A Survey of the Pronunciation of Australian English

Scholary Paper aus dem Jahr 1998 im Fachbereich Englisch - Pädagogik, Didaktik, Sprachwiss., einseitig bedruckt, Note: 2+ (B), Technische Universität Dresden (Institute for Anglistics/American Studies), Veranstaltung: Proseminar: National Varieties of Modern English, 7 Eintragungen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Englisch, Abstract: 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 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.§§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.§§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.