First published in 1985, this book gives an intimate account of the cultural-political conflict between Australian Aboriginal people and Anglo-Australians, presenting the Australian social world from the perspective of the Aboriginal person. Adopting a rigorous ethnomethodological analysis and the techniques of ethnolinguistics, Liberman looks at the interactional detail of the everyday life of traditionally oriented Australian Aboriginals. He uses tape transcripts of actual interaction to identify chief characteristics of Aboriginal social life. Liberman goes on to show how differences in systems of interaction have influenced relations between Australian Aboriginals and Anglo-Australians. With its account of the politics of cultural conflict in a multi-cultural environment, this book is an apt extension of ethnomethodological issues to political concerns. It also exposes Aboriginal perceptions of Anglo-Australian/Aboriginal interaction to a degree not previously achieved in any sociological or anthropological study. As such, this book will be a valuable case study to students of social anthropology, race relations, intercultural communication and sociolinguistics.

Dynamics of communication within Aboriginal Society and between Aborigines and Anglo-Australians; value of consensus, congeniality in Aboriginal decisionmaking; illustrations of inter-cultural communication restraints since early contact (nature of contact, explorers observations) in courts, schools, pastoral properties, land rights issues, Aboriginal strategies of aloofness; European misconceptions of Aboriginal culture including attitudes toward work, wages.

See Ms.1840 for annotation.

The study of person reference stands at the cross-roads of linguistics, anthropology and psychology. As one aspect of an ethnography of communication, this book deals with a single problem — how one knows who is being talked about in conversation — from a rich and varied ethnographic perspective. Through a combination of grammatical agreement and free pronouns, Bininj Gunwok possesses a pronominal system that, according to current theoretical accounts in linguistics, should facilitate clear cut reference. However, the descriptions of Bininj Gunwok conversation in this volume demonstrate that frequently a vast gulf lies between knowing that, say, an object is '3rd singular', and actually knowing who it refers to. Achieving reference to people in Bininj Gunwok can involve a delicate and refined set of calculations which are part of a deliberate and artful way of speaking. Speakers draw on a diverse set of grammatical and lexical devices all underpinned by shared knowledge about a diverse range of social relationships and cultural practices.

This volume explores Australian and New Zealand experiences of translation and interpreting (T&I), with a special focus on the formative impact of geocultural contexts. Through the critical lenses of practitioners, scholars and related professionals working in and on these two countries, the contributors seek a better understanding of T&I practices and discourses in this richly multilingual and multicultural region. Building on recent work in translation and interpreting studies that extends attention to sites outside of Europe and the Americas, this volume considers the geocultural and geopolitical factors that have helped shape T&I in these Pacific neighbours, especially how the practices and conceptualization of T&I have been closely tied with immigration. Contributors examine the significant role T&I plays in everyday communication across varied sectors, including education, health, business, and legal contexts, as well as in crisis situations, cultural and creative settings, and initiatives to revitalize Indigenous languages. The book also looks to the broader implications beyond the Australian and New Zealand translationscape, making it of relevance to T&I scholars elsewhere, as well as those with an interest in Indigenous studies and minority languages.

Publisher Description

"This study explores the language of canon law, the legal order of the Roman Catholic Church. It seeks to bring the language of canon law into the law and language debate and in doing so better understand how the Roman Catholic Church communicates as a legal institution. It ex-amines the function of canon law language in ecclesiastical communications. It studies the character of canonical language, the grammar and terminology of canon law, and how it makes use of linguistic tricks and techniques to create its typical sound. It discusses the com-prehension difficulties that arise out of ambiguities in the law, out of transfer problems be-tween legal and common language, and out of canon law's confusing mix of legal, doctrinal, and moral norms. It reviews the potential consequences of a plain language agenda in the church. This includes an evaluation of whether dead Latin is the appropriate language for a global and cross-cultural legal order such as canon law, and a discussion of how to improve multi-language communication. It takes a closer look at ecclesiastical interpretation theory. It examines forensic language, the language of ecclesiastical tribunals, in its problematic shifting between orality and textuality"--