Article published In: Linguistic Diversity and Social Inclusion in Australia
Edited by Ingrid Piller
[Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 37:3] 2014
► pp. 249–261
Working it out
Migrants’ perspectives of social inclusion in the workplace
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 1 January 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.37.3.04maj
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.37.3.04maj
This paper explores the concept of social inclusion from the perspective of recent migrants, from language backgrounds other than English, at work in Australia. We adopt an understanding of social inclusion that acknowledges the importance of economic independence, while also considering migrants’ feelings of connectedness at work and their sense of belonging. Based on qualitative interviews with migrants collected two years apart, we explore the ways language and language practices can lead to feelings of inclusion or exclusion at work. The data suggests that migrants who felt included at work often had colleagues and/or bosses who actively supported and encouraged them in learning new skills, and made an effort to connect with them through small talk. In contrast, participants who felt excluded were unable to fully participate in work activities and/or workplace interaction because of limitations they or others placed upon them based on their English proficiency. We suggest that social inclusion, as it relates to employment, can also encompass different things for different people. For some, a sense of belonging is not promoted solely by having work or the ability to connect with colleagues, but also by obtaining employment of a type and level commensurate with their pre-migration status.
Keywords: employment, migrants, workplace communication, language learning
References (38)
AMES (2011). Words to work: The experiences of people in the Adult Migrant English Program in Melbourne. Melbourne: AMES.
Angouri, J. (2012). Managing disagreement in problem solving meeting talk. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(12), 1565–1579.
Bloch, A. (2000). Refugee settlement in Britain: The impact of policy on participation. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 26(1), 75–88.
Braun, V., – Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.
Butorac, D. (this volume). ‘Like a fish not in water’: How language and race mediate the social and economic inclusion of women migrants to Australia.
Campbell, S., & Roberts, C. (2007). Migration, ethnicity and competing discourses in the job interview: Synthesizing the institutional and personal. Discourse and Society, 181, 243–271.
Chiswick, B., Lee, Y. L., & Miller, P. (2003). Patterns of immigrant occupational attainment in a longitudinal survey. International Migration, 41(4), 47–69.
Colic-Peisker, V. (2005). ‘At least you’re the right colour’: Identity and social inclusion of Bosnian refugees in Australia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 311, 615–638.
(2009). Visibility, settlement success and life satisfaction in three refugee communities in Australia. Ethnicities, 9(175), 175–200.
Colic-Peisker, V., & Tilbury, F. (2006). Employment niches for recent refugees: Segmented labour market in 21st-century Australia. Journal of Refugee Studies, 191, 203–229.
Cools, C. A. (2006). Relational communication in intercultural couples. Language and Intercultural Communication, 6(3&4), 262–274.
Coupland, J. (2003). Small talk: Social functions. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 36(1), 1–6.
Crisp, B. R. (2010). Belonging, connectedness and social inclusion. Journal of Social Inclusion, 1(2), 123–132.
Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC). (2011). The settlement journey. Strengthening Australia through migration. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Derwing, T., Munro, M., & Thomson, R. (2007). A longitudinal study of ESL learners’ fluency and comprehensibility development. Applied Linguistics, 29(3), 359–380.
Duff, P. A., Wong, P., & Early, M. (2000). Learning language for work and life: The linguistic socialization of immigrant Canadians seeking careers in healthcare. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(1), 9–57.
Ho, C. (2009). Migration as feminisation? Chinese women’s experiences of work and family in Australia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32(3), 497–514.
Holmes, J. (2000). Talking English from 9 to 5: Challenges for ESL learners at work. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10(1), 125–140.
Holmes, J., – Marra, M. (2002). Having a laugh at work: How humour contributes to workplace culture. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1683–1710.
Holmes, J., Marra, M., Newton, J., Joe, A., Riddiford, N., & Vine, B. (2009). Enhancing sociopragmatic skills among professional qualified workers. (Language in the Workplace Occasional Papers No.10). Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington.
Holmes, J., & Riddiford, N.. (2011). From classroom to workplace: Tracking socio-pragmatic development. ELT Journal, 65(4), 376–386.
Li, D. (2000). The pragmatics of making requests in the L2 workplace: A case study of language socialisation. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(1), 58–87.
Louw, K. J., Derwing, T. M., & Abbott, M. L. (2010). Teaching pragmatics to L2 learners for the workplace: The job interview. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 66(5), 739–758.
Malthus, C., Holmes, J., & Major, G. (2005). Completing the circle: Research based classroom practice with EAL nursing students. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 11(1), 65–89.
Musgrave, S., & Bradshaw, J. (this volume). Language and social inclusion: Unexplored aspects of intercultural communication.
Piller, I., – Takahashi, K. (2011). Linguistic diversity and social inclusion. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14(4), 371–381.
Richardson, S., Stack, S., Lester, L., Healy, J., Ilsley, D., & Horrocks, J. (2004). The changing labour force experience of new migrants: Inter-wave comparisons for cohort 1 and 2 of the LSIA. Canberra: The National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University for the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.
Roberts, C. (2010). Language socialization in the workplace. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 301, 211–227.
Rogerson-Revell, P. (2007). Humour in business: A double-edged sword. A study of humour and style shifting in intercultural business meetings. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(1), 4–28.
Syed, J., & Murray, P. (2009). Combating the English language deficit: The labour market experiences of migrant women in Australia. Human Resource Management Journal, 19(4), 413–432.
Thomas, D. R. (2006). A general inductive approach for analyzing qualitative evaluation data. American Journal of Evaluation, 27(2), 237–246.
Valtonen, K. (2004). From the margin to the mainstream: Conceptualizing refugee settlement processes. Journal of Refugee Studies, 171, 70–96.
Vine, B. (2004). Getting things done at work: The discourse of power in workplace interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Wigglesworth, G., – Yates, L. (2007). Mitigating difficult requests in the workplace: What learners and teachers need to know. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 791–803.
Cited by (13)
Cited by 13 other publications
Hellman, Therese, Maria Brendler-Lindqvist, Simon Asplund & Magnus Svartengren
Kraft, Kamilla
Walldén, Robert & Åsa Wedin
Cho, Jinhyun
Karakaya, Cihangir, Mehmet Başcillar, Ahmet Metin & Ali Çetinkaya
Walldén, Robert
Chang, Yun-Tzu & Eric Fong
Vega, Gloria Toledo, Andrea Lizasoain & Karina Cerda-Oñate
Eliasson, Eva, Marianne Teräs & Ali Osman
Sinkeviciute, Valeria
Theodotou, Evgenia
Chowdhury, Farzana Y. & M. Obaidul Hamid
2016. Language, migration and social wellbeing. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 39:1 ► pp. 8 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.