Abstract
In 1924 the first university Department of Anthropology in Australia was founded at the University of Sydney. The founding professor was Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, a theoretical anthropologist whose aim it was to have anthropology accepted as one of the natural sciences. Not a fieldworker himself he was nevertheless successful in establishing anthropological fieldwork in Australia and soon the new department had dozens of fieldworkers around Australia, in Papua New Guinea and on various Pacific islands. What these researchers expected to study was the social organization, the cultures and the languages of ‘native tribes.’ However, what they found was colonization in full swing: in Queensland, the 2nd or 3rd generation of post-contact aboriginals were mostly living in new social formations on missions and reserves.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Specialist publication | Language on the move |
| Publisher | Language on the move |
| Publication status | Published - 22 May 2012 |
Bibliographical note
Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.Keywords
- 200401 applied linguistics and educational linguistics
- 200405 language in culture and society (sociolinguistics)