Language and communication in Aboriginal land claim hearings

1990 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 1-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Koch
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Communication Failure ◽  
Legal Procedure ◽  
Land Claim ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
Aboriginal Languages ◽  
Australian Languages

This paper discusses aspects of the intercultural communication processes involved in the quasi-legal presentation of claims to traditional land by Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory before the Aboriginal Land Commissioner. The findings are documented by means of selected extracts from the transcripts of proceedings. Although the proceedings took place predominantly in English, there was some use of interpreters, liberal use of words from Aboriginal languages, and even considerable usage of nonverbal gestures. Most of the Aboriginal witnesses spoke some form of non-standard English influenced by Kriol and traditional Australian languages. The most salient features of their non-standard English are described here. Aboriginal witnesses accommodated their language toward Standard English. Some of their non-standard utterances were clarified by others for the record. The court also accommodated somewhat to Aboriginal styles and forms of speech. Nevertheless there were numerous instances of communication failure, which had various specific causes but were not aided by the culturally alien general legal procedure of question-and-answer elicitation of information.

Dhangu Djorra'wuy Dhäwu: A Brief History of Writing in Aboriginal Language

1994 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary-Anne Gale
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Literal Translation ◽  
History Of Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Aboriginal Languages

Since leaving ‘the bush’ I have been continually surprised at the ignorance that still exists about Aboriginal people and their languages. When people chat to me, and it is revealed that I used to work in Aboriginal schools in the Northern Territory, they say things like “Do you speak Aboriginal then?… Maybe you could make a sign for us saying ‘Welcome to our Kindergarten’ in Aboriginal?” I then have to explain that there are many, many different Aboriginal languages, not just one, and to say or write such things in any one of these languages requires a lot more than a mere literal translation. When I began doing research on the topic of writing in Aboriginal languages. I was again surprised at the sorts of comments people made to me. Comments like “How can you do research on writing in Aboriginal languages; I thought the Aborigines didn't even have an alphabet!”

Dhangum Djorra'wuy Dhäwu: A Brief History of Writing in Aboriginal Languages

1994 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Mary-Anne Gale
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Literal Translation ◽  
History Of Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Aboriginal Languages

Since leaving ‘the bush’ I have been continually surprised at the ignorance that still exists about Aboriginal people and their languages. When people chat to me, and it is revealed that I used to work in Aboriginal schools in the Northern Territory, they say things like “Do you speak Aboriginal then?… Maybe you could make a sign for us saying ‘Welcome to our Kindergarten’ in Aboriginal?” I then have to explain that there are many, many different Aboriginal languages, not just one, and to say or write such things in any one of these languages requires a lot more than a mere literal translation. When I began doing research on the topic of writing in Aboriginal languages. I was again surprised at the sorts of comments people made to me. Comments like “How can you do research on writing in Aboriginal languages: I thought the Aborigines didn't even have an alphabet!”

Aboriginal languages and language training in the Northern Territory

1990 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 48-63
Author(s):  
Graham R. McKay
Keyword(s):  
Formal Education ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Communication Failure ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Communication Situations ◽  
Patterns Of Communication ◽  
Aboriginal Groups ◽  
Aboriginal Languages ◽  
And Training ◽  
General Communication

Aboriginal languages are still widely used in most parts of the Northern Territory, particularly in isolated communities. These languages and their associated patterns of communication and socio-cultural systems are very different from those of the mainstream Australian society. The contact between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal groups is characterized by extensive communication failure and by differences in status. Language related problems of intercultural contact exist within the formal education system and in general communication situations, giving rise to a variety of needs for education and training for both non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal groups.

‘Japan Fight. Aboriginal People Fight. European People Fight’: Yolngu Stories from World War II

2008 ◽  
Vol 37 (S1) ◽  
pp. 65-72
Author(s):  
Noah Riseman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
World War ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Australian Soil

Abstract Did you know that a Bathurst Islander captured the first Japanese prisoner of war on Australian soil? Or that a crucifix saved the life of a crashed American pilot in the Gulf of Carpentaria? These are excerpts from the rich array of oral histories of Aboriginal participation in World War II. This paper presents “highlights” from Yolngu oral histories of World War II in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Using these stories, the paper begins to explore some of the following questions: Why did Yolngu participate in the war effort? How did Yolngu see their role in relation to white Australia? In what ways did Yolngu contribute to the security of Australia? How integral was Yolngu assistance to defence of Australia? Although the answers to these questions are not finite, this paper aims to survey some of the Yolngu history of World War II.

scholarly journals Funding of Northern Territory public hospitals

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale Fisher ◽  
Allen Ruben
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Data ◽  
Burden Of Disease ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Public Hospitals ◽  
Australian Population ◽  
Admission Rates ◽  
Lengths Of Stay ◽  
Land Mass

The Northern Territory is Australia's third largest jurisdiction by land mass but it is the smallest by population. By proportion it accommodates the largest number of Aboriginal people who suffer the greatest burden of disease with highmorbidity, mortality, admission rates and lengths of stay. Output based funding by DRG is based on the 'typical' Australian population which is not that of the Northern Territory. The NT has had to significantly modify its approach to funding to meet the needs of its population. The current funding method based on detailed analyses of clinical data with small numbers may be inappropriate where simpler methods tailored to the NT population could suffice.

scholarly journals ‘Little Gunshots, but with the blaze of lightning’: Xavier Herbert, Visuality and Human Rights

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Jane Lydon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
World War ◽  
Major Work ◽  
The North ◽  
Significant Difference

Xavier Herbert published his bestseller Capricornia in 1938, following two periods spent in the Northern Territory. His next major work, Poor Fellow My Country (1975), was not published until thirty-seven years later, but was also set in the north during the 1930s. One significant difference between the two novels is that by 1975 photo-journalism had become a significant force for influencing public opinion and reforming Aboriginal policy. Herbert’s novel, centring upon Prindy as vulnerable Aboriginal child, marks a sea change in perceptions of Aboriginal people and their place in Australian society, and a radical shift toward use of photography as a means of revealing the violation of human rights after World War II. In this article I review Herbert’s visual narrative strategies in the context of debates about this key historical shift and the growing impact of photography in human rights campaigns. I argue that Poor Fellow My Country should be seen as a textual re-enactment, set in Herbert’s and the nation’s past, yet coloured by more recent social changes that were facilitated and communicated through the camera’s lens. Like all re-enactments, it is written in the past conditional: it asks, what if things had been different? It poses a profound challenge to the state project of scientific modernity that was the Northern Territory over the first decades of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals On the “Garden of Delights” as a model of analysis of the intercultural communication processes

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 239-251
Author(s):  
Lurdes Macedo
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Critical Interpretation ◽  
Short Essay

The observation of Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Delights” triptych is the starting point for a short essay on the possible interpretation of this work by its last purchaser, Filipe II of Spain. Additionally, this essay leads to the proposal of a model, based on three categories of analysis, for the critical interpretation of the global course that humanity has been taking since the beginning of the great intercontinental navigations, initially carried out by the Portuguese and the Spanish. The proposed model intends to contribute to the defragmentation of the memory of a long process marked by the tension between hegemonic forces and dynamics of interculturality.

Avoidable hospitalisation in Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory

2009 ◽  
Vol 190 (10) ◽  
pp. 532-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu Q Li ◽  
Natalie J Gray ◽  
Steve L Guthridge ◽  
Sabine L M Pircher
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Avoidable Hospitalisation
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