Assessment of the language level of the August 2007 draft of the resource booklet 'Becoming an Australian Citizen.’

Ingrid Piller, Tim McNamara

    Research output: Book/ReportCommissioned report

    Abstract

    We assess the language level of the August 2007 draft of the resource booklet Becoming an Australian Citizen as complex and difficult on a range of measures of reading difficulty. It is certainly out of the reach of a basic user of English and would present difficulties for many native speakers of English with limited education and/or limited familiarity with texts of this type. Citizenship applicants with basic English only will not be able to access the proposed content nor pass the proposed test, i.e. the proposed citizenship test will exclude applicants with limited English proficiency and/or literacy from citizenship. In our view, the only way for the proposed test not to discriminate on the basis of proficiency and/or literacy in English would be to make the resource booklet and the test available in languages other than English, including “talking books” for non-literate citizenship applicants.
    Original languageEnglish
    Place of PublicationCurtin, Australia
    PublisherFECCA
    Commissioning bodyFederation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia
    Number of pages4
    Publication statusPublished - 2007

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