Antonia Rubino

Biography

Antonia Rubino is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Sydney. She is a leading scholar in sociocultural research, and her work focuses on multilingualism in migration contexts and its educational and policy implications.

Antonia has conducted extensive studies within the Italo-Australian migrant community, exploring the use, changes and transmission of Italian, dialect and English across multiple generations, enhancing the understanding of multilingual practices and demonstrating how migrants are skilled language speakers. Antonia’s projects have pioneered the analysis of language use within the family, the media, education, and the landscape of Sydney. Her work contributes to language maintenance efforts of Italian communities in Australia, and other anglophone countries of mass Italian migration, in the sphere of the family as well as in other sites.

Her publications include the ground breaking “Trilingual talk in Sicilian-Australian migrant families: Playing out Identities through language alternation” (Palgrave) and “L’italiano in Australia. Prospettive e tendenze nell’insegnamento della lingua e della cultura/Italian in Australia. Perspectives and trends in the teaching of language and culture” (Cesati).

Antonia has held a wide range of academic leadership roles, including Chair of Department, Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning, Vice President of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA), and Editor of the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL). She is very active in the Italo-Australian community and continues to collaborate with organisations, Italian language media and diplomatic authorities to develop and implement effective language maintenance programs and policies.