Language choice, language mixing and language attitudes : Indonesians in Australia

The thesis is about language choice, language mixing and language attitudes among Indonesian bilinguals in Australia. It is argued here that each of these features of bilingual behaviour can reveal the language maintenance situation in the Indonesian speech community, i.e. either active or passive language maintenance. The location of bilingualism investigated for language choice behaviour is the family domain. Language choice patterns in this domain have revealed that ingroup languages such as Bahasa Indonesia (BI) or the ethnic vernacular are functionally very dominant in the spouse-spouse role relationship. English is used predominantly between siblings, while other family role relationships have been characterized by language use ranging from BI to BI/English mixing and to English.[...]