ABSTRACT
Sydney is second only to Melbourne in the size of its Greek-Australian population. With migration declining after 1971, the majority of people now identifying as having Greek ancestry are second, third or fourth generation Australian-born. Language and culture maintenance are relatively strong among the children and grandchildren of the original migrants, and visiting Greece is often seen as a key priority. However, communication in the ancestral homeland can require managing subtle and complex aspects of interpersonal communication which must frequently be negotiated in Greek with limited proficiency and/or pragmatic competence. The chapter draws on interviews with 20 second, third and fourth generation Greek-Australians. Participants reported that their communication experiences in Greece resulted in a range of experiences of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic failure, but some of these had the potential to lead to learning. Findings suggested that the participants’ responses, reactions, and the extent to which pragmatic dissonance impacted on their sense of identity and feelings of belonging. The study also highlights the difficulty of attaining full pragmatic competence in heritage language contexts, particularly for third and subsequent generations, and suggests that pragmatics should receive more attention in heritage language education.
