CHAPTER 6
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE: SOCIALISATION IN A WARLPIRI COMMUNITY
This chapter discusses the context in which children acquire Warlpiri as a first language. Children learn not only the forms and structures of the language, but also what is appropriate in different situations. In discussing how children acquire a language and how they learn about appropriate behaviour in society, researchers often talk about language acquisition as one topic and socialisation as another. This assumes that the two are separate, but other researchers do not support this view. They argue that language is acquired through socialisation; the two are integral aspects of child development. This paper demonstrates the closeness of this linkage for one Aboriginal language, Warlpiri, but we can assume that it has been widespread throughout Aboriginal Australia and continues today.
THE WARLPIRI LANGUAGE
Warlpiri is a Pama-Nyungan language spoken in the centre of Australia by about 3,000 speakers. There are several places in which the language is the community language, namely Yuendumu, Willowra and Lajamanu. In addition, Warlpiri is spoken in other places including Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. The discussion below is based on observations made in Yuendumu, which is 300 kilometres northwest of Alice Springs. There are about 800 Warlpiri people living in the community. While the people have access to packaged food in the two shops, they still like to hunt and gather bush food. The people live in extended families and prefer to live and sleep outside even though some housing is available in the community. Television reception and telephone contact have been available since the end of 1987. Before that, radio telephone was used to make contact with other communities.
The following sentence, consisting of three words, could be spoken in six different orders. The only requirement is that the lpa (an auxiliary, which signals that the action is not complete) is attached to the first word in the sentence. The actual order of words depends on the perspective of the speaker: instead of the verb, the word for ‘woman’ could be first or the word for ‘dog’. The ngku on karnta is the ergative suffix which shows that the woman is the person who is looking.
| Nyangulpa | maliki | karntangku |
| was looking | dog | woman |
| ‘The woman was looking at the dog.’ | ||
While English uses word order primarily to determine who is doing what to whom, Warlpiri uses case suffixes to show what function each noun has.
Some more examples of simple Warlpiri utterances are given below. Note that, compared with English, Warlpiri can omit pronouns and nouns in many circumstances. The suffix -pala, which is here attached to the verb, indicates that the subject is dual; it is sufficient to indicate that two people or things are performing the action, even when no pronoun or noun is included. If palangu is used instead of pala, this signals that the two entities are now the objects or goals of the action rather than the performers or agents. Note also that, like most other Pama-Nyungan languages, Warlpiri follows the ergative pattern: the -rlu attached to kurdujarra (‘two children’) is another form of the ergative suffix (an alternative to the -ngku used in the previous example).
| Nyangupala | maliki |
| saw | dog |
| ‘They two saw the dog.’ | |
| Nyangupala | kurdujarrarlu |
| saw | two children |
| ‘The two children saw something/someone.’ | |
| Nyangupalangu | |
| saw | |
| ‘Someone/something saw them two.’ | |
| Nyangupalangu | kurdujarra |
| saw | two children |
| ‘Someone/something saw the two children.’ | |
This small sample of Warlpiri should give an indication that Warlpiri and English are quite different, not just in the words used, but also in structure. There are, of course, many other grammatical structures that the Warlpiri child must acquire. But it is not only in grammar that Warlpiri and English differ; there are also differences in the way in which adults and children interact.
SOCIALISATION AND LEARNING
Not all cultures have the same expectations of children. For example, in white middle-class society, preverbal children are generally considered to be potential conversation partners and a care-giver carries on ‘conversations’ with a child. When the child starts producing words, the care-giver often points to things and asks the child to name the object or picture. Or the care-giver helps the child to develop communicative skills by telling the child what to say to a third person. However, in other cultures, children are not necessarily encouraged to speak until they have some knowledge to give, and question-answer routines are not part of the adult-child interaction.
Warlpiri adults give a great deal of love and attention to young babies but they do not assume that children are attempting to communicate or talk when they make their first sounds. A baby is carried around for a few months on a curved wooden carrier (parraja) supported on the mother’s hip. Older babies and infants are carried around on an adult’s hip or shoulders. A baby is fed at any time, and woken up at any time, often by older children who take delight in pinching the baby’s cheeks, hoping to make the baby smile. A baby is passed around to any willing holder.
Warlpiri adults do not generally modify situations to suit the child, or generally structure the child’s learning experience in stages, as is a common pattern in Western societies. The child learns through direct observation and real-life experience, the responsibility for learning being on the child. Similar patterns prevail in other Aboriginal communities (Harris 1981). A Warlpiri adult assumes that children learn by being with adults, watching what they do and listening to what they say. When an adult does initiate talk with a young child, it is to name others or to use an imperative to get the child to do something. The question-answer routine found in some other societies is not part of the interaction between a Warlpiri mother and her child. Such routines tend to be limited to societies with books and pictures, and books are not found in Warlpiri camps.
Children are encouraged to be independent and are not protected from potential danger in the way that many white middle-class children are. Warlpiri adults will protect children from serious dangers such as snakes, but they do not normally stop children from playing with a knife or piece of broken glass. When a baby cries the mother provides milk, but when infants cry or scream for attention they are likely to be left alone and not fussed over, unless a real reason for the crying is determined.
The children learn language by exposure to it in real situations. They learn the names of animals, trees and berries by being with the adults when they hunt and gather. They learn names and kin terms by being told the names of people in the immediate environment. Although the learning environment is not modified and graded, there is some control over the knowledge the child is exposed to. For example, a child would not be allowed to participate in all types of ceremony. There is also some modification in the words used with young children, which will be discussed a little later.
SKIN NAMES
To function as a member of the society, a Warlpiri person requires a name known as a skin or section name. Systems of skin names are in operation in many Australian Aboriginal groups. In the Warlpiri system there are eight skin groups, each of which has a male and a female name. A child’s name is determined by the names of the father and mother, according to a fixed pattern of descent. For example, a Japaljarri man should marry a Nakamarra woman and their children will be Jungarrayi (if male) and Nungarrayi (if female). The sister of a Japaljarri man will be Napaljarri: she should marry a Jakamarra man (possibly, but not necessarily, her brother’s wife’s brother) and their children will be Jupurrula.
The full system can be summarised in a diagram (see Figure 1). The horizontal lines in the centre link marriage partners, while the vertical lines at the sides link fathers and sons. Male skin names (all beginning with J) are listed immediately above or below their female counterparts (all of which begin with N). Note the regularity in the system: for example, a boy will have the same skin name as his paternal grandfather.
Figure 1: The Warlpiri skin names.
All members of the community must have a skin name so that they can fit into the social structure. Different land, stories and ritual are associated with each group: people choose marriage partners on the basis of the skin names; and people have obligations to others depending on their skin relationships. Children must acquire knowledge about the system and must learn the names of individuals, so that they know how to relate to them. For example, if a child’s mother is named Napaljarri, any Napaljarri has a classificatory mother relation to the child and can be called ngati ‘mother’ by the child.
When someone approaches a baby, the skin name for that person is spoken, as is the baby’s skin name. Thus, there is a type of introduction. Even though the baby will not be able to process or remember the names, the behaviour indicates the importance of knowing who other people are. The baby is socialised right away to one important aspect of Warlpiri society.
The cultural significance of the skin name is reinforced in many ways as the baby grows up. For example, children attend ceremonies with their mothers and other female kin and see the designs on the dancers’ bodies and the dances that are associated with the different skin groups. When young people start participating in ceremonies, they watch as the older people paint them; through experience they become aware of their own skin group designs.
Of great importance is the relationship of Aboriginal people to their land. When families go out from Yuendumu to gather food or to stay at outstations, the adults point out who ‘owns’ the land which is being driven through, for example, Jakamarra-Jupurrula land. This indicates the historical significance of that land for Jakamarra and Jupurrula people and shows that they are responsible for the land. The children are also told about significant sites on the land. For example, the old people will point out rock holes, and perhaps sing a traditional song that is related to the place. This is all part of the socialisation of the child; the exposure to the skin names in relation to land ownership helps to reinforce their importance, and the names themselves are learned through the socialisation process.
BABY TALK
As noted earlier, Warlpiri children learn in real-life situations and not through structured situations graded in difficulty, nor do they experience the question-answer routines that are typical of adult-child interaction in many English-speaking homes. Adults do, however, make some modifications in the language which they use to babies. In this baby-talk style, the modifications include changing some of the sounds in words and dropping some initial consonants. In addition, some baby words, particularly animal and kin terms, are used, many of which are borrowings from English. For example, mamiyi (from ‘Mummy’) is used for ngati ‘mother’, and jiji (from ‘gee-gee’) is used for nantuwu ‘horse’. There is also a special baby word for food. While adult Warlpiri divides food into three types, namely kuyu ‘meat’, miyi ‘vegetable food’ and pama ‘honey and nectar’, the form nyanya ‘food’ is used with babies, an acknowledgement that children do not have the experience to categorise food types under different labels.
This modified baby talk attempts to imitate the forms that the youngsters first use when they start articulating words (Laughren 1984). Whereas an adult would say nyampu for ‘here’ or ‘this’, a baby says ampu, leaving off the initial consonant ny. In playing with young children or teasing them, adults and older children might use ampu. This teasing puts responsibility on the child to learn the adult form, and by the age of four the children have mastered most of the phonology of the language, although some words continue to be said in the baby form for many years, for example, pawu for pardu ‘diminutive’.
Older siblings as well as adults use baby talk when playing with a Warlpiri baby. Warlpiri children of four tease their baby siblings, indicating that they are socialised by that age to use different language forms in different contexts. The following example is taken from an interaction between a four-year-old child (4;11) and her two-year-old sister (2;8). The younger sister does pronounce initial consonants but her sister uses baby talk back to her, leaving off the initial consonant from nganayi, nyampu and jayi; she also substitutes w for ng in ngula. The teasing style is also marked by a relatively high pitched voice.
| J: (=2;8) | ngula | nganayijayi | |
| that one | do what’s it | ||
| That one is doing something.’ | |||
| S: (=4;11) | wula | anayi-ayi | ampu |
| that one | do what’s it | here | |
| ‘That one’s doing something here.’ | |||
From the age of three-and-a-half, children are able to take turns in conversation, and they talk more often about events in the past. That is, children talk about events that their conversation partner may not have experienced: they contribute information. Thus, in addition to having acquired many of the grammatical structures in the language, Warlpiri children have acquired basic conversational skills by the middle of their fourth year. This is the age when they show some independence by wandering away from the immediate camp environment with other children. They go off looking for food or entertainment usually with another child of a similar age, or with older children who look out for them. They find sticks and dig into holes, as do their mothers when hunting for wardapi ‘goanna’, they reach for yakajirri berries on low shrubs, and they throw stones at birds in the trees. These provide experiences which they can recall on later occasions.
Once they have developed basic conversational skills, the children start manipulating the language as in the teasing routines mentioned above. In other cultures also, children tease and role-play by imitating features of the language of others, and they do this from an early age (Schieffelin and Ochs 1986).
KIN TERMINOLOGY
The kinship systems of Warlpiri and English are quite different. In English we have a single term ‘grandmother’ whereas Warlpiri distinguishes between yaparla (father’s mother) and jaja (mother’s mother). But there is a further difference here: yaparla refers not only to father’s mother but also to her brothers and sisters; likewise jaja also refers to mother’s mother’s brothers and sisters. Where English has the word ‘aunt’, Warlpiri has pimirdi (father’s sister); mother’s sister is treated as mother and referred to as ngati (mother).
Although Warlpiri adults do not generally grade learning situations, they do simplify kin terms when they speak directly to young children between the ages of two and three. Adults neutralise the basic opposition between male and female by using papa to refer to father, father’s brother and father’s sister, and mamiyi to refer to mother, mother’s sister and mother’s brother (Laughren 1984). Later, when the child is about three or four, sex is distinguished; papa is distinguished from pimiyi (=pimirdi) ‘father’s sister’, and mamiyi is distinguished from aminyi (=ngamirni) ‘mother’s brother’. The age difference between siblings is also neutralised, so that kakiyi ‘brother’ replaces both papardi ‘older brother’ and kukurnu ‘younger brother’, while yayi ‘sister’ replaces both kapirdi ‘older sister’ and ngawurru ‘younger sister’. This simplification is in addition to phonetic modifications which give forms such as wayingiyi for warringiyi (father’s father), and yaparli is used often instead of yaparla (father’s mother).
So, there is some acknowledgement that a child needs to be introduced to forms gradually. The basic opposition between father’s kin and mother’s kin is deemed more important for the child than sex distinctions within that opposition.
Since adults reduce the number of oppositions in the kin system when talking directly to young children, we might assume that this modification assists the child in learning the terms and the system. Understanding of the kin system and the terms used to label relations nevertheless takes many years to master. At first, children use kin terms as names for individuals; for example, jaja ‘mother’s mother’ is a particular individual. The realisation that any person with a particular skin name has a particular classificatory kin relationship does not come immediately, just as English-speaking children may take some time to grasp that even adults have aunts and uncles. The focus of the Warlpiri modifications is to provide the child with a basic distinction between father’s and mother’s kin, a distinction that is crucial in the social organisation of the community. The concern is more with socialising the child to this distinction than with teaching the child the language for naming.
The kin terminology is large and the full range of terms is not acquired until adulthood. Before the age of five, the children can use appropriate terms to distinguish between own and other generations, but they can make few generalisations. They can identify particular individuals but the system is not understood. They often make the mistake of taking a parent’s perspective, assuming that because a parent can identify a particular skin group as ngati ‘mother’, for example, that skin group is appropriate as their own ngati. Between the ages of six and eleven knowledge of the connections between skin names and particular kin relations increases. Those for at least one grandparent and mother are known first, while those for children and spouse are acquired later. This suggests that the child learns the system gradually, based on what is relevant in the child’s experience. Other evidence supporting this view is that children without an actual example of a particular relation (for example, pimirdi ‘father’s sister’) tend not to know which skin group fills this relationship as early as children who do have such a relation.
The kin domain is an interesting area to observe the acquisition of a language when the group is in contact with another language. For most children, the general terms kakiyi ‘brother’ and yayi ‘sister’ are used, although some children between six and ten can make the distinction between older and younger siblings, using the appropriate terms. This may reflect some change going on in the language, with the age distinction being lost. In Warlpiri, actual siblings as well as the children of father’s brother and mother’s sister are classified as a person’s brothers and sisters. While the Warlpiri children often use English words to label kin, some of them maintain the Warlpiri system by using ‘sister’ and ‘brother’ for relations that would be classified as cousins in English.
EARLY UTTERANCES
By the age of two, Warlpiri children produce connected utterances that contain recognisable forms. A few words are said in isolation before that age, baby-talk words such as jiji ‘horse’ and nyanya ‘food’. The adult shows pronounced pride with the knowledge gained by the child, and teases the child, repeating the words as they are pronounced. When the child produces longer utterances, utterances using suffixes on nouns and verbs, Warlpiri adults do not attempt to interpret what is not easily recognisable. In fact, adults may be quite dismissive: one Warlpiri speaker is quoted as saying:
Witawita kujakalu jaajaawangka, kulalpalu Warlpiriji wangkayarla ‘Little ones who talk like crows, they are not speaking Warlpiri.’
The following is from a two-year-old. The forms are recognisable despite the modified pronunciation of naka for nyanka ‘look’, nanuwu for nantuwu ‘horse’ and ajuku for ngajuku ‘for me’. But even though the forms can be identified, the child’s communicative intentions are not easy to determine. The listener needs to guess, and this adults do not choose to do.
When children are recognised as talking, they are assumed to have knowledge and will be answered by the adult. Their maturity is measured in knowledge gained rather than in years of age. When adults talk to children who they do recognise as speaking Warlpiri, talk is not modified to help the child in the task of acquiring the language structures. The language produced is fast and repetitive, as in discourse style among adults themselves. Imperatives are frequent: the child is told to do things such as take, give, come, or leave something. The adult expects appropriate behavioural responses, but is not upset if the child does not respond as expected. It is assumed that children will eventually take responsibility for their own actions.
There is considerable phonetic variation in the speech of the young Warlpiri child. A word may have the correct initial consonant in one utterance but not in the next. Of particular interest is the play on sounds, even in the speech of two-year-olds. Consider the following example from a two-year-old child. Long strings like this are often sung by children. (Below the forms uttered by the child are possible corresponding adult words.)
Another example of word play is with wita ‘small’ which may be pronounced in several ways in one utterance: wita, tita, pita and wuta. One two-year-old produced the following. The suffixes on wita may correspond to the adult diminutive suffix -pardu.
| witapu | tita | tu |
| witapardu | wita-pardu | |
| tiny | tiny |
An awareness of different speech styles and sounds also seems to be apparent in the use of the fricative [s] with pretend baby talk. Warlpiri does not have fricatives. Yet a four-year-old uttered a series of six nonsense words, all with initial [s]. An adult Warlpiri claimed that she was imitating English and that is the way children imitate English speakers; they are aware of the [s] sound as a marker of the language of the non-Aboriginal people in the community.
THE CURRENT SITUATION
The Warlpiri lifestyle is not as it was before white settlement. It has changed as other cultures have changed. The community at Yuendumu has a school in which children are taught in classroom settings. This means that there are discontinuities between traditional learning and school teaching situations. The children learn literacy skills, something their grandparents did not do. Food is available in the shops, and the acquisition of skills necessary for food gathering is not as crucial as it once was. The children are now able to watch television and see other lifestyles as depicted through the programs.
In spite of these changes, the community still maintains traditional values. Warlpiri children learn about social relations through naming, and they acquire skills for gathering and preparing bush food as well as other skills and the language that they involve by observing and imitating their elders. I have seen children of two using twigs to make the digging motions they have observed from adults, motions they will need to dig for food when they are older. Knowledge increases through adulthood with experience, and continues to develop. I have seen a woman of sixteen catching, gutting and cooking a lizard with great confidence, a woman of thirty painting ritual body designs for the first time, checking her knowledge with older women sitting close by; and another woman in her late thirties checking with an older woman about interpreting tracks in the sand. Knowledge is acquired over many years.
Like children from other language groups, Warlpiri children first talk about the here and now, and the hearer must rely on the immediate context for interpretation. Talk about the remote develops as the child masters the necessary grammatical forms in the language and the experiences to draw upon. Like other children, the Warlpiri first use simple clause utterances before linking clauses together to establish sequential and causal relations. Narrative skills take longer to acquire.
Although there have been changes in the lifestyle of the Warlpiri people, a strong sense of appropriate behaviour persists and is evident in the interactions between adults and children. Through these interactions children are socialised into the culture, and in their socialisation children acquire language and its appropriate use.
FOR DISCUSSION
- Observe for about twenty minutes a mother (or other care-giver) with a baby of about one year of age. Note the language forms the mother uses, and what function these have. For example:
- Does she try to direct the child’s attentions to objects or people? If so, does she do this by pointing or by verbal expressions or both?
- Does she ask questions of the baby?
- Does she offer explanations to the baby?
- Does she interpret the baby’s cries as attempts to communicate? That is, does she articulate what she thinks the baby is trying to say? If so, is she confident that her first guess correctly identifies the baby’s intentions or does she try to work out some other interpretation?
- Observe an older sibling with a baby (under one year old). What voice modifications, if any, does the sibling make when directly addressing the baby? Can you detect any systematic differences between the sibling’s talk to the baby and the mother’s in terms of (a) what they talk about, (b) how they interpret what the baby is communicating, and (c) modifications in voice or words used?
- Listen to some speech from a two-year-old child. Write down what the child is trying to communicate. How easy is it to interpret the words used? Discuss any difficulties. Does the child use gesture to accompany speech?
- Calculate what percentage of the day a particular baby spends alone, how much time adults talk directly to the child, and how much time the child is exposed to speech that is not directly addressed to the child. Compare your findings with others in your group.
- Discuss what you perceive are the major differences between the early experience for a Warlpiri child and the early experience of a baby such as the one you observed for question (1).
- Use Figure 1 to work out the skin names of relations: choose a name for yourself, then work out the skin name of your relatives, including mother, father, (potential) mother-in-law, father’s father, and so on.
REFERENCES
| Harris, S. | |
| 1981 | Culture and Learning: Tradition and Education in North East Arnhem Land, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra. |
| Laughren, M. | |
| 1984 | Warlpiri Baby Talk, Australian Journal of Linguistics 4(1), 73-88. |
| Schieffelin, B.B. and E. Ochs (eds) | |
| 1986 | Language Socialization across Cultures, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. |