Finding Relevance in the Imperfect Italo-Australian Vernacular
This presentation makes complicated the seemingly straightforward correlation
between language and community. I situate my discussion in Melbourne’s Italian
Museum, Museo Italiano where, in 2017-18, community members were invited to
share their experiences and perspectives to help find points of future relevance in
the Italian migrant story for the community museum and the community more
broadly.
As participants walk through the exhibition, the use of a Standard Italian
incorporated as soundscape, for object labelling and in interpretive text throughout
the gallery becomes an unexpected point of contention and prompts in many, the
recollection of the use of language as a historic and political indicator for levels of
social standing and refinement, of being ‘more’ or ‘less’ Italian. Their comments
expose some of the ‘cultural baggage’ associated with learning, and indeed, leaving
language at school.
Thinking through these experiences, I ask, how might the addition of alternative
representations of language as fluid, dynamic and as a process of whole body
listening complement and enhance traditional attitudes to language as a skill to be
perfected?
Ultimately, this presentation argues that transitions in language, if framed as the
result of changing social conditions and as a celebration of the diasporic experience
can potentially revitalise the value of community language learning: there is
relevance and hope in acknowledging the imperfection.
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