[TimorLesteStudies] New Articles

[Michael Leach]

Kerry Taylor-Leech (2011): Timor-Leste: Sustaining and maintaining the
national languages in education, Current Issues in Language Planning,
12:2, 289-308 
Abstract:
This article presents an overview of language-in-education policy
development between
1999 and 2010 in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. In the decade
since
independence language-in-education policy in this newly independent
country has
been dominated by debates about the medium of instruction. Over time,
policy has
shifted from an authoritarian stance that insisted on monolingual,
submersion
schooling in a former colonial language to one that accepts the need to
accommodate
linguistic diversity in order to promote social inclusion. Recent
policy documents
allow for instruction in the vernacular languages, designated in the
2002 Constitution
as national languages. The article identifies some key drivers that
have provided
impetus for this change in orientation, a change which offers
opportunities for localised
language planning from below. The paper therefore suggests that the
acceptance of
agency at both macro- and micro-levels will play a critical role in
sustaining and
maintaining the national languages in East Timorese education.
 
Taylor-Leech, Kerry Jane (2011) 'Language choice as an index of
identity: linguistic landscape in Dili, Timor-Leste', International
Journal of Multilingualism, First published on: 14 June 2011 (iFirst) 
Abstract:
This article aims to show how language choice indexes social and
national identity
in the linguistic landscape of Dili, the capital city of Timor-Leste.
The linguistic
landscape is examined in the light of the country’s current language
situation, its
colonial legacies and its ongoing development challenges. In this
study, the
iconicity, indexicality and visual grammar of official and non-official
public
signage in a capital city of the global south is discussed and the use
of language in a
range of signs is further analysed using the notion of language on
display. The
implications for language policy are also explored, taking account of
the wider
processes of social, political and economic change at work in this new
nation.
 
 
Associate Professor Michael Leach
Politics & Public Policy
Faculty of Life and Social Sciences
Swinburne University of Technology
PO Box 218 Hawthorn VIC 
AUSTRALIA 3122
Phone: +61 3 9214 5357
Fax: +61 3 9819 0821
mleach at swin.edu.au
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