Torres Strait Islander Languages Research Articles

COVID-19 and vaccine health promotion resources in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages

ABSTRACT Risk communication during a public health crisis necessitates the provision of accessible, timely and accurate health information to the public. The aim of this research project was to explore the availability and characteristics of COVID-19 and vaccine health promotional materials published in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. We aimed to identify the strategies used by Aboriginal-led organizations and Departments of Health to improve communication about COVID-19 and vaccination. Health promotion resources published online between January 2020 and December 2021 were identified by means of a desktop scan and a content analysis was subsequently conducted. We also interviewed five Aboriginal-led organizations and interview data were analyzed thematically. Findings illustrate the vital role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in high stakes information transfer and, in particular, the push by Departments of Health and language groups to create and disseminate important messaging in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. This is best achieved by utilizing local knowledge, existing relationships and local connections. Finally, a multimodal approach to the production and dissemination of pandemic health information better caters for the diverse specific needs of these communities.

Characterising health promotion in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages: A content analysis of COVID-19 and maternal health resources.

Issue addressedHealth promotion resources in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) languages are being widely translated and disseminated at the community, health service and government level. In addition to outlining the relevant Australian policy context and evidence base, this study sought to describe the availability and characteristics of COVID‐19 and maternal health promotion resources incorporating Indigenous languages.MethodsHealth promotion resources published online between June 2005 and June 2020 were identified by a desktop scan and screened against quality inclusion criteria. A content analysis by resource type, health topic, purpose, use of language and source was conducted.ResultsA total of 215 resources was eligible for inclusion, incorporating 50 different Indigenous languages and representing a varied approach to language use and health promotion. Almost 7 times as many COVID‐19 resources were identified than maternal health materials.ConclusionsIn contrast to maternal health, COVID‐19 has seen a sharp rise in the number of health promotion resources produced in language, especially in formats capable of streamlined replication in multiple languages. Strong use of narrative, storytelling and alternative primary aims such as language education suggests potential for greater collaboration between health promotion organisations and other community groups and services. Bilingual resources may have applications for communities where traditional language knowledge is being reawakened.So what?Emerging capacity to efficiently produce health promotion resources in multiple Indigenous languages could be capitalised for health topics beyond COVID‐19. However, further research in determining best practice and user perspectives is essential in guiding the development of these resources.

Engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students, Families, and Communities

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) identifies two focus areas that graduate teachers need to be familiar with to be competent to teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and all other students about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, history, and culture (AITSL 2017). Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture into pedagogy and practice and engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities can be daunting for educators. While on paper these appear to be two different elements, it is not possible to have one without the other. Being able to effectively embed content relies heavily on meaning full engagement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, families, and communities attached to a school and by developing and maintaining respectful, reciprocal relationships.

Editorial: If the settler never came

If the settler never came and the (Australian) continent developed herself, what kinds of conversations would we consider? Perhaps, we would highlight the fact that the Country and Island landscape did not have an estimated number of languages but significantly more than the speculated 250 (or “over 300”, or “hundreds of”) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages across the island and continental landscape. It would be a given continuance that every year across the Country, and not just 2019 declared by the United Nations General assembly, as the year to celebrate the Indigenous languages. Perhaps the ways we define, discuss and distinguish these numerous, living languages would be very different from our current forensic approaches.

Confusion of Tongues: Constitutional Recognition of Languages and Language Rights in Australia

This article considers the YouMeUnity Report proposal for the inclusion of new language provisions in the Australian Constitution as part of a package of reforms for the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The article outlines the important symbolic and substantive effects of recognising language rights in the Constitution. The article explains how the recognition of a national language and the recognition of minority languages are conceptually distinct — promoting a national language is aimed at promoting national unity and enhancing the political and economic participation of individuals in the state, whereas protecting minority languages is aimed at recognising linguistic diversity, enriching the cultural life of the State, maintaining connections with other nations, and recognising language choice as a basic human right. The article argues that there is a strong case for minority language recognition, and in particular, the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, in the Australian Constitution, but warns against the recognition of English as the national language.

Confusion of Tongues: Constitutional Recognition of Languages and Language Rights in Australia

This article considers the YouMeUnity Report proposal for the inclusion of new language provisions in the Australian Constitution as part of a package of reforms for the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The article outlines the important symbolic and substantive effects of recognising language rights in the Constitution. The article explains how the recognition of a national language and the recognition of minority languages are conceptually distinct — promoting a national language is aimed at promoting national unity and enhancing the political and economic participation of individuals in the state, whereas protecting minority languages is aimed at recognising linguistic diversity, enriching the cultural life of the State, maintaining connections with other nations, and recognising language choice as a basic human right. The article argues that there is a strong case for minority language recognition, and in particular, the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, in the Australian Constitution, but warns against the recognition of English as the national language.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Rebuilding Australia’s Linguistic Profile – Recent Developments in Research on Australian Aboriginal Languages

At the end of the eighteenth century, between 250 and 700 languages were spoken on the Australian continent. No genetic link has been proven between these languages and those elsewhere, and there was remarkably little contact between speakers of Australian aboriginal languages and others during the tens of thousands of years that intervened between the first occupation of the continent and the arrival of English speakers. Although there are many hallmarks of Australian phonologies, morphology and syntax, as well as recurrent themes in semantic categorization and the linguistic reflexes of cultural preoccupations, there is considerable current debate over which of these may be attributed to shared inheritance from a common ancestor and which to more recent contact between linguistic groups. A course on the aboriginal languages of Australia might cover: (i) the structural features typical of Australian languages (highlighting those that are atypical in global perspective); (ii) whether and how these can be related to typical features of Australian cultures; (iii) the particular challenges Australian languages have posed to linguistic theories and typologies developed on the basis of other languages; and (iv) the genetic relationships between Australian languages and how well these are modelled by traditional methodologies.

Language Maintenance Revisited: An Australian Perspective

Language maintenance has been an issue debated whenever languages come into contact. This paper presents a detailed discussion of the reasons most often cited as to why languages should be maintained, with a specific focus on Australia because of the country's multilingual makeup. Australia currently has about 150 aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages still in use, and more than 100 languages other than English are spoken by its immigrant population. However, these diverse language resources have been allowed to steadily decline. The arguments for the maintenance of Australia's languages are categorized loosely based on Thieberger's (1990) work and each of the arguments is discussed: (a) group intergrity and group membership, (b) identity, (c) cultural heritage, (d) socialhumanitarian and economic implication, (e) assimilation, and (f) cognitive development and academic achievement. This paper argues that there are many apparent advantages to maintaining languages.

The Interaction Between Text Difficulty and Translation Accuracy

ABSTRACT The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has been developing language-specific curricula for a range of languages in the Australian Curriculum: Languages and has also undertaken development of a Framework for Australian Languages, to provide guidance for the development of curricula for specific Australian Languages (Aboriginal languages and Torres Strait Islander languages) to accommodate the varied situations across Indigenous Australia. Foremost among the challenges for the Framework for Australian Languages is the multiplicity of languages potentially to be covered. It is estimated that there were some 250 Australian Languages at the time of the first sustained contact with outsiders. Of these only about 20 are still spoken 'right through'. The other languages are in various states ranging from minimal documentation and language use through to significant advances in language revitalisation (Walsh, 2001). Because there are so many languages, the framework is not, and cannot be, a language-specific curriculum. The learner pathways for the framework are: first language learner, language revival learner and second language learner. Typically the first language learner pathway will be for Indigenous students 'on country' in more remote parts of Australia. The second language pathway, on the other hand, will typically be learned 'off country' as is the case for Pitjantjatjara in places like Adelaide and other centres in South Australia quite distant from the Pitjantjatjara homelands. The largest array of languages is in the language revival learner pathway, which will most often be studied by non-Indigenous as well as Indigenous students. In this article we explore some of the framework's challenges in embracing the concept of Babel- from the Biblical story of the scattering of people across the earth and the 'confounding' of communication through the introduction of multiple languages. KEY WORDS Australian Curriculum, curriculum, curriculum development, Aboriginal languages, Torres Strait Islander languages, intercultural language learning, curriculum design, linguistic and cultural diversity [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE FRAMEWORK FOR AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has been developing language-specific curricula for a range of languages, and has also undertaken the development of the Framework for Australian Languages (hereafter the Framework). This document will provide guidance for the development of curricula for specific Australian Languages. It therefore has been pitched at a high level of generality so as to be able to accommodate the varied situations across Indigenous Australia. One point of comparison might be to consider what a Framework for European Languages might look like: it would need to cover Finnish and French as well as German and Greek! The Framework has been designed so as to assist people in developing a language-specific curriculum for potentially any of the 250 Australian Languages. THE ECOLOGY OF AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES Broadly speaking, it is estimated that there were 250 Australian Languages at first significant outside contact. Roughly 20 of these are still spoken 'right through' with the remainder in various stages of decline or revival (Schmidt, 1990, p. 1-2; Commonwealth of Australia, 2012, p. 34). In addition, for most languages there is dialectal variation which can be important for group identity and thus adds to the complexity of the overall linguistic situation (see, for example, Dixon, 2010). Particularly over recent decades there has been an extraordinary increase in language revitalisation activity (e.g. Troy & Walsh, 2010; Walsh, 2001). Some languages that had been written off are gaining new texts and new vocabulary. One such example is Butchulla from south-east Queensland for which a lullaby has been performed and written by the Aboriginal language activist, Joy Bonner (see https://open. …

The Fourth R — Reconciliation and the Maintenance of indigenous Language in Urban Secondary Schools

Indigenous students in urban secondary schools in the Northern Territory are faced with barriers to their success in learning, in the education race. Amongst these is the question of language studies. Like all students, they must study English as a separate subject, they must study all other subjects using English as the language of instruction, and they must study a second language, a language other than English (LOTE), as a component of their Junior Secondary Studies Certificate. Most schools offer Indonesian and some are able to offer a broader choice. For the Indigenous student, social justice demands an addition to this range. It is illogical and unfair that schools, in some cases with up to 30 per cent Indigenous students, do not include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in their programs. It is also shortsighted of schools to ignore the opportunity to provide these students with a subject area in which their culture is dominant.

The Use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages in Schools

The Use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages in Schools

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

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.”

Ensuring the survival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages into the 21st century

Abstract There were over 200 distinct languages in Australia at the time of European settlement. Today less than 40 of these are still being passed on to new generations, and all of these are under threat of extinction. Aboriginal people are struggling to adapt themselves to the massive European presence without losing their identity. The greatest threat to Aboriginal languages is the physical, economic and social situation in which their speakers find themselves. Language maintenance will not be possible without social maintenance and this in turn is a political issue. The most important factor will be the success of Aboriginal people in gaining control and self-reliance in their communities. The government can help by assisting in a program of self-determination where Aboriginal people participate at least equally with others in decisions concerning priorities and funding, and in addition by educating non-Aboriginal people to the value of the Aboriginal part of our cultural heritage. Aboriginal teacher education is of primary importance with the goal of schools with Aboriginal control where Aboriginal teachers develop the curriculum and the pedagogy. It is in this context that bilingual education can be put to best use. Bilingual education is of great importance but it must be used not just to assimilate Aboriginal children more easily into English and Western schooling but to have Aboriginal languages and English used together in a coherent educational program where the children become strong in two languages and in the academic and cultural skills they need for contemporary life. Like education, media has the potential for strengthening Aboriginal languages and oultures as well as for destroying them. The outcome will depend on the extent to which Aboriginal people themselves can control what is broadcast and printed.