Hrvatski jezik medu pripadnicima drugog narastaja Australaca hrvatskog podrijetla [Language maintenance amongst second-generation Croatian-Australians]

This paper gives a brief statistical overview of the number of Croatian-speakers in Australia in relation to other ethnic or community languages and concentrates on aspects of language use amongst second-generation Croatian-Australians. Language maintenance or shift factors are framed within an examination of language use within sociolinguistic domains: home/family; personal/intimate; leisure/social life/religious affiliations; media; workplace/shopping/ neighbourhood; education; spouse/partner; (future) children. Second-generation members are generally English-dominant in terms of their proficiency and English is the unmarked choice in a large number of situations. Croatian is the unmarked choice with informants parents and with others members of the first generation. However, the language variety Croatian and English is used in a number of situations such as leisure, religious activities, the workplace and even eduation. Further, Croatian and English are frequently used as the languages to swear in, communicate with pets and to a lesser with the domain media. Few informants have children and so projections about language use with the succeeding, third generation remain hypothetical. Informants do report a desire for their own future children to gain a knowledge of Croatian although there are a variety of responses to how this can be achieved.