Phraseology and Culture in English

Multiword units in Aboriginal English: Australian 
cultural expression in an adopted language 
Ian G. Malcolm and Farzad Sharifian 
1. Introduction 
Aboriginal English has been defined by Rigsby (1998: 825) as “those dis-
tinctive varieties of English which have been vernacularized in Aboriginal 
communities.” The process of vernacularisation has been a progressive one, 
drawing on elements maintained from Indigenous languages, from varieties 
of English brought by the colonists, from pidgins, creoles (some of which 
are still spoken in northern areas) and the non-English languages of trading 
and immigrant groups. The process has also drawn on the linguistic inven-
tiveness of Aboriginal people, for whom their own dialect provides a liber-
ating alternative to the heavily codified and institutionally imposed stan-
dard variety of English. 
It is the intention of this paper to capture some of the creativity which 
has been shown by Aboriginal speakers in remaking English as a variety 
which serves their purposes as a culturally distinct group marginalised by 
the Australian English speaking majority. This creativity has its linguistic 
dimension, which will first be the object of our attention, but it is also 
driven by conceptual factors which we will consider in the latter part of the 
paper.
Although Aboriginal English has been investigated in many parts of Aus-
tralia, and is characterised by many features held in common across widely 
separated areas, the focus of the present paper will be limited to Western 
Australia where the dialect has been under investigation for some 30 years, 
and where the authors’ research has been carried out. The data which form 
the basis of the analysis which is to follow come from interviews and free 
speech involving child, adolescent and adult speakers recorded in the 
course of a succession of investigations carried out between 1973 and 2003 
in rural and urban locations in Western Australia. They also incorporate 
material provided by research associates who are native speakers of Abo-
riginal English.
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Ian G. Malcolm and Farzad Sharifian