Bridging Two Worlds: Aboriginal English and Crosscultural Understanding
By Jean Harkins
University of Queensland Press, 1994
Reviewed by Nina Murka
This is a scholarly yet readable book. It is motivated by Jean Harkins' desire to do something useful for the Aboriginal community school in Alice Springs, Yipirinya, with which she has been associated, combined with a postgraduate research opportunity in linguistics.
It will not be popular amongst those who believe that Aboriginal English is an inferior form of English which disadvantages educational and even intellectual development. Harkins is critical of a line of research she sees as linked to exponents of Basil Bernstein's theories, such as the linguist Michael A.K. Halliday.
Harkins emphasises that she is writing about only one particular form of Aboriginal English, spoken by Aboriginal groups living around the Alice Springs area. Her analysis of this form of Aboriginal English reveals it as a different dialect of Australian English, displaying all the complexities of usage that you would expect from a language or its dialectical variety.
Harkins makes the point that it is explicitly used in ways which seek to retain an Aboriginal identity. This is an important element in the non-standard way in which it is expressed. This, she maintains, is a matter of choice rather than omission or variation of form due to ignorance.
Harkins' theoretical approach is from a natural language, semantic description developed by Anna Wierzbicka. Her approach was developed and controlled in conjunction with the speech community which she was studying. This was made easier by the fact that she was already in contact with the community and knew some of two of the Aboriginal languages whose variety of English she was studying.
This background helped her in the realisation that merely speaking the language of another group does not necessarily mean that you understand what is being talked about. In the same way, knowledge of English does not mean we understand what a group of economists, for example, are talking about, without some background knowledge in the subject area.
Cross-cultural understanding is a key component of the process. This can be illustrated by the use of Aboriginal English words such as "camp" and phrases such as "You got fire?". Another contrast is the standard Australian English concept of ownership.
The thrust of the book is that Aboriginal English should be recognised as an important part of Australian English.