Australian English phonology

Variation in Australian closing diphthongs[1]
Diaphoneme Lexical set Cultivated General Broad
/iː/ FLEECE [ɪi] [ɪi] [əːɪ]
/eɪ/ FACE [ɛɪ] [ɐ̟ɪ] [ɐ̟ːɪ, a̠ːɪ]
/aɪ/ PRICE [a̠ɪ̞] [ɒɪ̞] [ɒːɪ̞]
/uː/ GOOSE [ʊu] [ïɯ, ʊʉ] [əːʉ]
/oʊ/ GOAT [ö̞ʊ] [ɐ̟ʉ] [ɐ̟ːʉ, a̠ːʉ]
/aʊ/ MOUTH [a̠ʊ] [æo] [ɛːo, ɛ̃ːɤ]

Australian English (AuE) 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 Australian English vowels /ɪ/, /ɪə/, /e/, /eː/ and /ɜː/ are noticeably closer (pronounced with a higher tongue position) than their contemporary Received Pronunciation equivalents.

Vowels

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.[2] 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.[3]

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.

Monophthongs

Monophthongs of Australian English on a vowel chart, from Cox (2012:159)
Long monophthongs
Front Central Back
Close ʉː
Mid ɜː
Open æː ɐː
Short monophthongs
Front Central Back
Close ɪ ʊ
Mid e ə ɔ
Open æ ɐ

Diphthongs

Diphthongs of Australian English on a vowel chart, from Cox (2012:161)
Endpoint
Front Central Back
Start point Front æɪ æɔ
Central əʉ
Back ɑe  

Examples of vowels

Phoneme Example words Mitchell-
Delbridge
/ɐ/ strut, bud, hud /ʌ/
/ɐː/ bath, palm, start, bard, hard /ɡ/
/ɑe/ price, bite, hide /aɪ/
/æ/ trap, lad, had /æ/
/æː/ bad, tan /æ/
/æɪ/ face, bait, hade /eɪ/
/æɔ/ mouth, bowed, how’d /aʊ/
/e/ dress, bed, head /ɛ/
// square, bared, haired /ɛə/
/ɜː/ nurse, bird, heard /ɜ/
/ə/ about, winter /ə/
/əʉ/ goat, bode, hoed /oʊ/
/ɪ/ kit, bid, hid /ɪ/
/ɪə/ near, beard, hear /ɪə/
// fleece, bead, heat /i/
// thought, north, sure, board, hoard, poor /ɔ/
/oɪ/ choice, boy /ɔɪ/
/ɔ/ lot, cloth, body, hot /ɒ/
/ʉː/ goose, boo, who'd /u/
/ʊ/ foot, hood /ʊ/
/ʊə/ tour /ʊə/

Consonants

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

Australian English consonant phonemes[15]
Labial Dental Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive fortis p t k
lenis b d ɡ
Affricate fortis
lenis
Fricative fortis f θ s ʃ h
lenis v ð z ʒ
Approximant central ɹ j w
lateral l
Non-rhoticity
Linking and intrusive /ɹ/
Intervocalic alveolar flapping
T glottalisation
Velarised alveolar lateral approximant
Yod-dropping and coalescence

Other features

Relationship to other varieties

Correspondence between the IPA help key and Australian English vowels
Monophthongs
Help key Australian Examples
/ɪ/ /ɪ/ bid, pit
// /iː/ bead, peat
/ɛ/ /e/ bed, pet
/æ/ /æ, æː/ pat, bad
/ɑː/ /ɐː/ balm, father, pa
/ɒ/ /ɔ/ bod, pot, cot
/ɔː/ /oː/ bawd, paw, caught
/ʊ/ /ʊ/ good, foot, put
// /ʉː/ booed, food
/ʌ/ /ɐ/ bud, putt
Diphthongs
// /ɑe/ buy, high, ride, write
// /æɪ/ bay, hey, fate
// /æɔ/ bough, how, pout
// /əʉ/ beau, hoe, poke
/ɔɪ/ /oɪ/ boy, hoy
/juː/ /jʉː/ beauty, hue, pew, new
Vowels followed by /r/
/ɪr/ /ɪr/ mirror
/ɪər/ /ɪə/ beer, mere
/ɛr/ /er/ berry, merry
/ɛər/ /eː/ bear, mare
/ær/ /ær/ barrow, marry
/ɑːr/ /ɐː/ bar, mar
/ɒr/ /ɔr/ moral, forage
/ɔːr/ /oː/ born, for
/ɔər/ boar, four, more, moor
/ʊər/ /ʊə/ tour
/ʌr/ /ɐr/ hurry, Murray
/ɜːr/ /ɜː/ bird, herd, furry
Reduced vowels
// /ə/ roses, business
/ə/ Rosa's, cuppa
/ər/ runner

Australian English pronunciation is most similar to that of New Zealand English: many people from other parts of the world often cannot distinguish them but there are differences. New Zealand English has centralised /ɪ/ and the other short front vowels are higher. New Zealand English more strongly maintains the diphthongal quality of the NEAR and SQUARE vowels and they can be merged as something around [iə]. New Zealand English does not have the bad-lad split, but like Victoria has merged /e/ with /æ/ in pre-lateral environments.

Both New Zealand English and Australian English are also similar to South African English, so that they have even been grouped together under the common label "southern hemisphere Englishes".[19] Like the other two varieties in that group, Australian English pronunciation bears some similarities to dialects from the South-East of Britain;[20][21][22][23] Thus, it is non-rhotic and has the trap-bath split although, as indicated above, this split was not completed in Australia as it was in England, so many words that have the bath vowel in Southeastern England retain the trap vowel in Australia.

Historically, the Australian English also had the same lengthening of /ɔ/ before unvoiced fricatives, but, like the English accents, this has since been reversed. Australian English lacks some innovations in Cockney since the settling of Australia, such as the use of a glottal stop in many places where a /t/ would be found, th-fronting, and h-dropping. The intervocalic alveolar-flapping, which Australian English has instead, is a feature found in similar environments in American English.

AusTalk

AusTalk is a database of Australian speech from all regions of the country.[24][25] Initially 1000 adult voices are to be recorded; the project commenced in 2011, and the first phase is expected to run until June 2015. The database is expected to be expanded in future, to include children's voices and more variations. As well as providing a resource for cultural studies, the database is expected to help improve speech-based technology, such as speech recognition systems and hearing aids.[26]

The AusTalk database was collected as part of the Big Australian Speech Corpus (Big ASC) project, a collaboration between Australian universities and the speech technology experts.[27][28][29]

References

  1. Wells, John C. (1982), Accents of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 597
  2. 1 2 Robert Mannell (2009-08-14). "Australian English – Impressionistic Phonetic Studies". Clas.mq.edu.au. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-26.
  3. Wells (1982:601)
  4. "Distinctive Features". Clas.mq.edu.au. Retrieved 2011-07-26.
  5. 1 2 3 Cox & Palethorpe (2003)
  6. Blake, B. J. (1985), "'Short a' in Melbourne English", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 15: 6–20
  7. 1 2 3 4 Durie, M.; Hajek, J (1994), "A revised standard phonemic orthography for Australian English vowels", Australian Journal of Linguistics 14: 93–107
  8. 1 2 Robert Mannell and Felicity Cox (2009-08-01). "Phonemic (Broad) Transcription of Australian English (MD)". Clas.mq.edu.au. Retrieved 2011-07-26.
  9. Robert Mannell and Felicity Cox (2009-08-01). "Phonemic (Broad) Transcription of Australian English (HCE)". Clas.mq.edu.au. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-26.
  10. "further study | Australian Voices". Clas.mq.edu.au. 2010-07-29. Retrieved 2011-07-26.
  11. Cox (2012:160)
  12. http://dialectblog.com/northamerican-accents/
  13. 1 2 Cox, Felicity (2006), "The acoustic characteristics of /hVd/ vowels in the speech of some Australian teenagers", Australian Journal of Linguistics 26: 147–179
  14. http://clas.mq.edu.au/australian-voices/further-study
  15. Cox & Palethorpe (2007:343)
  16. "studying speech | Australian Voices". Clas.mq.edu.au. 2010-07-29. Retrieved 2011-07-26.
  17. 1 2 Cox (2012:149)
  18. "audio illustrations | Australian Voices". Clas.mq.edu.au. 2010-07-29. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
  19. Gordon, Elizabeth and Andrea Sudbury. 2002. The history of southern hemisphere Englishes. In: Richard J. Watts and Peter Trudgill. Alternative Histories of English. P.67
  20. Gordon, Elizabeth and Andrea Sudbury. 2002. The history of southern hemisphere Englishes. In: Richard J. Watts and Peter Trudgill. Alternative Histories of English. P.79
  21. Wells (1982:595)
  22. Gordon, Elizabeth. New Zealand English: its origins and evolution. 2004. P.82
  23. Hammarström, Göran. 1980. Australian English: its origin and status. passim
  24. Kate Wild (1 March 2015). "Austalk Australian accent research: National study aims to capture accented English spoken by Aboriginal Territorians". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
  25. "Aussie accent recorded for history for Australia Day". News Limited. 26 January 2011. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
  26. "AusTalk: An audio-visual corpus of Australian English". AusTalk. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
  27. "Publications and presentations". Retrieved 1 March 2015.
  28. "About AusTalk". AusTalk. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
  29. Dominique Estival, Steve Cassidy, Felicity Cox, Denis Burnham, AusTalk: an audio-visual corpus of Australian English (PDF), retrieved 1 March 2015

Bibliography

Further reading

  • "Australian English and New Zealand English" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2014. 
  • Turner, George W. (1994), "6: English in Australia", in Burchfield, Robert, The Cambridge History of the English Language, 5: English in Britain and Overseas: Origins and Development, Cambridge University Press, pp. 277–327, ISBN 0-521-26478-2 

External links

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