Aboriginal oral narrative compared with classroom discourse
What is it about?
It is argued in this paper that in the classroom it is the teachers who define the speech event, whereas, outside, there are contexts where the Aboriginal participants define the event. Nine transcribed and analysed texts are used to support this argument. The non-classroom texts, recorded in home contexts, are first person oral narratives which follow an alternation between moving and stopping segments, a pattern shown to be consistent with Aboriginal cultural precedents. The classroom texts include, in some cases, the same Aboriginal speakers but show them either not participating or not conforming to the teachers’ communicative expectations. The relation between discourse and world view is apparent, and ways are suggested for teachers to take this into account.
Why is it important?
It helps to show that Aboriginal English speakers' skills may be unrecognized when only Standard English is the medium of communication.