Phonetic features of english languages in australia

- The growing demand of white Australians maintain good neighborly relations with Aboriginal Australians ( Oshchepkova VV , 2004 . , With 69).

Changing the national consciousness has two implications for the language - change the status of Australian English , it is more rigid codification, and change the status of other languages, admitted to communion in Australia.

Modern language policy in Australia provides government support , not only in English, but other languages ​​, operating in the country.

The country has a telephone translation service , multicultural state TV - channels showing films in foreign languages ​​with English subtitles , news broadcasts in foreign languages. Australia has a multilingual public radio station. In public elementary and secondary schools teach more than twenty foreign languages, GCSE and equivalent also for the entrance exam to university (Matriculation examination), shall be deposited by 38 foreign languages. Local public libraries are staffed literature published in the languages ​​spoken in some areas of the country.

Australia - one of the countries in which the process of nation building is not held by the scrapping of all crops except for the dominant , and in the principle of the equality of cultures and languages ​​of all peoples inhabiting the continent . Australian English (Australian English) is a linguistic marker of identity in Australia and its liberation from British colonialism.

Undoubtedly , a variety of dialects and their expression in Australia are not as bright and clear as in the UK , Australia, although the area is 30 times more than the UK. In dialects no major grammatical differences , and differences in word usage is not so great: so called buggy stroller in the state of New South Wales and the pusher in South Australia. It is difficult to judge what is the area of this or that person by the way he talks (though some of localism , words and expressions can sometimes indicate where people come from ) .

 

2.2 Main characteristics of Australian

 

2.2.1 Phonetic features of Australian English

Most linguists divides Australian English into three groups according to the phonological characteristics : "Cultivated" ( cultured dialect , which is spoken by about 10 % of the population , it still has a huge impact normative pronunciation - RP), "General" ( a common dialect spoken by the majority of the population) and "Broad" (" a " dialect of uneducated part of the population with significant deviations from the standard of English in phonetics, vocabulary and grammar ) . These variations of pronunciation do not have a specific geographical location, they do not clearly identified cultural restrictions between the layers of the population , all of these variations in pronunciation can be observed within the same city or even the same family. For the first time this distinction was introduced by Mitchell and Delbridge (Mitchell and Delbridge, 1965). Often , but not always, these dialects reflect the social class or level of education of the speaker.

On the first of these groups writes in his book Viktoria Oschepkova4 : As in other languages ​​plyuritsentricheskih , features options recognized standard , basically the same and there are anywhere in the country . Thus, the " cultured " Australian English (Cultivated Australian) closest to the British variant ( VrE ), and is often mistaken for it, and a "broad " Australian (Broad Australian) differs from it as much as possible .

We are some people who speak Cultivated Australian, is seen as it imitates the educated population of the southern regions of the UK. In its most extreme form of this dialect is perceived speak other dialects as " artificial ," unnatural , cutesy . It is currently say less than 10 % of the population . Obvious examples are the actors Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush (encyclopedia Wikipedia).

Broad (" a ", " pronounced " ) dialect - is the opposite extreme , it says in Australia about 30 % of the population , and that it is perceived as "Australian twang" (" nasal Australian accent " ) . It is spoken by more than half of the population , including members of parliament, and teachers of schools and other educational institutions. This accent sounds from the mouth of the heroes of such actors as Paul Hogan ( " Crocodile Dundee " ) and Barry Humphries , depicting typical Australians wilderness , men of the people , uneducated and rude . It is commonly used in movies and TV programs about Australia , created abroad. It is this dialect was the informal name " strayn " (English strine). And people speak it , Australians call Okere (born "Ocker"). Below, we present its distinctive features :

In the diphthong [ei] the first sound is cut almost to a neutral vowel .

Glide [a] to [ai] is somewhat broader than in the British version .

There phoneme [ae], absent in the British version . It replaces the sometimes vowel number 4 in the shock position .

[ai] and [ei] little different and distinctive feature does not perform.

[a] is ​​also a broader and somewhat pushed forward .

Vowel number 10 and [a] - almost no difference in all dialects.

Neutral vowel replaces [i] at the end of words "arches", "horses" etc.

[i] is not found in almost pure form in any of the dialects dialect is generally most diftongoizirovanny [Ii], a wide - in conjunction with a neutral , as in the " cultured ." So "feel" can be heard in the speech carrier broad dialect as [ fzil ] . A centering diphthong [ Ig ] becomes triphthong [ ziz ] - "beer" [ bziz ] .

General ( common dialect) brings together a group of dialects and has no sharply defined features. It is spoken by the majority of the population. A striking example is the speech of such actors as Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe.

Some scholars have identified " a modified form of Australian English ." It is defined in the dictionary of Australian English makkvori (Macquarie Dictionary, 1981:1119) as " a pronunciation in Australian English, in which Australians seek to imitate the speech of British high society , and which is regarded as the mincing and unacceptable (" that pronunciation of A (Australian) E (English) which seeks to imitate British upper class speech, usu (ally) considered affected and unacceptable ") ( Oshchepkova VV, 2004, p 73-74 ) .

Research shows that an increasing number of people are "average" Australian English varieties and reduce the number of users, " cultivated " and " wide " variety . " Cultivate " variety is associated with the British colonial tradition , and " broad " is identified with the old myth that the real Aussie living close to nature, and Australia - a country of open spaces, despite the fact that it is the most urbanized country in the world. It is believed , however, that rural flavor " broad" Australian English (Rural Australian English) " broader " than the city (Urban Australian English). Than a " broader " variety , the more it deviates from the standard.

Oshchepkova also speaks of a separate version of the language , calling it ethnolect . This is a special version of the speech of people for whom English is not their native language. He has appeared due to the large influx of immigrants coming from different countries for the development of Australia all the time . Sometimes this speech is perceived as foreign or "too British ." Ethnolect common in the Greek and Jewish communities through the influence of the Greek language and the Yiddish language . Similar phenomena are observed in the Dutch , German and Hungarian communities. The most studied is the aboriginal ethnolect Australian English . A lot of work has devoted his research A. Wierzbicka .

 

2.2.2 Vowels

Australian English is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world. As with most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.

The vowels of Australian English can be divided according to length. The long vowels, which include monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centring diphthongs. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, correspond to the RP lax vowels. There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving Australian English phonemic length distinction, which is unusual amongst the various dialects of English.[1] As with General American and New Zealand English, the weak-vowel merger is nearly complete in Australian English: unstressed /ɪ/ (sometimes transcribed as /ɨ/) is merged with /ə/ (schwa) except before a following velar.[2]

There are two families of phonemic transcriptions of Australian English: revised ones, which attempt to more accurately represent the phonetic sounds of Australian English; and the Mitchell-Delbridge system, which is minimally distinct from Jones’ original transcription of RP. This page uses a revised transcription based on Durie and Hajek (1994) and Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) but also shows the Mitchell-Delbridge equivalents as this system is commonly used for example in the Macquarie Dictionary and much literature, even recent.

Diphthongs                                         Monophthongs

 

Long monophthongs                                       Short monophthongs

Front Central Back                                      Front   Central  Back

Close iː ʉː                                         Close  ɪ  ʊ

Mid eː ɜː~ɵː oː                           Mid e ə ɔ

Open æː aː                                         Open æ a

                                                         

  

Direction of second target	to unrounded	to rounded
Starting close	iː
Starting mid	oɪ	əʉ
Starting open	æɪ  ɑe	æɔ

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes and examples

/a/

for example strut, bud, hud. (M.-D. /ʌ/.)

/aː/ 

for example bath, palm, start, bard, hard. (M.-D. /a/.). The trap-bath split largely in effect.

/ɑe/, /ɑi/

for example price, bite, hide. (M.-D. /aɪ/.) The first element may be raised and rounded in broad accents. The vowel in "high" may be [ɑɪ] for those with the Broad accent, so "buy" might sound like "boy" in the foreign ear. This is a direct influence from the Cockney accent.[citation needed] This feature is also present in the New York accent.

/æ/ 

for example trap, lad, had. (M.-D. /æ/.) The trap-bath split and bad-lad split both largely in effect.

/æː/

for example bad, tan. (M.-D. /æ/.) This sound is traditionally transcribed and analysed the same as the short /æ/, but minimal pairs exist in at least some Australians’ speech (Blake, 1985; Durie & Hajek, 1994). It is found in the adjectives bad, mad, glad and sad, before the /ɡ/ sound (for example, hag, rag, bag) and also in content words before /m/ and /n/ in the same syllable (for example, ham, tan, plant).[3] In some speakers, especially those with the Broad accent, /æː/ and /æ/ will be shifted toward [ɛ].[4] There is æ-tensing before a nasal consonant. The nasal sounds create changes in preceding vowels because air can flow into the nose during the vowel. Nasal consonants can also affect the articulation of a vowel. So for several speakers, the /æː/ vowel in words like "jam", "man", "dam" and "hand" will be shifted towards [e].[5]

/æɪ/

for example face, bait, hade. (M.-D. /eɪ/.) Includes a significantly lower first element [a̠ɪ] than in many other dialects of English.

/æɔ/

for example mouth, bowed, how’d. (M.-D. /aʊ/.) The first element may be raised in broad accents. For many speakers, the vowel in words like "town" and "now" is [æʊ].

/e/

for example dress, bed, head. (M.-D. /ɛ/.) For some Victorian speakers this phoneme has merged with /æ/ in pre-lateral environments, and thus the words celery and salary are pronounced alike (Cox & Palethorpe, 2003). See salary-celery merger.

/eː/ 

for example square, bared, haired. (M.-D. /ɛə/.)

/ɜː/

for example nurse, bird, heard. (M.-D. /ɜ/.) This sound is pronounced at least as high as /eː/, and is often pronounced rounded (Cox, 2006; Durie & Hajek, 1994). This glyph is used — rather than /ɘː/ or /ɵː/ — as most revisions of the phonemic orthography for Australian English predate the 1996 modifications to the International Phonetic Alphabet. At the time, [ɜ] was suitable for any mid-central vowel, rounded or unrounded.

/ə/ 

for example about, winter. (M.-D. /ə/.) As in most varieties of English, this phoneme is used only in unstressed syllables.

/əʉ/

for example goat, bode, hoed. (M.-D. /oʊ/.) The onset factually begins somewhere between /ə/ and /a/: [ɜʉ̯~ɐʉ̯]. There is significant allophonic variation in this vowel, particularly a backed one [ɔʊ] before /l/.

/ɪ/ 

for example kit, bid, hid. (M.-D. /ɪ/.) The target for this vowel tends to be tenser than in other varieties of English—[ɪ̝]—and may sometimes sound like it has shifted to /i/ to speakers of other dialects or languages.[6] Thus, words like bin and sin may sound almost the same as bean and seen to non-English speakers. The final vowel in words like happy and city, which is typically /i/, is lengthened to an /iː/ sound, so that these words sound like happee and citee, respectively.[7] Some of these aforementioned features are present in Chicano English.

/ɪə/

for example near, beard, hear. (M.-D. /ɪə/.) This sound is traditionally transcribed with a diphthongal glyph; however, it is usually pronounced as a diphthong (or disyllabically) only in open syllables; in closed syllables, it is distinguished from /ɪ/ primarily by length (Cox, 2006; Durie & Hajek, 1994). It is primarily distinguished from /iː/ by the significant onset in the latter.

/iː/

for example fleece, bead, heat. (M.-D. /i/.) Includes an onset to the high front vowel [ɪi̯], except before laterals (Palethorpe & Cox, 2003). /iː/ may be [əi~ɐi], so that beat is [bəiʔ] for some speakers.

/oː/ 

for example thought, north, sure, board, hoard, poor. (M.-D. /ɔ/.) Many cases of RP /ʊə/ correspond to this phoneme in Australian English, but unlike in some British accents there is no general merger between /oː/ and /ʊə/.

/oɪ/

for example choice, boy. (M-D. /ɔɪ/.)

/ɔ/ 

for example lot, cloth, body, hot. (M-D. /ɒ/.) This vowel is in the same position as the first part of the diphthong [ɔʊ] (gold, hold, pole, etc.), though remains distinct from [ɔ] before l in words such as [pɔɫ] "poll" (dehorned cattle) and so on.

/ʉː/

for example goose, boo, who’d. (M.-D. /u/.) In some parts of Australia, a fully backed allophone, transcribed [ʊː] is common before /l/ (Durie & Hajek, 1994). The usual allophone is further forward in New South Wales than Victoria. It is moving further forwards, however, in both regions at a similar rate (Cox & Palethorpe, 2003). Many cases of RP /ʊə/ correspond to the sequence /ʉː.ə/ in Australian English.

/ʊ/ 

for example foot, hood. (M.-D. /ʊ/.)

/ʊə/

for example tour. (M.-D. /ʊə/). A rare, almost extinct phoneme. Most speakers consistently use [ʉː.ə] or [ʉː] (before /r/) instead.

 

2.2.3 Consonant

Australian English consonants are similar to those of other non-rhotic varieties of English. A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below.

Consonant phonemes of Australian English

  Bilabial Labio-

dental Dental Alveolar Post-

alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal

Nasal   m           n           ŋ   

Plosive p b         t d         k ɡ   

Affricate                 tʃ dʒ           

Fricative     f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ         h 

Approximant               r       j   w   

Lateral               l               

Non-rhoticity

Australian English is non-rhotic; in other words, the r sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. A final -er is pronounced as lowered [ɐ] in most speakers, or [ə] for some. So the words butter [bɐɾə], here [hɪɐ] and park [paːk] will not contain the /r/ sound.[9]

Linking and intrusive /r/

The /r/ sound can occur when a word that has a final <r> in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. For example, in car alarm the sound /r/ can occur in car because here it comes before another word beginning with a vowel. The words far, far more and farm do not contain an /r/ but far out will contain the linking /r/ sound because the next word starts with a vowel sound.

An intrusive /r/ may be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have <r> in the spelling. For example, drawing will sound like "draw-ring", saw it will sound like "sore it", the tuner is and the tuna is will both be [ðətʃʉːnərɪz].

Intervocalic alveolar flapping

Intervocalic /t/ (and for some speakers /d/) undergo voicing and flapping to the alveolar tap [ɾ] after the stressed syllable and before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/, though not before syllabic /n/ (bottle vs button [batn]), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). For those speakers where /d/ also undergoes the change, there will be homophony, for example, metal and petal will sound like medal and pedal. In formal speech /t/ is retained. When coating becomes coatin' , the t remains voiceless, thus [ˈkəʉtn]. [t] in the cluster [nt] can elide. As a result, in quick speech, words like winner and winter can become homophonous. This is a quality that Australian English shares most notably with North American English.

T glottalisation

Some speakers use a glottal stop as an allophone of /t/ in final position, for example trait, habit; or in medial position, such as a /t/ followed by a syllabic /n/ is often replaced by a glottal stop, for example button or fatten. Alveolar pronunciations nevertheless predominate.

Velarised alveolar lateral approximant

The velarised alveolar lateral approximant, or "dark L", may appear in all Australian English pronunciations of /l/.

Yod-dropping and coalescence

Many speakers have coalesced /tj/ and /dj/ into /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively. Pronunciations such as /tʃʉːn/ and /dʒʉːn/ (exactly like June) for tune and dune respectively being standard. This palatalisation can lead to additional homophony where dew, due and Jew come to be pronounced identically. /t/ and /d/ in the clusters /tr/-/tw/ and /dr/-/dw/ are similarly palatalised.

Word initial /sj/ and /zj/ have merged with /s/ and /z/ respectively. Other cases of /sj/ and /zj/ are often pronounced respectively [ʃ] and [ʒ].

Similarly /lj/ has merged with /l/ word initially. Remaining cases of /lj/ are often pronounced simply as [j] in colloquial speech, though this is stigmatised particularly in the case of the word Australia,[citation needed] so it is often pronounced as four syllables to avoid the /lj/.

/rj/ has merged with /r/.[citation needed]

/nj/ and other common sequences of consonant plus /j/, are retained.

 

2.2.4 Australian to English languages comparison

 

As well as being distinguished in pronunciation, the Australian version of English is also differentiated in regards to function and usage. One difference is in regards to informality. In America and England, the use of informal English is often interpreted as a sign of rudeness. Consequently, titles and family names are used to maintain a degree of social distance between people. In Australia, however, formality is more typically used by professional that don’t like each other. The difference is most clearly seen in greetings used in business letters. Whereas Americans usually greet with Dear Ms/Mrs/Mr (family name), Australians are more like Dear (first name.) Likewise, boss and workers get on first name basis far more quickly than they do in other English speaking countries.

The American strain of the English language is simple and easily understood by most English speakers the world over. Its simplicity can be traced to the country’s puritan foundations. As religious fanatics wanting to expand their flock, puritans desired a language of persuasion. To ensure clarity, they used generic words that were understood by the majority of the population. To increase the persuasive power of their words, they used a lot of analogies.