Speech communities in aboriginal Australia

Rigsby, Bruce; Sutton, Peter

doi:10.1080/00664677.1980.9967332

Cited by 45 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…It is an idea which is fundamentally foreign to much of the Pacific. Betterknown case studies, such as those by Rigsby and Sutton (1982) for the Cape York area of Queensland disconfirm the validity of this idea for traditional societies in Australia. However, in the wake of the founding of nation states in the area and the institutionalization of 'national languages', the link between linguistic and territorial boundaries is becoming a more widely accepted concept.…”

Section: Benefits and Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Towards an atlas of the pidgins and creoles of the Pacific area

Mühlhäusler¹

1988

Ijsl

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Section: Benefits and Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Towards an atlas of the pidgins and creoles of the Pacific area

Mühlhäusler¹

1988

Ijsl

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“…Foundational work by Peter Sutton and Bruce Rigsby paid attention to how we conceptualise multilingual Indigenous Australian speech communities, drawing on their fieldwork in Cape York (Sutton, 1978(Sutton, , 1991(Sutton, , 1997Sutton and Rigsby, 1979;Rigsby and Sutton, 1980). They make two suggestions in their work.…”

Section: Conceptualising the Multilingual Speech Community At Warruwimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They make two suggestions in their work. The first suggestion that Rigsby and Sutton (1980) make is dispensing with the notion of the 'speech community' as somehow independent from groups and identities that emerge from ethnographic work. Although they do not mention it, the 'remote Indigenous community' has emerged as a significant reference point in remote-living Indigenous people's lives.…”

Section: Conceptualising the Multilingual Speech Community At Warruwimentioning

confidence: 99%

A small speech community with many small languages: The role of receptive multilingualism in supporting linguistic diversity at Warruwi Community (Australia)

Singer

2018

Language & Communication

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At Warruwi Community (pop. 400), nine very different Indigenous languages are still widely used, which is unusual in the contemporary Australian Indigenous context. Using the receptive multilingual mode, speakers frequently address one another in different languages. This mode offers speakers of small languages such as Mawng (ca. 400 speakers) an alternative to accommodating to larger languages such as Yolngu-matha (ca. 2000 speakers). Although not unique to Warruwi, receptive multilingual practices are part of a set of "mutually constituting ideologies and practices" (Nakassis 2016) that co-construct a speech community where many small languages flourish.

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“…Linguists have been at pains to emphasize the complexities and in many cases the inappropriateness of terms such as ''dialectal tribe,'' ''speech community,'' and ''language group'' in Australian sociolinguistic description (Rigsby and Sutton 1982;Sutton 1991;Rumsey 1993). The study of dialectal and sociolectal diversity in Aboriginal Australia has to date resulted in the description of extraordinary variation.…”

Section: Linguistic Diversity and Australian Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kun-dangwok: “clan lects” and Ausbau in western Arnhem Land

Garde¹

2008

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

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The sociolinguistic concept of an Ausbau language is widely thought of as exclusively associated with the standardization of languages for the political and social purposes of nation states. Language policy initiated by state institutions, the development of literacy and new specialist registers of language are typical elements involved in the Ausbau process. However, the linguistic ideologies of small language groups such as those of the minority languages of Aboriginal Australia can drive certain forms of deliberate language elaboration. An important aspect of Aboriginal linguistic ideology is language diversity, reflected in the development of elemental sociolinguistic varieties such as patriclan lects. In the Bininj Kun-wok dialect chain of western Arnhem Land, a regional system of lectal di¤erentiation known as Kun-dangwok has developed, reflecting an Aboriginal linguistic ideology whereby being di¤erent, especially di¤erent ways of speaking, are seen as central aspects of identity. The functions of the Kun-dangwok clan lect system are described using examples of naturally occurring conversation which provide evidence that clan lects are the result of an Ausbau process that results in the opposite of language standardization and an increase in Abstand between varieties.

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Speech communities in aboriginal Australia

Cited by 45 publications

References 13 publications

Towards an atlas of the pidgins and creoles of the Pacific area

Towards an atlas of the pidgins and creoles of the Pacific area

A small speech community with many small languages: The role of receptive multilingualism in supporting linguistic diversity at Warruwi Community (Australia)

Kun-dangwok: “clan lects” and Ausbau in western Arnhem Land

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