the beginnings of a
fundamental questioning of identity and belonging. Amy Tan's
book (1990, pp. 40-41) documents this experience well. Here a
Chinese-American girl is speaking of her relationship with some of
her dead mother's friends:
In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as
unmindful ...They see daughters who grow impatient when their
mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they
explain things in fractured English ...They see daughters who will
bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from
generation to generation.

The process of subtractive bilingual development can have negative

consequences for families as well as for their children. Families may
be very hurt by a lack of interest on the part of their children in
the family language, background and history. The disruptions to
family relationships which may occur when children undertake
their initial preschool experiences in a language which is not their
home language are described by Wong Fillmore (1991). She warns
that when the first language is lost as the second is learnt, the
process is a costly one, both to individual children and their fami­
lies and to society.
In an additive situation, however, the experience of learning
English in an institutional setting can be a positive experience
which opens up a new world of friends, of experiences, and of
knowledge without it threatening previous experiences, values and
relationships.
Children entering an early childhood program already have a
52 ONE CHILDHOOD MANY LANGUAGES

store of knowledge and experience on which to draw in order to

make sense of the new language and the new experiences which
they encounter. What happens will depend very much on the atti­
tudes, values and educational philosophies of the early childhood
teachers and caregivers with whom they come into contact, and on
the links or absence of links between home and school.
There are three important considerations in deter mining
whether the process of learning a new language is beneficial or
destructive:

1. The process of learning a second language should be a positive

experience for the child. In Australia, many children become
bilingual successively through their schooling. Most of the chil­
dren who become bilingual are minority group children, and the
second language they learn is English, the language of the major­
ity. Unfortunately, their bilingualism is often limited. If the home
language is not supported in the educational settings attended by
the children, the shift to English is rapid. The children are able
to use English only to speak about many of the new things they
learn, as English is the language in which the new concepts have
been encountered. English is the dominant language of the
school, of television, videos, transport, and so on. The home
language can become stunted, with children's contribution to
conversations in the family restricted to the home experiences of
children as young as two or three, depending on the age at
which English begins to take over in the children's communica­
tion patterns. The children often learn to read in English only
and so are restricted to material written in English. It is common
for children in Australia to reach the end of their primary
schooling having gained one language-English-but having lost
much of their home language. For these children, the learning of
English has been a subtractive process, in which English has
largely replaced the home language.
When the learning of a second language is an additive process,
the home language is maintained and developed and the new
language is added to the children's existing language repertoire.
This approach underlies models of bilingual education programs
such as the French Immersion programs which originated in
Canada (Swain 1980; Cummins & Swain 1986; Harley 1991;
Rado 1991). Most of the children who enrol at the kindergarten
level in Immersion programs are from middle-class, monolingual
English-speaking families who are acutely aware of the vocation­
al advantages which their children will gain if they grow up
 GROWING UP BILINGUALLY 53

bilingual in both French and English in a country which has two

official languages. In Immersion programs, children ty pically
undertake the first years of school totally in French, including
the establishing of initial literacy and numeracy. Later, English­
language subjects are introduced so that by Year Six, the children
are studying for half the day in French and the other half in
English. These programs have a high status in Canada, and entry
into them is very competitive. When the children in Immersion
programs emerge from their schooling, they have gained a new
language without having lost their home language.
2. There should be opportunities outside the program in which
the new language can be used for communicative purposes.
This can be particularly difficult for monolingual families to
provide. However, if they wish their children to become func­
tional bilinguals, it i s worth the effo r t . Community
organisations, pen-pals for older children, movies and videos,
books and audiotapes, restaurants, holiday trips, all can assist
children to extend their functional range of language use.
3. The socioeconomic backgrounds of the children must be taken
into account in planning educational models. Many sociopolitical
issues often become confused with language issues. Language sta­
tus is one such issue. It can be argued that in Australia only one
language has real status-English. Asian languages are currently
Federal government priority languages. r'owever, many children
may arrive at school speaking languages othe'r than English which
are not identified as a priority. Early childhood teachers and carers
will generally focus primarily on the more immediate benefits of
bilingualism for children in terms of the children's social and cog­
nitive development and the development of positive self-esteem,
rather than on their vocational potential as adults.
The issue of minority group membership and socioeconomic
issues can become confused. Christina Paulston (1982, p. 9) sum­
marises the research into bilingual education in this way:
The research findings are quite clear on one point (Paulston 1975):
upper and middle class children do quite well whether they are
schooled in the mother tongue or in a second language (L2)
although we don't really know why that is so.

Because of historical and economic factors, many of the children

in Australia's early childhood programs who come from a home in
which a language other than English is spoken also come from a
socioeconomically disadvantaged background. These children are of
54 ONE CHILDHOOD MANY LANGUAGES

particular concern to early childhood educators. The Immersion pro­

grams described earlier tend to have as their clientele the children of
upwardly mobile professional families. The implication of the research
reported by Paulston is that for young children who are socioeco­
nomically disadvantaged, home language support and a process of
additive, not subtractive, bilingualism is of critical importance.

becoming bidialectal
FOR SOME CHILDREN, the situation is not one of needing to use
two different languages, one at home and one at school, but of
having to use two dialects. In Australia, this may be so for immi­
grant children if, for example, they learn a different dialect of
Italian in a community language program from the one which they
speak at home; or if a bilingual staff member speaks a different
dialect of Chinese from that spoken by the children.
It is also often the case with Aboriginal children who may speak
a variant of English at home which is different from that used in the
dominant society. There has been a historical relationship of depen­
dency between many Aboriginal communities and the dominant
European-Australian group. Mutual respect and equality of oppor­
tunity will not result from a policy of language shift or of dialect
shift. The Aboriginal Early Language Development P rogram
(AELDP, DSE, 1987) advocates that teachers need to recognise
Aboriginal English as a valid means of communicating. This strategy
is also designed to reduce the number of Aboriginal students in sup­
port classes for children with mild intellectual disability.
Aboriginal children, like all children, must be able to operate
effectively both within their immediate community and in the
wider world. Genuine biculturalism, including bilingualism or
bidialectalism (whichever is appropriate), assists in achieving this
goal. (For a description of a number of initiatives in Aboriginal
communities, see EQ Australia, Summer, 1993.)
Earlier this century, non-dominant dialects were often stigma­
tised as lesser, impure versions of a single, correct and proper
standard. Some readers may remember the type of English voice
known as BBC English, which was considered suitable for radio
and television announcers although it was quite foreign to many if
not most Australians. This view is changing with the recognition
that appropriateness of language is an important part of language
effectiveness. For example, it would be quite inappropriate for a
 GROWING UP BILINGUALLY SS

child to say to a school principal, 'G'day mate, how ya going?' , or

for one dockside labourer to say to another two, 'Would you gen­
tlemen kindly assist me in this task?' Language varies according to
who is speaking, to whom they are speaking and in what circum­
stances. Children whose language or dialect is stigmatised at school
may come to see themselves and their families as inferior. If they
accept the implied verdict, they may reject education as an institu­
tion, or they may replace their home dialect with the school
dialect. If they choose the second option and abandon the home
dialect in favour of the school standard, they can find themselves
rejected by people in their former speech community.
If we accept and value language diversity, we must also accept
and value dialect diversity. This applies not only to spoken language
but also to written language. Bidialectalism includes literacy as well
as oracy. As much thought needs to be put into planning programs
which help children to become bidialectal as those which help them
to become bilingual. Lemke (1990, p. 320) suggests that 'what has
been taught for generations, and taught successfully only to very
few, is not literacy as such, but only a single highly specialised lan­
guage variety, alien to all native speakers of English, though much
more alien to some than to others' . For some people, and perhaps
for many teachers and caregivers, this is a radical way of looking at
language, but it is consistent with the view that languages and
dialects are ways of creating and sharing meanings, and that the
meanings so created and expressed are both varied and valid.
Written language is not simply oral language written down.
Written language is usually more formal and needs contextual
information and cohesive referencing that may be omitted in oral
language. The issue of the demands of the written form needs to
be distinguished from the issue of elitism, in which only a certain
type of writing is considered to be appropriate and is enshrined in
a particular literary canon. Students need to gain access to domi­
nant for ms of expression, whether written or oral. In both
domains, the process should be additive, not subtractive.

LANGUAGE: R£TR1£VAL
An issue which may face young Aboriginal children in particular is
the issue of language retrieval, as opposed to language maintenance
and/ or development. Because of government policies in Australia
described by Read (1982), many parents of young Aboriginal chil­
dren were removed from their families when they were young, and
sent to live with English-speaking non-Aboriginal people, often on