Questions of fluency in Australian languages revitalisation

Abstract

Fluency is a concept that can be interpreted in different ways, from the simple capacity to produce speech clearly, to a measure of someone's overall ability to speak a specific language.It is also often used impressionistically based on very little evidence, and the description of someone as fluent sometimes just seems to mean, 'speaks it better than me'.How relevant and useful are ideas of fluency to revitalising languages which may only be spoken partially by a few speakers?How fluent does a language educator need to be?How can or should fluency in these languages be measured, and who should do the measuring?Is it a task for government, schools, universities or community agencies?This paper canvasses possible answers to some of these questions.It will also review some examples of how other decolonising peoples are attempting to address these issues to see if their experience can help us deal with issues of fluency in Indigenous Australian languages revitalisation.

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