Code Switching and Language Change Arabic English Bilingualism in Australia Article Critique

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Cruickshank, K. (2008). Arabic-English bilingualism in Australia. In J. Cummins and N.H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Ed., Vol. 5: Bilingual Education, 281 -- 291. Springer Science & Business Media LLC.

Bilingualism, a sociolinguistic phenomenon growing out of language contact situations, is an object of fruitful study. Arabic-English bilingualism in New South Wales (NSW) was examined by Cruickshank (2008), focusing mostly on the issues related to the teaching of Arabic in community, Primary, and Secondary schools and language attitudes. Cruickshank ends with a prediction of further shifts from Arabic to English with through the impact of several factors on language attitudes toward Arabic as an immigrant language, such as segmentation of socioeconomic status "and the ethnic/language backgrounds of students," technological advances and the effect of international migration, and organizations and facilities being established "as the Arabic-speaking communities become more established" (288-290).

Beginning with a historical overview of the Arabic language in Austrailia, Cruickshank shows how Arabic became "the fourth main language spoken, after English, in Austrailia" after three waves of immigrants 1880 to 1975 brought Arabic speakers from a wide range of religions and a variety of Middle Eastern countries (281-82). Cruickshank describes the expected presence of a high and low register of Arabic: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the formal register, and as the lower register, "the dialect for everyday communication," more precisely rendered as the two registers of "Fus-ha" (high) and "Ammya" (low) for the varieties of regional Arabic dialects (282; Haitham 2012). In the 1970's and 80's, the Australian government began to adopt a language policy toward indigenous and immigrant languages that promoted Arabic bilingual education, Saturday schools in Arabic, and even postsecondary Arabic language courses for credit (283). Yet, with the "economic rationalism" that the Australian government adopted in the 1990's, the government support of Asian trade languages took precedence over Arabic, which since then has largely been ignored (283).

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Cruickshank outlines how language attitudes toward Arabic became even more negatvie with the arrival of the "War on Terror" following 9/11, the subsequent youth riots of 2006, and highly publicized crimes that influenced public opinion (289). In Community Schools, where the stated intention is "language maintenance with children attending for several hours in the afternoon or on the weekend each week," "more than 50% of the teachers are either unqualified or have qualifications unrecognised in Australia" (287). Arabic instruction in Primary and Secondary Schools has suffered because of waning government attention, lack of evaluation, and lack of materials standardization (287-288). Moreover, the government-produced language syllabi meant for use in Arabic language instruction "have little relevance to the issues of teaching and learning a diasporic and diglossic community language such as Arabic," and what is worse, "few links have been made beyond local and national curricula with diasporic communities in the UK, Canada and the U.S.A. (290).

Cruickshank's study adequately treated attitudes toward Arabic and Arabic teaching in New South Wales, but he seemed to ignore the use of Arabic in other regions of Australia, where the less concentration of Arabic speakers may cause many of the factors discussed in the article inapplicable. Therefore, the stated focus of the study might be better rendered "Arabic-English bilingualism in New South Wales, Australia." Also, the author reflected an interest mainly in curriculum reform, stating "Appropriate curricula" that "reflect the present needs and practices of the communities" and "the growing reality of Arabic-background families across the globe" should be developed with the goals being "the ability to live, work and study across national boundaries in English and Arabic" (290). Furthermore, the author's description of a shift from Arabic to English seems simplistic in that the English target is depicted as monolithic, when in reality many dialects of English exist in Australia. More precision on.....

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