ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses interviews with local residents about their attitudes to hearing and seeing languages other than English in public spaces. It discusses structure and agency as a theoretical frame and the policy discourses and ideologies which shape the linguistic ecology from the top-down. In sociolinguistics, agency is framed in terms of human interaction with others against a backdrop of larger social forces. Ideologies which drive language choices are relevant here on multiple levels, including top-down policies and people's beliefs. There was no shortage of monolingual ideologies in the Australian context in pre-multiculturalism policy papers. The dominance and legitimacy of English in Australia, even though it is not an official language, is evident in all spheres of life. Chinese is used in the signage for mutual intelligibility across groups, as different ethnic groups, such as Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Hokkien, can read and understand it.
