Eugenia Netto - English, II-LM - a.a. 2008-2009
excellent!
TASK 1 b.
Australian English is described in terms of levels and is distinguished into three main varieties:
Cultivated Australian English which is very closed to RP English;
General Australian English which is the main variety of English spoken in Australia in the street and on television; this is spoken by the upper-middle class and is close to RP too;
Broad Australian English which is spoken by workers the working class.
Most people can shift between these levels (code-switching) because there are very little variation between them.
The Australian English variety I’m going to analyze is: General Australian English. I’ll take into account the main widespread features of this variety.
Part A: phonemic level
The pronunciation of General Australian English is like the standardized Received Pronunciation. Vowels are divided into: short vowels (corresponding to the lax vowels of the RP) and long vowels (corresponding to the tense vowels of RP). Unlike most varieties of English, it has a phonemic length distinction: certain vowels differ only by length.
Australian English is a non-rhotic language, that means that non-rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ only if it is followed by a vowel sound and not by a consonant. Consonants are similar to those of other non-rhotic varieties of English, but there is a flapped variant of /t/ and /d/ in similar environments, as in American English. Many speakers have also coalesced /dj/, /sj/ and /tj/ into /dʒ/, /ʃ/ and /tʃ/, producing standard pronunciations such as /tʃʉːn/ for tune.
Specific characteristics of General Australian pronunciation are few. For example the usage of /aː/ (the "long a") as opposed to /æ/ ("short a") of the RP pronunciation in words like ‘graph’, ‘chance’, ‘France’, ‘dance’, ‘demand’, ‘castle’, ‘grasp’, ‘bath’, ‘palm’, ‘start’, ‘bard’, ‘hard’ and ‘contrast’ is usually but not always attested. It is far more common in South Australia than in other regions.
Pronunciation that is different from RP (maybe because of the influence of General American or Irish or Cockney [all three, in fact, starting historically with Cockney and Irish]) are, for example:
Australia pronounced [əˈstɹæɪljə] instead of [aus.'tra.lja];
G-day where day is pronounced [‘dai] instead of [‘dei] as in the other words containing the word ‘day’;
I pronounced [a] instead of [‘ai];
Good pronounced [‘gəd] instead of [‘gʊd].
Perfectly (standard) RP pronunciation is that of with no pronounced [‘nəʊ].
General Australian is also characterized by a rising intonation at the end of sentences.
Part B: morphemic level
Australian spelling differs from British spelling only for few examples. The most common different spellings are: 'program' which is more common than programme and ‘gaol’ instead of jail, although they are pronounced the same way.
Australian spelling is usually the same as British spelling. From the morphemic point of view Australians tend to cuttruncate nouns and end them with –ie (/i/) or -o. First of all Australian(s) became Aussie(s). They also use: [ATTENTION: this is not a phenomenon of spelling but of word formation, e.g. elision+suffixation, so you should include it your comment on lexis. It is a highly distintive trait of Oz talk, widespread through all social classes; indeed some sociolinguists have theorized that it represents a collective act of Rebellion against British imperialism, just like adolescents' slang used to contest adult dominion.] cossie for ‘costume’, barbie for ‘barbeque’, arvo for ‘afternoon’, journo for ‘journalist’, muso for ‘musician’, servo for ‘service station’, brekky for ‘breakfast’, bickie or bikky for ‘biscuit’ and so on.
Australians also use ‘youse’ as the plural form of the pronoun you adding the suffix –se as in American English: 'how are youse?'.
Part C: lexemic level
Many differences can be find found between the vocabulary of Australian English and that of British and American English. There are words which are strictly connected with the Australian history and landscape. The best well-known are for example:
outback: a sparsely populated area, far from towns;
Bush or scrub: any wooded area or from a social and/or political perspective it refers to any populated region outside of the major metropolitan areas;
Bushranger: a criminal outlaw who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities in the early years of the British settlement of Australia;
mate: a friend; a companion
paddock: a field in British English;
dinky-di: 'true', ‘genuine’ or ‘devoted’ in expressions like 'dinky-di Aussie' that means ‘true Australian’;
And also:
G’day: ‘good day’, a stereotypical Australian greeting (it can be used also at night time);
footpath: pavement in British English;
weekender: holiday cottage;
sheila: girl or woman;
lolly: sweet;
shanty: pub;
broke for: in need of;
fed with : tired of.
The vocabulary is also influenced by Australian aboriginal languages. For example:
dingo: wolflike yellowish-brown wild dog of Australia;
cooee: as a high-pitched call for attracting attention;
yakka: Hard yakka means hard work;
didgeridoo: a well-known aboriginal wooden musical instrument
dreamtime: in the mythology of most Indigenous Australians, a "golden age" when the first ancestors and living things were created.
There are also many other many other words which are used differently in Australian English. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English_vocabulary and
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Australian_English_vocabulary for more explanation.
Part D: syntactic level
Word
order and sentence constructions are the same as British English.
There are no particular features.
[Are
you sure about that? Please check: http://tinyurl.com/boylan-2009-n
and in particular the distinction between de iure norms (here you are
correct) and de facto norms (there are, in fact, many differences).]
Part E: textual level
There are no significant features in Australian English at the textual level. We can only notice that Australians don’t use a lot of connectors both in written and spoken language. Furthermore they use ‘as if’ as exclamatory rejection in expressions like ‘"As if they're real tears!" or "The case was dismissed? As if." and not as a connector.
Part F: (normative) pragmatic level
At the pragmatic level we can notice some specific use of language to establish relationship, to express surprise, approval and so on. Aussies use a lot of idiom and colloquial terms and often colorful language.
When Aussies meet they use g'day which means ‘good day, hello’ and it’ the typical Aussie greeting. When they leave they say hooroo that means ‘goodbye’. When they thank, they just say ta (‘thank you’, derived from infant speech). Australian use ‘I’m good’ to say ‘I’m fine’.
They also use expressions like carn (which is an assimilation of "come on!" or "Go on!") to invite someone. Australians use expression like ‘Let's go take a gander…’ or ‘Take a squiz at…’ to say ‘to take a look’.
Aussies use also a lot of different way to express surprise and approval as for example:
Crikey! (exclamation of surprise);
hooly dooley (exclamation of surprise used when something out of the ordinary happens; similar "good heavens", "my goodness", "good grief", etc.);
beauty! (exclamation showing approval which is roughly equivalent to ‘Great!’, ‘Fantastic!’ or ‘Wonderful!’);
‘It was the cat's pyjamas/cat's whiskers!’(which means something great or perfectly suited);
‘she's apples/ she'll be apples!’ (that means everything is all right);
‘she'll be right’ (that means it will be okay, it'll turn out all right).
Australians use idiomatic expression as for example:
‘to give it a burl’ that means ‘to try something’ ‘to have a go’;
‘to feel crook’ that means ‘to feel sick’;
‘kangaroos loose in the top paddock’ that’s used to refer to someone considered intellectually inadequate.
Colorful language is very common and is used also to talk about common things as for example:
piece of piss: used to refer to an easy task;
pig's arse: to say ‘I don't agree with you’;
it’pissing down: that means ‘it’s raining heavy’;
shits: used in several expressions including ‘shits me’ (or more strongly ‘shits me to tears’) and ‘gives me the shits’ all meaning a combination of ‘annoys me’ and ‘makes me angry’;
and so on.
When speaking Australian often have false starts as ‘I…I…I mean…’. They also use stock phrases as ‘you know’, ‘yeah’, ‘uhm…’ and so on.
[I'm sure you used these colourful expressions during your conversation with the Trinity College students, right, mate?]
Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EYLMmRCXbs&feature=PlayList&p=0A3E1F13FA145720&index=0&playnext=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgYJChshyno&NR=1
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/australia/now/default.htm
http://www.lycos.com/info/australian-english--general-australian-english.html
http://www.doctorconnect.gov.au/internet/otd/publishing.nsf/Content/work-Australian+English
http://reese.linguist.de/English/australia.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English_phonology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English_vocabulary
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Australian_English_vocabulary
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/
http://blacktown.yourguide.com.au/