A Survey of the Pronunciation of Australian English

von

Silke-Katrin Kunze

2. Semester - Englisch/Französisch Lehramt Gymnasium

TABLE of CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION 3

PRONUNCIATION IN GENERAL 4

AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH IN GENERAL 4

ORIGINS 4

LANGUAGE VARIATION 5

PRONUNCIATION OF AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH 6

SPEECH VARIETIES 6

BROAD AUSTRALIAN 6

CULTIVATED AUSTRALIAN 6

GENERAL AUSTRALIAN 7

MODIFIED AUSTRALIAN 7

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPEECH VARIETIES 8

ASSIMILATION 8

REGIONAL DIALECTS 9

DIALECT DIFFERENCES 10

INVENTORY 10

General Inventory 10

Particular Inventory 11

LONDON ENGLISH AND AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH 12

VOWELS IN AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH 13

THE VOWEL SYSTEM IN STRESSED SYLLABLES 13

THE VOWEL SYSTEM IN UNSTRESSED SYLLABLES 14

THE INDETERMINATE VOWEL / / 15

OTHER VOWELS 16

CONSONANTS IN AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH 17

FINAL COMMENT 19

DISTINCTIVELY AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH 19

NASALIZATION 20

STRESS 20

BROKEN SETS 21

BIBLIOGRAPHY 23

Introduction

Pronunciation in General
"The pronunciation is the actual living form or forms of a word, that is, the word itself, of which the current spelling is only a symbolization. Introduction to the OED"
Written English has mainly remained the same since the invention of printing, however, spoken English, as it is received, has changed repeatedly since then. Therefore, one of the important factors must be that the way people pronounce their words is affected by what they have heard, or hear around them.

Australian English in General
Australian English is said to be "the most striking of the forms of English spoken south of the Equator" . By Australian English we mean the kind of English that was born with the children of British settlers who were born and raised in the new colony of the early nineteenth century. It is the mother tongue of many Australians ever since and the national variety of English that people will meet in Australia.

Origins
Australian English started its way up from a convict settlement in the late eighteenth century. That this time is correct is proofed by the rhymes in an early ballad, Botany Bay. There is evidence from general English that its rhymes were good in their day:"Ye worst of land-lubbers, make ready for sea, There′s room for you all about Botany Bay. Commercial arrangements give prospects of joy, Fair and firm may be kept ev′ry national tie."

People from different areas of mostly the British Isles were brought together and taken abroad. As soon as they came into contact with each other, as well as the native Aborigines, they slowly began to shape a new form of English by the circumstances in which they found themselves. Little by little, so they didn′t even notice for a long time, their English was mixed and simplified. Later, linguists discovered that the form of English spoken in Australia was different from that of the mother country, but certainly not inferior to it.

Linguists also had more than one opinion about the value of this new type of English. For George Bennett, for instance, it was a very pure English spoken among the native-born Australians, which made it easier to recognise whether the person came from home or the colony. Others paid attention to the speech of the many convicts, who soon had spread a kind of uneducated speech everywhere, and that brought along unattractive social associations. This speech was uniquely Australian. It separated its speakers from the many other speakers of English, especially the ones in official positions. Finally, in the 1850s inspectors of schools called for the elimination of the Australian dialect.

Language Variation
We all know that every language is not spoken the same by its speakers. There is a variety of regional dialects, and language changes with time. Through differences in regional dialects can be explained which speakers of a language settled in an area, how much contact they had with other speakers of the language, or what influence speakers of other languages had on them.

Because of the far distance from the mother country, in our case, and the development of the country itself Australian English had to split up and developed its own specific elements. Within this process its speakers created so-called speech varieties which allow them to modulate their speech and use different styles of speaking according to the situation, such as talking to somebody unknown on the phone or a friend at home. Both examples imply the possibility to tell something about the participants′ relationships. These registers differ in their pronunciation. In casual and rapid speech one is used that differs quite obvious from a careful, slow delivery.

Pronunciation of Australian English

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