Language and culture maintenance efforts of the Hungarian community in Australia

The role of language in the context of ethnic identity has recently been an important topic of research. Language can be regarded as the symbol of an individual’s identity, one of many constitutive factors of group membership, called ethnicity. Minority communities, for instance immigrant groups, may connect their ethnic identity to language, since language is often seen as incorporating cultural heritage. The aim of this paper is to investigate written mixed-language discourse with the help of a multimodal approach utilising resources that include two issues of Magyar Élet (Hungarian Life), a weekly published by members of the Hungarian community living in Australia. Contributors to this weekly may find it an important and appealing alternative to rely on resources offered in more than one language. This research investigates and focuses on linguistically mixed written discourse, i.e., the mixed-language practices which characterize the weekly, in order to reveal how these manifestations contribute to the multifaceted identities and how the Australian Hungarian community maintains its heritage language and culture.