Cultural conceptualisations in intercultural communication: A study of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians

Abstract

This paper reveals how intercultural communication can be examined from the perspective of cultural conceptualisations using the analytical tools of ‘cultural schemas’ and ‘cultural categories’. It focuses on an analysis of miscommunication between speakers of Aboriginal English and Australian English, miscommunication which has often disadvantaged Aboriginal speakers in educational, legal and other settings. This miscommunication largely occurs due to a discrepancy in the ways in which speakers of the two dialects conceptualise experience. Many Aboriginal people operate on the basis of conceptualisations that embody their spiritual worldview. It is observed that even everyday English words such as ‘sing’, ‘smoke’, and ‘medicine’ may be used by Aboriginal people to instantiate their spiritual schemas and categories. This paper provides examples of such usage through the analysis of excerpts from oral narratives produced by several Aboriginal speakers. The analyses presented in this paper clearly show the strength of the approach of cultural conceptualisations in studies of intercultural communication.