The East Timorese in Australia: multilingual repertoires, language attitudes, practices and identity in the diaspora

Abstract

This article explores language repertoires, attitudes, and practices amongst members of the East Timorese diaspora in Australia. It relies on quantitative and qualitative data gathered through a recent sociolinguistic survey, ethnographic observation, as well as on general observations of online language use. Our study reveals a complex and variable multilingualism that reflects in the first instance specific sociolinguistic conditions and changing language policies in East Timor, leading to a reshaping of language repertoires over generations in that country. Participants, mostly raised in East Timor, are more multilingual than their parents, but their children raised in Australia show signs of shift to English, as well as evidence of reduced multilingualism. An increasing emphasis on English is coupled with a rise in the importance assigned, more generally, to Tetum amongst most East Timorese at the expense of Portuguese and other languages. Tetum is most strongly linked to East Timorese identity whilst Portuguese and other languages show signs of restricted use and status, if not decline, in the Australian context. At the same time, the Hakka Chinese sub-group of East Timorese maintain in Australia, as in East Timor, a different linguistic patterning coupled with a strong sense of their own ethnic and linguistic identity.