Event: Linguistic Inclusion and Good Governance in Multilingual Australia

Readers are warmly invited to the next webinar of the series of webinars of the Linguistic Justice Society (LJS):
When: Friday 28 July 2023, 1am (CEST)/9am (AEST)/Thursday 27 July 2023, 7pm (EDT)

Alexandra Grey (University of Technology Sydney), “Linguistic Inclusion and Good Governance in Multilingual Australia”

Abstract. This presentation reports on my 2018-2021 investigation into ‘Good Governance in Multilingual Urban Australia’. That project included three studies: an audit of NSW legislation and policy that does (not) provide a framework for decision-making and standards of multilingual government communications (undertaken with Alyssa Severin); a case study of such communication outputs from the NSW government, across portfolios (undertaken with Alyssa Severin); and a case study of multilingualism in public Covid-19 communications from NSW and Commonwealth governments.

The Covid case study also includes an analytic review of international human rights about language and health, as well as the commentary of international organizations as to how to take a rights-based approach to pandemic communications in order to fulfill certain international law obligations upon Australia (and other nations). That review found new expectations emerging that governments’ multilingual health communications be not merely partially available, but rather produced without (unreasonable) linguistic discrimination; with minority communities’ involvement at preparatory stages; strategic planning; and an eye to effectiveness. In explaining what more effective communication could entail, I advocate assessing government communications’ Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, and Adaptability — that is, the ‘Four As’ recognized by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and crisis communications scholars.

In this seminar for the Linguistic Justice Society, I will present the key findings of each of these three studies, and draw them together by inquiring whether developments in governments’ public communications during the pandemic have given Australia any lasting improvements in linguistic and social inclusion. The research leads to a novel suggestion for 3 Rs of response to recurrent problems in governments reaching, and including, linguistically diverse publics: (further) Research; Redesigning online communications; and Rights-based Regulation (or Standard Setting).  The three studies have each also given rise to an awareness of ‘dead-ends’ and need for government-partnered research in this space.

Bio: Dr Alexandra Grey is a Chancellor’s Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney in the Faculty of Law. This seminar draws on work published in The Conversation, the Griffith Law Review (with Alyssa Severin, 2021 and 2022) and in the Sydney Law Review.

Alexandra is also the author of Language Rights in a Changing China: A National Overview and Zhuang Case Study (De Gruyter, 2021). Free Mandarin excerpts and an overview in Zhuang are available here. Her new research examines the role of the state in Aboriginal language renewal, in Australia. Alexandra runs the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Researchers’ Network, which workshop attendees are welcome to join: https://mailman.sydney.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/law_linguistics_network  

How to attend

To receive the weblink for the talk, please fill out this form (if possible, using your institutional academic email address): https://forms.gle/pXKTzkxxe2jw2xnJ8

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For more details about, and to subscribe to, the LJS, please visit:  https://hiw.kuleuven.be/ripple/research/linguisticjusticesociety