XV Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2023

Australian accent or Aussie accent, as native speakers call it, is a mix of mainly British, American accents and also languages of Aboriginal Australians. More than 200 years have passed since the first-come of the British colonists, and nowadays Australian variant of English has unique features which are simple to recognize in any English-speaking community [3,4]. Aussie accent mostly differs from the British one in phonology and lexicology [8].

The first thing that shows that in front of you there is an Australian is his specific pronunciation, which can be called Australia’s carte-de-visite. Using the HCE phonemic system, made by Harrington, Cox and Evans, we can contrast British and Australian sounds [1]. They are as similar as different.

Sounds that most of all help to find out that someone is from Australia are: [ɑe] is something middle between [ɔɪ] and [aɪ], [æɔ] is a mix of the sound [aʊ] and Russian sound [jo] and [æɪ] [6]. Australians themselves often call their language a “lazy” variant of English because of several reasons. One of them is that Australian accent numbers among non-rhotic accents like the British one [2]. However, in the Australian variant sound [r] either is not pronounced or is similar to sound [a:] especially at the end of the words in combinations -or, -ar, -er, -re, -ure, -our [5]. Besides, sound [t] in Australia is pronounced mellower than in modern English or like [r] is not pronounced.

As for lexis, there are plenty of differences, whereas as it had been said earlier Australian accent is very “lazy” so Australians try to truncate almost every word [8, 9]. They love doing it so much that the name of their country is truncated into Straliya or Straya. There are some more examples [7]:

Not only particular words but also word combinations differ in British and Australian accents. Specifically, “fair dinkum” or “dinky die” means “something is true”, “she’ll be right”- “everything is going to be all right”, “she’s a beaut”- “something beautiful (weather, season)” [5, 7].

The word “mate” can be discussed singly as it is also Australia’s carte-de-visite. Australians use it to call their friends and fellows and sometimes passers-by.

Furthermore, many Australian words came historically from the Aboriginal’ languages. The most popular are: “cooye”- “hey”, “hard yakka”- “hard work” and “bung”- “dead” or “broken” [6].

Список используемой литературы:

1. Cox F., Fletcher J. Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription. Cambridge University Press, October 4^th 2017. [Электронный ресурс] – https://books.google.ru/books?id=ZBs3DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru#v=onepage&q&f=false

2. Lingoda, online language school. Australian English: Everything You Need To Know. [Электронный ресурс] – https://blog.lingoda.com/en/a-guide-to-australian-english/

3. Insider Guides. A Brief Guide to the History of Australia. [Электронный ресурс] ­– https://insiderguides.com.au/brief-guide-history-australia/

4. Lambert T. A Short Story of Australia. [Электронный ресурс] – http://www.localhistories.org/australia.html

5. Skyeng: онлайн-школа английского языка. Почему Хью Джекман так странно говорит?? Австралийский акцент. [Электронный ресурс] – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnQ5dnR_h4A

6. Спик Изи. Говори как Австралиец! Акцент Шоу #11. [Электронный ресурс] – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9en55ZobD8w

7. Dynamic English. North American, British and Australian English Differences. [Электронный ресурс] – https://www.dynamicenglish.cl/blog-feed/north-american-british-and-australian-english

8. 빌리온에어 Billyonaire. 미국 / 영국 / 호주 영어 발음 차이 알아보기! [KoreanBilly’s English]. [Электронный ресурс] – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XgwE3QOdcE

9. Aussie English. The 3 Australian Accents: General, Cultivated & Broad | Australian Pronunciation. [Электронный ресурс] – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnioDeQNlxQ&list=PL6JALoyryDLqD_FrwZp1Tv3mj_dM8cMJA&index=6