Eugenia Netto - English, II-LM - a.a. 2008-2009

TASK 1 b.

Australian English is described in terms of levels and is distinguished into three main varieties:

• Cultivated Australian English which is very close 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 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 pronunciation 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 – (or rather all three, in fact, starting historically with Cookney 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].

Perfect (standard) RP pronunciation is that 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 in a few examples cases. 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.

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

An important phenomenon of word formation which is highly distinctive of the Australian English is the tendency to cuttruncate nouns and end them with –ie (/i/) or -o. This is a phenomenon of ‘elision+suffixation’ and it is widespread through all social classes. Some sociolinguistics have theorized that it represents a collective act of Rebellion against British imperialism, just like adolescents’ slang used to contest adult dominion.

Examples are first of all Australian(s) that became Aussie(s), then 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.

Many differences can be 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

There are very few non-standard constructions at the syntactic level. British and American influences are very strong and both affect AusE from this point of view. Anyway Australian English seems to be more similar to BrE than to AmE. The identification of distinctive characteristics of AusE in respect of syntax is very complex because there are only differences in the usage but not in the normative system. Indeed Aussies don’t recognize the standard variety of AusE, in respect of syntax, as a separate body of norms.

For more information, see http://tinyurl.com/boylan-2009-n.

Some examples from the site above:

• Different usage of : used to

It is used as an auxiliary:

• negative form: in AusE usedn’t to against didn’t used to;

• interrogative form: in AusE used she to do it? against did she used to do it?

• Different usage of prepositions which introduce the object of comparison:

  • to/from/than: