Language, Religion and Socialization among Bangladeshi migrants in Australia   — The Association Specialists

Language, Religion and Socialization among Bangladeshi migrants in Australia   (20157)

Farzana Yesmen Dr Chowdhury 1
  1. Institute of Modern Languages, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, Bangladesh

The interplay between language, culture and socialization is an increasingly important area in Sociolinguistics. Research shows that religion is a significant factor in language and culture maintenance, which promotes socialization among Australian migrant communities such as Greek, African, Egyptian, Lebanese, and Sudanese. The Bangladeshi migrant community is diverse in terms of religion: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, but the majority of them are Muslim. It has, however, attracted comparatively little research to date. This study is an in-depth exploration of the effect of religion on the maintenance of language, culture and socialisation among Bangladeshi migrants in Australia. As part of exploring such effect, this study will not only consider the extent of language use and religion-specific practices as an object of research in its own right but rather explore why and how the participants make sense of their identities over time in different contexts based on their wide range of linguistic and religious practices. Two rounds of individual semi-structured interviews will be conducted with 20 Bangladeshi-born migrants. Data analysis will examine their policy of language use in various religious practices, festivals and socialisation in the host society. Findings of this research will show whether language plays a significant role in positioning their religious as well as cultural identity in Australia. The most striking result will emerge from the data when it explores whether they practise their religion with other migrant communities related to the respective religion or only with Bangladeshi community members. This study offers a unique vantage point from which to consider how the practice of religion of this group of migrants can inform their accurate understanding of multilingualism, language ideological stances and stances towards language, religion-specific cultural practices and socialisation in Australia.