Katharina Froedrich, MA (University of Western Australia): "Yeah you've got a sort of like a posh Aboriginal accent": Documenting Indigenous language repertoires in remote Western Australia

Documenting First Nations people's language repertoires in the Pilbara, Western Australia, through collaborative sociolinguistic fieldwork.

Abstract

Aboriginal English (AE) is an indigenised variety of English spoken by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, used by many as their dominant or only language of communication (Eades, 2014: 417) and a strong cultural and ethnic identity marker (Collard & Rodríguez Louro, 2025: 207; Ober & Bell, 2012: 72). AE is often one of several elements that constitutes the linguistic repertoire of an Indigenous person in so-called "Australia". For my PhD, I document the linguistic repertoires of a First Nations community in the Pilbara, a remote area in northern Western Australia. This is done in collaboration with the PKKP Aboriginal Corporation, where I conducted an internship with PKKP's Language Team over the course of five months in 2025. I argue that my PhD internship set the perfect context for meaningful collaboration by affording me a role and purpose in a community to which I had no previous connections. I will also offer reflections about the challenges and joys of conducting collaborative sociolinguistic fieldwork in the Pilbara, present a corpus overview, and discuss preliminary findings as well as interesting observations.

^{Collard, Glenys & Rodríguez Louro, Celeste (2025). From Spark to Flame: Decolonial Linguistics and the Creation of First Nations Medical Media. In Ndhlovu, F. & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (Eds.), Language and Decolonisation: An Interdisciplinary Approach. London: Routledge. 207-221.}

^{Eades, Diana (2014). Aboriginal English. In Koch, H. & Nordlinger, R. (Eds.), The Languages and Linguistics of Australia: A Comprehensive Guide. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. 417-447.}

^{Ober, Robyn & Bell, Jeanie (2012). English Language as Juggernaut – Aboriginal English and Indigenous Languages in Australia. In Rapatahana, V. & Bunce, P. (Eds.), English Language as Hydra: Its Impacts on Non-English Language Cultures. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. 60-75}

Bio-Note

Katharina Froedrich is an international PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and a Forrest Research Foundation scholar. Born and raised in Munich, Germany, she now lives on Whadjuk Nyungar Boodja in Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia. Katharina holds a Bachelor and Master of Arts degree in English Linguistics from the University of Munich (LMU), and has a strong background in sociolinguistics, language contact, and pidgin and creole studies. At UWA, her PhD explores Aboriginal English spoken in the Pilbara where she examines the language repertoires of Indigenous communities using collaborative research methods. She is particularly interested in how language use varies depending on context, topic, and interlocutor. She aims to form sustainable relationships and engage Aboriginal English speakers throughout all stages of the research, challenging prevailing power relations between the researcher and the researched. As part of her collaboration with the PKKP Aboriginal Corporation in Karratha, she interned with PKKP's Language Team in 2025. She is a member of the Social Committee at Forrest Hall and a member of the GRS HDR Student Consultative Committee at UWA.

Poster