Introduction

Most definitions and descriptions of Aboriginal English confine themselves to formal linguistic structures, for example, phonology, syntax, and vocabulary. Although some Aboriginal speakers of English may share a common grammar with speakers of Standard Australian English (see e.g. Kaldor and Malcolm, this volume), they do not necessarily share meanings and interpretation because of the sociocultural context of Aboriginal ways of speaking. For example, constraints on the social dimensions of the use of question structures by Aboriginal speakers of English (discussed in 4.4.1 below), transcend grammatically defined dialectal boundaries, and are part of widespread Aboriginal communicative strategies, regardless of the language variety used. Such pragmatic evidence (and further evidence discussed later in this chapter) indicates that our definitions of Aboriginal English need to look beyond grammatical features and include aspects of communicative strategies. I therefore use the term ‘Aboriginal English’ to refer to Aboriginal varieties of English, which in some instances may differ from Standard Australian English primarily in features of pragmatics (and minimally in grammar).

On communicative strategies

This chapter is concerned with the patterned ways in which Aboriginal people use dialects of English as part of their social interaction. The focus is on ‘socially constituted linguistic’ study (Hymes 1974), which relies particularly on ethnographic method, and which reverses the typical structural linguistic tendency of isolating referential structure and then posing questions about social functions (see e.g. Gumperz 1972 on ‘correlational sociolinguistics’).