Marley, Alexandra2020-11-232020-11-23b71500133http://hdl.handle.net/1885/216347This thesis presents a pan-dialectal and cross-generational description and analysis of variation in Bininj Kunwok, a Gunwinyguan language of west Arnhem Land with a number of regional varieties. At around 2000 speakers and with children still acquiring it as a first language, is one of the strongest Australian Aboriginal languages. This thesis brings together a series of case studies on variation in Bininj Kunwok, examining linguistic and social variables and analysing them through a range of complementary theoretical frameworks. Sociolinguistic variationist approaches have heavily informed the methodology and analysis of the case study variables, with quantitative methods bringing to light both linguistic and social conditioning. From a qualitative perspective, language ideologies, linguistic anthropology, and language identity theories explain the socio-cultural mechanisms and motivations behind the distribution of the variables. The typological and historical linguistics literature, meanwhile, have been critical to the development of a methodological framework for analysing structural variation. The case studies cover a range of variables, including word-initial engma deletion, pronominal neutralisation and regularisation, loanword strategies, kin terms, and paradigm variation. Such an approach allowed for multiple linguistic levels to be analysed: phonological, morphosyntactic, syntactic, paradigmatic, lexical, and semantic. The analyses undertaken here build on the development of the Bininj Kunwok Corpus undertaken through this project. Combining my own recordings with those of previous researchers, I built a sizable corpus of around 27.5 hours of speech. As the corpus has an apparent time depth of a century, not only was a comprehensive analysis of synchronic variation possible, but also diagnosis of changes in progress. Cross-generational comparison of speaker data shows a phonological change in progress, increasing regularisation of pronominal forms, and vast variation in paradigmatic structures. The huge amount of variation in Bininj Kunwok points towards a society that permits and even promotes linguistic variation at the individual level, creating an environment highly favourable to fostering and maintaining diversity. Taken together, the above studies give a detailed picture of variation within an Australian language. By incorporating a number of complementary methodological and theoretical frameworks to examine a suite of variables, this thesis lays the groundwork for a new direction in variationist studies, and for an understanding of the socio-cultural forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, the great linguistic diversity found on the Australian continent.en-AU202010.25911/5fbf76787f833