This paper will
explore the use of language as a form of resistance among the indigenous
writers of Australia. My plan is to examine
how altering English syntax and modifying the conventions of narrative genre
create layers of resistance to literary conventions to assert indigenous
identity and belonging. Syntax is a path of disclosure that reaches deep into
the matrix of indigenous literature and, just as paganism embraces a
spirituality free of dogma, this body of literature pursues a voice, a syntax
free of the language structures of the Invader. Paradoxically, indigenous
writers seek a language independent of colonial influences, while knowing this
may not be possible, except through the reanimation of the Dreamtime, that
primordial state of the beginning.
