Placing Torres Strait Islanders on a Sociolinguistic and Literate Continuum: A Critical Commentary

Abstract

Much of the literature on Torres Strait Islander, as well of Aboriginal, education begins from the assumption that oral traditions and cultures have a profound effect on educational achievement. But how easy is it to plot Islanders on an oral/literate continuum (cf. Goody, 1978)? The purpose of this paper is a critical examination of a sociolinguistic model designed to describe Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal peoples in terms of oracy and literacy by Watson (1988). As part of her attempt to explain mathematics education as it relates to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, her continua attempt at an analysis via a theoretical framework built on socio-demographic and linguistic differences between orate and literate traditions. Watson (1988, p.257) suggest that, “...there exists the same type of continuum linking use of Torres Strait Islander languages and English.”