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Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University

Distinctive features of the australian pronunciation standard

Neshataev S.V.

The maintains of research

The main objective of the study is to identify distinctive features of the Australian accent and find out how the accent is perceived by artificial bilinguals of Russian origin.

Speaking of the relevance of the study, the current research is topical as the study of pronunciation standards is an important aspect of studying a foreign language as it can help people to adapt to the language environment, since in different regions English speech can sound completely differently

A little bit about the history of Australian English

Australian English is a major variety of the English language, used throughout Australia. Although English has no official status in the Constitution, Australian English is the country's national and actually official language as it is the first language of the majority of the population.

Australian English began to diverge from British English after the founding of the Colony of New South Wales in 1788 and was recognized as being different from British English by 1820.

The earliest form of Australian English was spoken by the children of the colonists born into the colony of New South Wales. This first generation of children created a new dialect that was to become the language of the nation. The Australian-born children in the new colony were exposed to a wide range of dialects from all over the British Isles, in particular from Ireland and South East England. So they created the new dialect from the speech they heard around them.

Features of vowels:

1) The letter I in the closed syllable (bit, tip, etc.) can be pronounced as / i / (not as long as fleece vowel and not as sort as kit one). Australian people pronounce / ? /: / bit /, /tip / instead of / b?t /, / t?p /.

2) The letter A in a closed syllable (bat, flat, etc.) can be pronounced as / ? /, and not as / ж /: / b?t /, /fl?t / instead of / bжt /, / flжt /. So the low vowel becomes higher (closer) according to the height of the tongue. This feature brings together the Australian variant with the New Zealand variant of English.

Features of diphthongs:

1) The first one is diphthong [a?] which is ?-gliding; and it sounds more like [o?] in “oil“in aussie accent. Instead of the [a?] in “like“, “might“or “try“they do something more like an [o?] sound, though not quite so pronounced. So the low vowel [a] becomes a little bit higher according to the height of the tongue.

2) Diphthong [e?] is ?-gliding too; and it sounds more like [a?] in Australian accent. Instead of the [e?] in “mate“, “way“they pronounce it more like an [a?] sound. And the mid vowel [e] becomes low (more open) according to the height of the tongue.

Features of consonants:

1) In general, the system of consonant sounds of Australian English repeats the British standard consonant system. The common feature with the American variant is a voicing T in the position between the vowels. Cf. "Letter": BrE / 'let? / and AmE /' lе??r /.

2) In the phonetics of the Australian language Yod coalescence is strongly pronounced. Yod coalescence is a process in which the combinations of sounds / dj /, / tj /, / sj / and / zj /, that is "alveolar + j", are transformed into / ? /, / t? /, / ? /, / ? /. For example: educate > /'?d?. ?. ke?t/, graduate > /'grжd?. u. e?t/.

3) The sound [t] disappears from the end of words. This is called the glottal stop and it Is very common in Australia.

4) The ending - er is pronounced like [a]. This is because the Aussie accent is non-rhotic one.

That is Australian people do not pronounce the written letter "r" unless it is followed by a vowel. So the sound [?] is replaced by [a]. For example, instead of [f??r?v?] Australians would say [f??r?va] and [?r?v?] becomes [?r?va].

Intonation:

The main feature is to sound like an Australian you should raise your voice towards the ends of words. Sometimes it is called the "Australian Question Inflection", "Up Talk" or "HighRising terminal". This little trick is common in everyday Australian speech. Simply raise your voice towards the end of a sentence, exactly like you were asking a question. It is believed that Aussie accent is a rough, messy, casual and animated style. The accent itself requires using your tongue, cheeks and lips to almost “chew" the words as you say them. So it is often difficult to understand what an Australian means when he speaks.

Careless (NOT STANDARD) Australian pronunciation can be illustrated by the following dialogue:

- Knife a samich? (Can I have a sandwich?)

- I'll gechawun inn a sec. (I'll get you one in a sec.)

- Emma chisit? (How much is it?)

- Attlebee aitninee (That'll be eight ninety)

Research:

We conducted a study on the perception of the Australian accent on the basis of the faculty of foreign languages of Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University. It was attended by 16 thirdyear students from English department who are artificial bilinguals of Russian origin.

Respondents were offered an accent record and a form to fill out consisting of three main blocks:

The first is general information about the respondent.

The second is about perception of the accent. The task was to recognize the accent and emphasize its distinctive features.

And the third block includes questions about speaker's personality.

The results showed that students were able to identify its features while listening (they noted that the accent is non-rhotic one, and also they mentioned such features as glottal stop, sounds of the type "alveolar + j" and even High-Rising Terminal). Nevertheless problems arose with the recognition of the accent. Only 44% of people were able to name the accent. I believe that's due to the fact that these phonetic phenomena are common in many accents (Cockney, America English, Geordie etc.) So this task was not so easy. As regards personal perception, we analyzed the results by two main parameters: social prestige of the accent and its social attractiveness.

In conclusion, the research showed that among artificial bilinguals, the accent is perceived rather positively. So 63% of respondents considered the Australian accent to be prestigious, that is, they believe that a person with this accent is educated. And assessing the social attractiveness of the accent, 88% of the students decided that the accent is pleasant for perception and the person sounds quite friendly and reliable, the refore they would like to talk with this person in real life.

australian pronunciation standard bilingual

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