The name is absent

253

15.62' Life history

Life history for the Strelley Mob is a clearly recognised idential.

It is secured in tradition, based in the total Aboriginal culture
*

with its Oreantime explanations of the ’world', its explanation
ɪu

of reality. Added to this location in tradition, there is the
immensely proud idential of being part of the life-history of the
Mob, which dreamed a dream of survival that became a reality.
Being one of the original Mob has already been likened to taking
part in the long journey tp the Promised Land, a feat that is in
itself an idential, a coat of arms of courage and vision.

4

15.63 Language

Berger insists on the importance of language in the formation

of identity:

Language is both the foundation and the instrumentality
of the social construction of reality. Language focalizes,
- patterns and Objectivates individual experience. Language
is the principal means by which an individual is
socialized to become an inhabitant of a world shared
with others and also provides the means by which in
conversation with these others, the common world continues
to be plausible to him. On this linguistic base is erected
the edifice of interpretative schemes, cognitive and moral
norms, value systems and finally, theoretically articulated
world 'views’ which in their totality form the world of
collective representations (as the Durkheimian school put
it) of any given society (Berger 1971:96).
*

Language orders experiences. In a world of social order, the
'collective consciousness' which prevents anomie can develop.

The priority given by the Mob to the speaking of the vernacular,
and its development as a literary form, points to an awareness of
the role played by language usage in securing identity.

The importance placed on the role of the marrngu in teaching
the vernacular, both in its spoken and literary form, attests to the
perception of the Mob that identity is located within language.

This is an area not to be placed in the hands of white linguists.

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