British and Australian English - Vocabulary
Bosses and workers are usually on a first name basis as are students and professors at universities. In regards to Australian pronunciation, different nationalities have heard different things at different times. In her book, The Awful Australian , English woman Valerie Desmond criticised Australian English as being excessively tonal, which she attributed to a Chinese influence:.
It is the extraordinary intonation that the Australian imparts to his phrases. There is no such thing as cultured, reposeful conversation in this land; everybody sings his remarks as if he was reciting blank verse in the manner of an imperfect elocutionist. It would be quite possible to take an ordinary Australian conversation and immortalise its cadences and diapasons by means of musical notation.
Herein the Australian differs from the American. The accent of the American, educated and uneducated alike, is abhorrent to the cultured Englishman or Englishwoman, but it is, at any rate, harmonious. That of the Australian is full of discords and surprises. His voice rises and falls with unexpected syncopations, and, even among the few cultured persons this country possesses, seems to bear in every syllable the sign of the parvenu.
The Australian practice of singing his remarks I can only ascribe to the influence of the Chinese.
During my stay in Melbourne, I spent one evening at supper in a Chinese cookshop in Little Bourke Street, and I was instantly struck by the resemblance between the intonation of the phrases between the Chinese attendants and that of the cultivated Australians who accompanied me. Other people have described the Australian accent as sounding excessively lazy, or like a Jamaican on valium. On the positive side, this has made it extremely easy for Australians to adopt other English accents but difficult for speakers of other English dialects to adopt the Australian accent. In the words of actor Rachel Griffiths,.
Some have speculated that the lazy sound is the result of Australians needing to keep their mouths mostly shut to keep out the flies. Perhaps another explanation could be that it reflects an Aboriginal influence. Although Aboriginal languages are extremely diverse throughout Australia, they share a propensity to end each syllable with a vowel sound, thus making sentences sound extremely smooth. For example, consider the sentence:. The use of Aboriginal words requires the English words be softened to harmonise them with the smooth sounding Aboriginal words.
This requires a less defined but more subtle use of lips and tongue and a nasal rather than throaty sound. Admittedly, talking about pronunciation is a bit difficult as pronunciation is not constant among Australians, as it is not constant in Britain and the US. However, the manner of variance reveals something about the identity conflicts that have occured in each country.
In England, accents vary according to class and region. In America, they vary according to race and region. Unlike America or England, Australia has no variance in speaking according to class, race or region. Instead, the accent varies according to ideology or gender. Two Australians can grow up side by side, go to the same schools, do the same job, but end up speaking English using different words, different syntax and with different accents.
In fact, due to the gender variance, a brother and sister can grow up in the same house and end up speaking differently. Australia has three recognised accents. About ten per cent of Australians speak like ex-prime minister Bob Hawke with what is known as a broad Australian accent. The broad Australian accent is usually spoken by men. Although some men use the pronunciation, the majority of Australians that speak with the accent are women.
It is a myth that working class Australians use cockney like David Beckam.
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It is a myth that Queenslanders speak differently to South Australians. It is also a myth that Australian-born children of migrants have distinct accents. Although the later are prone to mimic the accent of their parents as a joke, the norm is to speak in a manner consistent with other Australian born. The gender difference in pronunciation can perhaps be attributed to differing expectations about gender identities that are relatively favourable to the Australian male stereotype but unfavourable to the Australian female stereotype.
Specifically, expectations that men should be unpretentious, laid back and friendly are relatively consistent with stereotypes of Australian men. Contrasted to men, expectations that women should be refined, proper and neat are relatively inconsistent with stereotypes of Australian women. As a result, arguably more Australian men are comfortable adopting the accent of the Australian stereotype than are Australian women.
Although the connotations of stereotypes are subjective, arguably most Australians would agree that the traditional male Australian stereotype is more positive than the traditional female Australian stereotype. The difference in values provides the best explanation for the gender difference in pronunciation with Australian women not wanting to sound, bogan, ocker or stereotypically Australian.
In regards to spelling, Australia uses a mix of American and British spelt words.
Australian English: A Variety of British English?
As a general rule, words less than five letters tend to be spelt in the British style while those over five letters are more likely to be American. Some of the identity politics involved were illustrated in the spelling of labour. The Australian Labor Party adopted American spelling in the early 20th century in order to associate itself with American libertarian ideals. While using American spelling for the Labor Party is acceptable, British spelling for the act of labour is expected due to fears of an American cultural colonisation of Australia.
American spelling for words like "organization" is more common than British "organisation", probably because it makes more sense to spell a z sound with the letter z and words over 5 letters are too complicated for some Australians to worry about where it came from. Like spelling, Australian grammar is a mix of British and American English. In Britain, collective nouns are usually defined as plural. For example, the British would say, "The couple are happy.
For example, Americans would say, "The couple is happy" singular but "The two cowboy s are happy. Bludger - Lazy person riding off someone else's hard work. Derived from bludgeoner; a prostitutes standover man. Larrikin - Iconic individual that sails close to the wind in regards to rules. Initially used in reference to street criminals. Variation in Australian English: The sociolects of Sydney. The pronunciation of English in Australia. The speech of Australian adolescents. The Americanization of Australian English: Prestige models in the media. The language of a new society pp.
University of Queensland Press. Australian English in interaction with other Englishes. Discourse analysis in communication.
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English in Britain and overseas: Origins and development pp. Economy It could be described as post-Socialist but also as post Capitalist. Strine Australian English reflects penal history and the influence of Aboriginal languages. There will also be an examination of the development of the Australian identity and the attitudes towards Australian English because the language of the people living in the country influences their identity and vice-versa. Following this analysis Australian English and its relationship to British English on a linguistic and sociolinguistic level, this paper will attempt in taking all the aspects explored into account, to state whether Australian English can be claimed to be a variety of British English or not.
The terminology within the literature is highly controversial.
Some authors prefer the term dialect; others prefer the term variety or variation. In this paper the term variety is used, because it is less stigmatized. As the terminology is so controversial, it is very difficult to find an appropriate definition for the term variety, and impossible to find a universal one. For the investigation of Australian English as a variety of British English it is necessary to focus on the determination by region which is defined to have specific characteristics in phonology, grammar morphology and syntax and in the lexicon McArthur A standard variety exists from which other varieties are distinguished.
British English originating in south-east England is what is regarded as the Standard English which is promoted in schools and is expected to be used by broadcasters and officials. The status of being the standard arises not from linguistic perfection, but from the social, economical and political context in which it is used. This variety is codified in dictionaries, style books and grammars and hence, people think this variety should be used in formal settings.
There are social and linguistic factors which influence the development of varieties. The linguistic structure of a language causes the development of variation within a language; hence differences follow principles of language structure. Variation is also caused by the tendency of languages to become as systematic as possible.
This is called analogy. Differences in pronunciation are caused because certain sounds are more difficult to pronounce, and require a more complex movement of the tongue; hence, they are assimilated or weakened. To retain the distinctiveness of words, chain shifts occur, and whole vowel systems merge. There are also social and historical conditions which cause language change.
Explanation
Language varieties occur when there is a social and geographical separation between groups of speakers. Generally, settlement takes place in different phases. First people settle in the most attractive environment and they bring the language of their origins with them and establish a new identity. Also migration routes and geographical factors, like rivers or islands determine the way language varieties develop, but this is of no importance when examining Australian English, because settlement mostly took place by sea. Contact with other languages can influence the lexicon, morphology and the grammar of language varieties.
Also different occupations which are mostly distributed in the same geographical settings, like fishing or mining, influence language change with for example specific jargon. Language is also a social marker, and the social status of speakers is shown by the variety they speak.
The way a person. To express their membership, which can also carry connotations of pride, the members of a group use characteristic language features. Identity is based on many social factors, but language is one of the most important ones and can also cause a desire for language shift Edwards A variety carries certain character attributes and those reflect on the speaker. Also the identity of a nation is influenced by the language they speak and the other way around Edwards A variety is distinguished from another on the different levels of speech as defined above.
In the following, the linguistic features of Australian English will be presented, which show to which extent it differs from British English.
This investigation will show if Australian English is distinctive enough to be considered a variety on its own. Before examining the different levels of speech it is essential to explain briefly the speech continuum running Figure 1 through Australia. This continuum is based on social variation. There is Broad Australian on the one side, associated with male working class, and Cultivated Australian, associated with the upper class, on the other side of the continuum. In between there is General Australian which is spoken by the majority of speakers.
How this speech continuum may have developed will be explained in the sociolinguistic part of this paper point 4. The speech continuum running through Australian English is most distinctive within the phonology. The Cultivated variation is very close to British English, but Broad Australian pronunciation shows clear differences.
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General Australian pronunciation is situated somewhere between the two varieties. The pronunciation of Australian English distinguishes it most obviously from British English as the difference can be heard immediately. The vowels of Australian English are the features which most clearly show its distinctiveness from British English.