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The Cost of Language Mobilization: Wangkatha Language Ideologies and Native Title*
Abstract
This chapter investigates the nature of ideological transformation among Wangkatha language consultants in Western Australia, highlighted in the wake of Native Title legislation designed to determine the veracity of Aboriginal claims to land rights. It identifies a schism between the actual and perceived benefits of successful claims, and explores the role of language as it is used by expert witnesses and community members. On-the-ground perceptions about how linguistic practices may be interpreted by a land claim judge influence practice and, potentially, ideology, with a transition from a dialect mesh to an ideologically bounded mosaic, from the prestige of language ownership to the power of language proficiency, and from extreme individual multilingualism to language guardianship. Proficiency in an unchanged, well-bounded traditional language is simultaneously venerated and guarded while traditional ideologies about linguistic identity are overshadowed, at least in the political and legal context.
... Linguistic continuity is regarded as evidence of continuity of 'laws and customs' and may therefore count in favor of claimants. But unfortunately, as discussed by Boynton (2014), in a country where a majority of Indigenous groups use English varieties, using language preservation as evidence of cultural continuity is more often to the claimants' disadvantage. The root of the problem here is of course the continuity requirement -since after all, it is unclear why having adopted different 'laws and customs' should cancel Indigenous rights to the land they own. ...
... Linguistic continuity is regarded as evidence of continuity of 'laws and customs' and may therefore count in favor of claimants. But unfortunately, as discussed by Boynton (2014), in a country where a majority of Indigenous groups use English varieties, using language preservation as evidence of cultural continuity is more often to the claimants' disadvantage. The root of the problem here is of course the continuity requirement -since after all, it is unclear why having adopted different 'laws and customs' should cancel Indigenous rights to the land they own. ...
... Linguistic continuity is regarded as evidence of continuity of 'laws and customs' and may therefore count in favor of claimants. But unfortunately, as discussed by Boynton (2014), in a country where a majority of Indigenous groups use English varieties, using language preservation as evidence of cultural continuity is more often to the claimants' disadvantage. The root of the problem here is of course the continuity requirement -since after all, it is unclear why having adopted different 'laws and customs' should cancel Indigenous rights to the land they own. ...
... Linguistic continuity is regarded as evidence of continuity of 'laws and customs' and may therefore count in favor of claimants. But unfortunately, as discussed by Boynton (2014), in a country where a majority of Indigenous groups use English varieties, using language preservation as evidence of cultural continuity is more often to the claimants' disadvantage. The root of the problem here is of course the continuity requirement -since after all, it is unclear why having adopted different 'laws and customs' should cancel Indigenous rights to the land they own. ...
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