This thesis is a sociolinguistic examination of the use of English by Aboriginal people in Southeast Queensland (SEQAB people). It is written within a framework of the ethnography of speaking, and specifically relates what people say (language form), to its effect on people (language function), examining aspects of context. This ethnographically based language study goes beyond formal details of grammatical structure, presents new data on the Aboriginal use of English, and explores some areas where the conventional grammatical analysis of Standard English does not adequately account for differences between Aboriginal and White Australian uses of English. It also provides evidence which shows that Aboriginal ways of speaking persist in a region where traditional Aboriginal languages are rarely used. The first chapter introduces the study, giving background to the research and motivating the central questions addressed in the thesis. The second chapter provides the theoretical orientation of the thesis, asks its central questions and, after reviewing the ethnography of speaking literature, provides a framework to answer them. The third chapter reviews literature on Australian Aboriginal languages from a sociolinguistic perspective. The fourth chapter provides background information about SEQAB society. The following three chapters treat the SEQAB use of English, each chapter focusing on a specific function of language: the fifth chapter focuses on seeking information, the sixth chapter on giving and seeking reasons for actions, and the seventh chapter on talking about future action. The final chapter concludes that while linguistic forms used by SEQAB speakers of English are mostly shared with White Australian speakers of English, there are crucial differences in meaning which can be understood only in terms of the SEQAB socio-cultural context, including customary intentions of speakers and interpretations of hearers. Considering the data and analysis presented in this thesis, I assert that SEQAB people today use English as an Aboriginal language.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/287735 |
| Creators | Eades, Diana |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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