ABSTRACT

This chapter summarizes the demographics of multilingualism in Sydney in order to create a backdrop for discussion of issues related to linguistic diversity in the city. The aim is to depict the diverse picture of Sydney’s linguistic landscape, as well as to foreground some of the key issues related to the presence and maintenance of this diversity. Key issues discussed include: (i) how rapid demographic shifts are bringing new challenges to service providers; (ii) the issue of diversity within diversity – the vast number of immigrant languages with diverse historical, cultural, demographic and vitality aspects is coupled with the challenge of attending to the needs of emergent communities and their languages; (iii) the need for special attention and support for refugee-background speakers; (iv) the contrast between policy discourses and everyday discourses about the value of multilingualism and the gap between policy and practice; and (v) the monolingual ideologies which are present in Australian society and are often combined with xenophobic attitudes. The chapter concludes with new directions for researching multilingualism as social practice in urban settings.