Australian Aboriginal English

Australian Aboriginal English is a contact-based variety spoken by 80% of First Nations people in Australia. Drawing on an original corpus of Aboriginal English collected in urban Nyungar country (Southwest Western Australia), this entry offers an overview of Aboriginal English features recorded in home settings during yarning sessions. The entry draws on this corpus to describe and exemplify distinctive phonological, grammatical, lexical, semantic and discourse-pragmatic features. The variety of Aboriginal English captured in the corpus is closer to standardised English than other contact varieties (for example, Kriol spoken in Northern Australia). This surface structural similarity is problematic as Aboriginal English is sometimes seen as defective. This piece discusses the implications of these negative attitudes and how further knowledge of Aboriginal English may lessen linguistic discrimination and improve the lives of First Nations people in Australia.