Cohesion in Ngaanyatjarra Discourse

Chapter 1
Introduction

1-1 Ngaanyatjarra, a dialect of Western Desert

Taking a strictly linguistic definition of language, Ngaanyatjarra is one of the dialects of the Western
Desert language which, it has been estimated, was the largest in Australia. "Within the total Australian land
area of about 3 million square miles it seems that the multi-tribe Western Desert language was largest both
in terms of geographical extent — some 500,000 square miles — and also in number of speakers — perhaps
6,000" (Dixon 1980:18).

The Western Desert dialect chain extends from Kukatja spoken around Balgo Hills south of Halls
Creek in north-eastern Western Australia, to Gugada previously spoken in central South Australia (see Map
1 ). It includes dialects whose names have become familiar to some of the wider Australian public, names
such as Luritja, Mantjiltjarra, Mardudjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Ngaatjatjarra, Pintupi, Pitjantjatjara and
Yankunytjatjara.

Due to their isolation in some of the most inhospitable areas of Australia, most of these people still
maintain a relatively traditional hfestyle, and some small groups retained a completely traditional lifestyle
right up until the early 1960s. Therefore these dialects, which their speakers would prefer to call languages,
art still used in these areas as the everyday medium of communication.

2 Cohesion in Ngaanyatjarra Discourse

Although the Western Desert people formerly roamed the desert in small food-gathering groups,
during the last few decades they became localised at missions and settlements (now known as Aboriginal
communities). The Ngaanyatjarra people now live in the Ngaanyatjarra Aboriginal lands. There are eight
Ngaanyatjarra speaking communities in that area, the largest of which is Warburton which lies between the
Gibson and Great Victoria deserts about 330 kms west of the border of South Australia and the Northern
Territory.

In the times before the establishment of the Warburton Mission in 1934, Ngaanyatjarra was spoken
around Warburton and as far east as the Jameson Range. Ngaatjatjarra was spoken from the Jameson Range
extending around to the Blackstone Range and also around the Rawlinson Ranges to the north, while Pitj-
antjatjara was spoken from Wingelinna in the Tomkinson Range and to the east and north east (see Map 2).

The names of these dialects are to some extent nick-names which were probably given to them by the
neighbouring group. Pitjantjatjara means the language having the v/ovd pitja 'come', 'move along':

Pitjantja-tjara
to come -having
This name served to distinguish the Pitjantjatjara from their near neighbours to the north and east, the
Yankunytjatjara, who have the word yankunytja for 'go', 'move along*.

Because not only the Pitjantjatjara but also the Ngaatjatjarra and the Ngaanyatjarra have the word
pitja meaning 'come', a further distinction is made on the basis of the word 'this'. Ngaanyatjarra has the word
ngaanya for 'this' and Ngaatjatjarra has the word ngaatja for 'this', while Pitjantjatjara has the word nyangatja
for 'this'. Thus we see that commonly used words became the basis of dialect names.

The differences between Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra^ are very small and speakers of both dia-
lects understand each other without difficulty. However, the differences between Pitjantjatjara and
Ngaanyatjarra are much greater and speakers of one or other of the dialects, who have not had much contact
with speakers of the other, experience difficulties in communication when the topic moves beyond simple
everyday matters.

Since a large number of Ngaatjatjarra and even some Pitjantjatjara lived at Warburton for quite long
periods between 1 935 and 1 968, people who grew up at Warburton came to speak Ngaanyatjarra, which was
the local dialect, even though their parents may have been Ngaatjatjarra or Pitjantjatjara. However, since the

Chapter 1 Introduction 3

formation of the newer communities, some of which are in Ngaatjatjarra or Pitjantjatjara country, children
who may have spoken Ngaanyatjarra at Warburton have now begun to speak Ngaatjatjarra or Pitjantjatjara,
whichever the case may be.

A list of published materials about the Ngaanyatjarra language may be found in the References sec-
tion.

1.2 Discourse genre

1.2.1 Discourse

In recent years there has been a developing interest in the study of discourse, or the study of sentences
within their context. However some of the chief practitioners of discourse studies have not provided a
definition of discourse, but rather regarded it as a primitive. Joseph Grimes (1975:21) wrote as follows:

Since 'discourse' is a primitive term in the notional system I build up in this book, it is obviously not possible to
give a strict definition of it. Nevertheless, Pike's notion of discourse as a verbal behavioreme is a better starting
point dian any other I know of for communicating what a discourse is. Like any other behavioreme, it is recog-
nized by die culture as an entity with a beginning and an ending, and has internal structure.

Robert E. Longacre who has led teams of his colleagues in the Summer Institute of Linguistics in
periods of intensive study of discourse in various parts of the world (in particular, the Philippines, Papua
New Guinea and Colombia) and written or edited a number of volumes on discourse analysis, seems to take
the notion of discourse entirely for granted.

Halliday and Hasan (1976:1) provide a definition of text which bears some resemblance to what we
can assume Grimes and Longacre understand by discourse:
«
The word TEXT is used in linguisdcs to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does
form a unified whole.

A text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may be anything from a single
proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to an all-day discussion on a committee.

A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or a sentence; and it is not defined
by its size.

However my working definition of discourse is a large unit of speech, one which usually but not
necessarily consists in turn of paragraphs, sentences, clauses, phrases and words. Such discourses may of
course be either dialogues or monologues. The present study deals only with monologues, narrative and
hortatory.

1.2.2 Genre

Of those writers and proponents of discourse study mentioned above, Longacre in particular has
found it helpful to classify discourse into genre. The basic classification has been into four genre: narrative,
procedural, expository and hortatory. Longacre (1976:199) states:

Here I classify according to two broad parameteils, succession and projecdon. Succession refers to chronologi-
cal succession which is plus in regard to certain discourse genre but minus in regard to others. Projection refers
to a feature which sets off procedural genre from narrative on the one hand, and hortatory genre from expository
on the other hand. We may then form the proportion: procedural is to narrative as hortatory is to expository.
Narrative discourse is rooted in real time; it recounts events supposed to have happened somewhere, whether in
the real or in an imaginary worid. What is recounted is considered to be accomplished. Procedural discourse
tells us how something would be done whenever it happens to be done, or even how something was done
whenever it happened to be done. It is in projected rather than in accomplished time. Likewise, while expository

© SIL-AAIB
Darwin
1997

National Library or Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Glass, Amee.

Cohesion in Ngaanyatjarra Discourse.

Bibliography.
ISBN 86892 389 3.

1 , Ngaanyatjarra language. I. Summer Institute of
Linguistics. Australian Aborigines and Islanders Branch.
IL Title. (Series: SIL-AAIB occasional papers; no. 4).

499.15

SIL-AAIB
PO Berrimah

NT 0828
Australia