ABSTRACT
At one restaurant in an area of Sydney known for Latin American shops and restaurants, the owner of a restaurant explains that since a large part of the clientele, particularly at lunch time, are either Colombian like herself, or at least Spanish-speaking from other Latin American countries, Spanish is used ‘a hundred per cent’ in the restaurant.
Excerpt 4.1 (RC: Restaurant owner, R: Researcher)
RC: A hundred per cent.
R: A hundred per cent?
RC: Yeah, a hundred per cent.
R: So all the staff are Spanish-speakers,
RC: No, no. Ah, the staff is from Indonesia. So we speak English, yeah. But they understand everything all our menu’s in Spanish and you tell them, like, to do this in Spanish dish, and they do it. They’re very good.
R: Right, so they’ve actually picked up quite a lot of Spanish? Interesting, interesting. So in the restaurant then you would have … you speak English to the Indonesian staff, and then they speak Indonesian to each other, and then you speak Spanish to the Spanish-speakers… Right. So there’s always the three.
RC: Yes yes.
