“Body for Talk”: Bringing the Pragmatics of Indigenous Contact Languages into the Classroom

Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children across Australia come to school speaking an Indigenous contact language, a dialect or creole formed from their traditional languages and English. These languages differ from standardised Australian English (SAE) at all levels–pragmatically, semantically, morphologically, syntactically, and phonologically. However, because these languages are not always recognised, speakers of Indigenous contact languages are often not positioned as learners of SAE in Australian classrooms. Furthermore, the role that pragmatic differences play in the classroom is often overlooked, despite the issues these differences can create for classroom communications for teachers and students alike. In this study, lessons were conducted with First Nations students in years 1, 3 and 5 (aged 5–10 years), and two highly salient pragmatic features of Aboriginal languages were examined: the use of signs and parsimonious sentences where context serves to derive meaning. These two pragmatic features were compared with two communicative strategies from SAE: verbal communication and elaboration. The lessons were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using sociolinguistic discourse analysis which focused on students’ responses to the lessons and their ability to identify the pragmatic differences. Overall, it was found that students were very engaged with the lessons and highly attuned to the pragmatic language differences presented. However, student responses revealed the presence of some deficit views about their language. The findings highlight the need to explore language pragmatics in the classroom as this will assist students to develop a holistic understanding of language and learn important skills for intercultural communication. This could be significantly enhanced through the use of technology.