The Language of Kun-borrk in Western Arnhem Land

Kun-borrk is a largely undocumented Aboriginal song genre from Western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. The texts of these songs are in ordinary semantically-transparent language but the contextual meaning is often obscure. It is proposed that such vagueness in song text meaning, despite the use of ordinary contemporary language, is intentional and is part of a wider communicative practice of purposefully indirect and vague language. Included is a detailed examination of the texts of a number of kun-borrk song series and accounts from the songmen who compose and perform kun-borrk in order to demonstrate the relationships between song creation, song-text language and textual meaning. © 1997, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.