Introduction:

Language is vital for communication. We use language to communicate with each other, to describe the world around us, to describe our thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Importantly language also reflects and shapes the way we see and understand the world, our worldview.

42% of Aboriginal people in remote areas speak an Aboriginal language as their first language, and in the Northern Territory 80% of Aboriginal people live in remote areas, where there is also often a worldview and cultural beliefs that are greatly different from that of the dominant western culture.

Discussion:

Aboriginal Resource and Development Services has 40 years collective experience doing in-depth education on a wide range of topics including health, legal and economics with Aboriginal people in remote areas in their first language, predominantly with the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land.

This presentation will draw on ARDS experience to describe the way that language and worldview interact with each other. We will draw on our experiences to describe important fundamental differences between Yolngu and the dominant western worldview and language and the impact this has for health interactions for Yolngu. This results in a dramatic but often unrecognised miscommunication between Yolngu and non-Indigenous health staff resulting in a mutual misunderstanding.

Implications:

The implications of this are that for health professionals working with Aboriginal patients from remote areas who speak English as a foreign language, there needs to be a much greater understanding of the importance of language and worldview. There needs to be greater use of interpreters, but also much greater emphasis on cross-cultural communication and valuing local cultural and linguistic knowledge as of vital importance if we are to provide high quality health services.