Resumen de The Portuguese community of Sydney: ethnographic study on representations of Portuguese identity

Fabio Scetti

• This paper is intended mainly to describe the state of affairs of the Portuguese language and its presence within the Portuguese community of Sydney (Australia). The main objective of our research is to observe how language is present in the landscape, observing practices and discourses within the associative life, the community school and the local ethnographic museum. This research project is part of a sociolinguistic study on language practices and representations of identity in multilingual contexts. Thanks to the ethnographic observations and description, it was also possible to analyse the fundamental role of Heritage Languages (HL) through ideologies and representations. Our analysis will help to provide more insight into how language and its representations are a manifestation of group belonging observing the associative life, the ethnographic museum and the community school which is facing the challenge of the decline in pupil numbers enrolled and the position of a HL in terms of prestige and power within contemporary global society.