VI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2014

While studying the British and Australian variants of the English language one can notice that the differences in grammar are not so numerous as the ones in the sphere of phonetics. These peculiarities are necessary to be analyzed not to make phonetic mistakes leading to intercultural phonetic interference. Intercultural phonetic interference can be defined as incorrect pronunciation of sounds of the foreign language and their substitution by the sounds of the native one. Thus, we distinguish five major phonetic peculiarities in the Australian variant of English.

1) There are three variants of pronunciation: General, Cultivated and Broad. Their differences do not lead to the complexity of the communicative process but they serve to define the social status of the speaker. For example, one of the peculiarities of the Broad dialect is the substitution of the vowel sound [i] at the end of the word into the neutral sound [ǝ].

2) The vowel system of the Australian variant of English differs a lot and it has the feature of the system shift. The general tendency of the shift can be defined as the shift to more closed sounds of the front row. The diphthongs are apt to turn into the monophthongs. The glide becomes weaker but the nucleus is longer.

3) The rhythm of the Australian speech is clearer and smoother than in the British variant. It occurs due to the fact that the contrast between the stressed and unstressed syllables is lower in the Australian variant of the English language.

4) The intonation of the Australian variant of English is characterized by not so sharp rises and falls of the intonation in one and the same statement. Thus the intonation of the British variant of the language seems to be more emotional and bright [1].

5) A specific feature of the articulation system of the Australian variant of English is its weaker labialization of the Australian sounds which is determined by rather weak work of the lips.

1. Макарова Е.Н., Позиция интонационного центра высказывания и коммуникативное намерение говорящего (на материале американского варианта английского языка) // Ученые записки Комсомольского-на-Амуре государственного технического университета. 2011. Т. 2. № 8. С. 32-38.

Код для цитирования: Скопировать