Human history has been characterised by the movement of peoples from one part of the world to another. The current tendency towards globalisation has accentuated this movement. While the proliferation of economic ties and the speed of travel and communication have made the world a much smaller place, any particular location within the world is now faced with an increasing degree of contact between cultures and languages. Migrating people bring with them languages in various stages of planning, with differing status and with differing relationships to their personal and group identity.

The present study explores the ways in which three immigrant communities have adjusted and adapted to a new setting in Australia , and the ways in which the host community has contributed to this process. It focuses specifically on the ways in which patterns of language use contribute to the maintenance of a pre-migration identity and/or the negotiation of a new one. The languages chosen for this research are Macedonian, Filipino/Tagalog and Somali.