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Abstract
This paper explores and analyzes the cultural conflicts between the white settlers and the aborigines in Kate Grenville’s novel The Lieutenant. Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s best loved authors and her works of fiction have won numerous awards in Australia. The story tells of the friendly relationship and the efforts of conversation between the white protagonist, British officer and astronomer Daniel Rooke, and an aboriginal girl named Tagaran. Grenville shows how the clash of cultures leads to irreversible change and the corruption of lifestyles and values. The cultural conflict occurs by several means including the usage of instruments, language, food and hunting. Kate Grenville portrays the variation of culture between the natives and the settlers from their dress code to each and every activity in their day-today life. The whites are very keen in not letting the natives to know about the weapons used by them as they think that teaching the natives about their own culture and usage of weapons will turn the natives against them. The clash between the Aboriginal culture and the British culture becomes serious when the settlers begin to do agriculture for their food. Though the Aborigines are great in number compared to the white settlers, they suppressed the Aboriginal culture and made their culture a dominant one in the Aboriginal’s land. This paper focuses on the encounters between the whites and the aborigines and how these encounters make the way to expectations of mutual understanding between two cultures by means of linguistic exchanges.