This edited volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of language use and language learning among young children. Too much of what we know (or what we think we know) about first, second, and multilingual language acquisition and use is based on research from United States and European contexts and focuses on a small number of languages. This volume makes serious headway in correcting this imbalance by bringing together 13 empirically rich chapters on language use in Indigenous Australian homes and schools. Many of the studies draw their general theoretical orientation, if not their research methods, from the language socialization paradigm (Schieffelin & Ochs, Reference Schieffelin and Ochs1986), and all are informed by a dual focus on anthropology and linguistics.
Indigenous children in Australia are reared in vastly different environments and within highly varied and fluid language landscapes and practices. Simpson and Wigglesworth provide a window into this linguistic and cultural diversity with solid empirical description and analysis across each of the four parts of this volume. The first part focuses on language and learning at home, with an emphasis on the questions and narrative routines surrounding young Indigenous children. The second part follows Indigenous children into the classroom, where standard English is the medium of instruction and often a new variety for students. The next part focuses more tightly on three educational issues: oral assessment of Indigenous languages, speech pathology assessment for Indigenous students, and hearing loss. The final part takes a broader sociolinguistic approach and discusses the implications of some of these patterns with an eye to language contact and mixing as well as the shift toward English. Taken together, the chapters provide a clear, compelling, and novel description of the linguistic diversity and discursive complexity of these children’s environments as well as the challenges in establishing educational policies and practices that build upon the many strengths and skills these students bring with them to school.
