AustLit

'The power of the English language in shaping ideas of Australian national culture and citizenship has been pervasive. Consequently, the "use" of the English language has been variously questioned by Indigenous Australian peoples. The codification of the "correct" and "appropriate" use of the English language has naturalised and legitimised colonial claims of exclusive "property" over the language defining the boundaries set to exclude/include peoples in Australia's "imagined community". However, the neo/colonial "possessive investment" in the representation of English as a non-Indigenous property is disrupted by the process of "appropriation", through which writers such as Romaine Moreton diversely disrupt neo/colonial claims of property, opening up endless possibilities for the roles English language users can play, and for how the importance of this use is viewed by others.' -- from the journal's website at http://www.anglistica.unior.it/content/%E2%80%9Cpost-me-prime-minister%E2%80%9D-property-language-and-indigenousnon-indigenous-relations-australian