Accents of English outside UK and USA

Accents of English outside UK and USA 

Preface

Our project is aimed to tell about different accents of English, especially about Australian and New Zeland English and to show the differences between them. We intend to explain how Australian and New Zeland sounds are produced and to show how it influences the meaning of words and expressions and cause misunderstanding. To begin with we should realize what the term “accent” is. For example Peter Roach writes in his “Little encyclopedia of phonetics”:

“<…> accent also refers to a particular way of pronouncing: for example, you might find a number of English speakers who all share the same grammar and vocabulary, but pronounce what they say with different accents such as Scots, Cockney or Received Pronunciation (BBC accent). The word accent in this sense is distinguished from dialect, which usually refers to a variety of a language that differs from other varieties in grammar and/or vocabulary.” Now we can slowly move to our main topic - Accents of English outside UK and USA.  

Sociolinguistic situation and distinctive features of Australian English. 

The englishspeaking Australia and New Zealand are among the youngest nations in the world. The first Europeans took their residence about two hundred years ago when Australia was founded as a penal colony. They were eventually followed by voluntary immigrants. Nowadays there are more than 18 million speakers of English and 170,000 Australians or 1 % of aboriginal descent.The origin of the name Australia goes back to the 16th century when European Philosophers and mapmakers of that time assumed a great southern continent existed south of Asia. They called this hypothetical place Terra Australis, Latin for 'southern land'. Today, Australia is the sixth largest country in the world by area (and in some 30 times bigger than Great Britain). The most distinctive variations of AuE is variations in accent and vocabulary. T.T. Vrabel gives us a lot of examples.

1) It's typical of AuE speakers to shorten words. That gives "Strine" (a popular

term for AuE) its special style – informal, friendly, sometimes funny. Examples of SHORTENED WORDS: mozzie = mosquito, Aussie – Australian, Oz = Australia, barbie = barbecue, postie = postman, beaut = beautiful, biggie = something big, chalkie = chalk user, teacher, cuppa = cup of tea, croc = crocodile, chockie = chocolate, ciggie = cigarette, cuey/cuke=cucumber, info=information, lecky=electric, mo=moment, rellies =relatives, surfie - person who loves surfing,/oofy = football, ta = thank you, vocab = vocabulary, g 'bye

=goodbye, Tazzie = Tasmania, g'day = hello (good day), uni=university, a brolly = umbrella, а bіккіе =а biscuit(cookie), tough bikkies = a bit of bad luck.

Examples with the -o ending include abo =aborigine - now considered very offensive, arvo = aftemoon, fisho =fishmonger, fruito =fruiterer, servo =service station/gas station, devo = deviant / pervert, ambo = ambulance office and bottle-o =bottle shop/liquor store. Occasionally, a -za diminutive is used, usually for personal names. Barry becomes Bazza, Karen becomes Kazza and Sharon becomes Shazza.

2) Australian English also incorporates several uniquely Australian terms, such

as outback to refer to remote regional areas, walkabout to refer to a long journey of uncertain length and bush to refer to native forested areas, but also to regional areas as well. Fair dinkum can mean are you telling me the truth? this is the truth!, or this is ridiculous! depending on context. G 'day is well known as a stereotypical Australian greeting - it is not synonymous with "GoodDay", and is never used as an expression for "farewell"; Cooee ~ a musical call which travels long distances in the bush and is used to say 'is there anyone there?' There are a lot of special words for farming and agriculture and popular Australian words that people use all the time. Examples of a few COMMON AUSTRALIAN WORDS:

amber fluid = beer, bonzer= very good, crook = ill, lollies = sweets, lolly water=non-alcoholic drink, bush station^ farm, mate = friend (this word is used all the time, even to strangers), ocker=the kind of Australian man who likes drinking and talking about sport, Pom = an English person, Seppo = an American, Sheila = a young woman, tucker = food, good on yer =a very common way of saying well done, or goodbye.

Phonological and phonetic distinctions of AuE.

Australian PRONUNCIATION has its own history. The peculiarities of English pronunciation in Australia are, so far, less investigated and described in linguistic literature, than those of American English pronunciation, for example. Following A. G. Mitchell, A. Delbridge, S. Baker, G. Orlov and other investigators of AuE, three major varieties can be ditinguished in it:

Cultivated (or Educated) Australian (CAuE), General Australian (GAuE) and Broad Australian (BAuE) [Crystal 1995: 351].

Cultivated Australian is an accent used by about 10 per cent of the population. General Australian is the most characteristic type of AuE pronunciation. It is, so to speak, the language of communication. According to A. Mitchell, GAuE is used by "people of good education and high standing in the community (at least by 55 percent of the Australians)". It is the type of accent heard on TV and the radio, in other public institutions. Broad Australian (Uneducated, Popular Australian) is a substandard accent distinguished from the others chiefly by its vowels, the nature of its diphthongs and a good deal of nasality - an 'Australian twang'. The vowel system of Broad Australian is very similar to Cockney.

Generally speaking, differences between these major accents in AuE tend to be less

marked. This type of English tends to become more and more homogeneous and uniform. Still the differences in phonology/phonetics between RP and General Australian (GauE), as the accent most widely used in Australia, are quite remarkable so that EFL learners should be aware of them. 

Vowels

The auditory impression of a distinctive Australian accent lies in the vowel system,

especially in the way diphthongs are pronounced.

1. RP [i:] and [u:] (as in see, do) are heard as diphthongs, e.g. [i] = [əi], [u:] = [əu], tea = [təi], too = [təu]. The effect on [i:] is particularly striking as a marker of Australian accent.

2. Centring diphthongs are pronounced in GAuE with the final element hardly

heard. The effect is almost a pure vowel, e.g. here = [hi:], fair = [fε:], poor = [pu:]

3. Closing diphthongs have the following counterparts in GAuE:

3.1 [еI] = [٨I], e.g. same = [s٨im]. It is widely heard in the name Australia and in

the greeting g'day [gədai]; it is this variant that motivates the 'Strine' label for Australian English.

3.2. [ai], especially in the word final position, = [oi], e.g. time = [toim], high = [hoi]

3.3. [au] = [æu], e.g. now = [næu], cow = [kæu].

4. GAuE speakers show a general tendency to avoid the pure [a:]. There is, for

instance a preference for the short [æ] before two consonants (especially nasal sonants),

5. e.g. plant = [plænt], dance = [dæns]; [a:] also tends to change in certain ositions

to [٨] or [٨ə], e.g. cart = [k٨ət], darling = ['d٨lin].

6. GAuE vowels [i], [e], [æ] are noticeably closer than their counterparts in RP.

The distribution of shwa (the neutral vowel [ə]) in GAuE is greater than in RP. It is used even in the endings -es (plurals of nouns and the 3rd person singular of the verbs), -est (the superlatives of adjectives) and in -ess, -less, -let, -ness, in various positions where the spelling is “i”, e.g. boxes = ['bɔksəz], he crosses = ['krɔsəz], rabbit= ['ræbət], terrify = ['terəfai].

7. The sound [U] is more advanced in GAuE and has lip rounding.

Consonants

The CONSONANTS in GAuE, according to A. Mitchell, S. Baker and others, are the same or very similar to RP consonants. The distributional differences are not so numerous. The most observable tendencies are as follows:

1. The omission of some consonants, especially [k], [t], [g], [h], e.g. facts = [fæks],

half past two = ['a:pa:stu:], recognize =['rekənaiz];

2. The substitution and insertion of consonants in certain words, morning =

['mɔ:nən], suggest = [səg'ʤəst].

3. There are no glottal stops (in spite of all the similarities of AuE to Cockney).

4. Some Australians, maybe due to Irish influx, produce rhotic words.

Word Stress

Very few differences in WORD STRESS between RP and GAuE speech may be observed. The first tendency, as singled out by Australian phoneticians, is to allow full value to unstressed vowels, e.g. subject = ['s٨bʤekt], bankrupt = ['bænkr٨pt], -day = [dei] in the names of the days of the week.

In a similar way the endings -ial, -ius, -ium which in RP are often reduced to monosyllables, are usually disyllabic in GAuS, e.g. genial= ['ʤiniəl], genius ['ʤiniəs], helium ['hi:liəm].

The second accentual tendency is strongly in favour of keeping the stress in the

first syllable, e.g. incline = ['inklain], defect =['difekt], relay= ['rilei].

Intonation

GAuE INTONATION is investigated much less than its other phonological components. There is a general opinion that GAuE and RP intonational patterns are Practically the same, but RP intonation is "more lively and vigorous" than GAuE. There is a common tendency in GAuE to "use longer word-groups". It is characterized by a slower rythm which has a quality of monotony. There is a strong tendency to stress words like "by", "and", "to", "in", etc. in the sentence. All the above-mentioned differences between RP and GAuE are impressionistic and need thorough examination. Electro-acoustic analysis of the rising tone in GAuE "yes-or-no" questions shows that the initial rise occurs at the medium level, not lower than the preceding syllable, this rise is perceived as "higher" than its RP counterpart, which starts at the lowest pitch level, lower than the preceding syllable. Summing up principle differences between RP and GAuE, the following conclusions can be drawn: There are no inventory differences between GAuE and RP vowels and consonants.

The existing differences are mainly selectional.

1. GAuE vowels have a general tendency to become more front and closer, and to

be diphthongized.

2. There is an avoidance of pure back vowels.

3. Accentual and intonation differences are not numerous and need further

thorough instrumental investigation.

It’s the general information about the Australian English, but we also can examine another accent – accent of New Zeland English. We also will refer to T.T.Vrabel:

Sociolinguistic situation and distinctive features of New Zealand English.

New Zealand English (NZE) is used by some 3,2 million speakers, nearly 90 % of the country's population. Besides English, Maori is the second official language of NZ. New Zealand English has a popular name of "NEWZILID"

The country has been settled by English-speaking people since about 1840.

Native speakers of NZ can distinguish an Australian pronunciation quite readily, though the converse is not always true: Australians tend to classify a NZ accent as coming from a distant and unfamiliar part of Australia, such as Tasmania. Native speakers of English from other parts of the world, on the other hand, can usually not distinguish an NZ from an Australian pronunciation. In vocabulary, Maori influx is greater than the Aboriginal one in Australia, but still quite small. In any case, the Kiwis, as NZers call themselves, have their own slang, too.

Here are a few examples:

Kiwi slang meaning

Enzed New Zealand

pom Englishman (pejorative)

pop put; prepare; go...

telly TV

gig lamps glasses

kitchen tidy dustbin

jug litre of beer

screw salary

cocky farmer

quid two dollars

strides trousers 

Phonologically NZE accent has a lot of similarities with AuE. The differences between them reside primarily in the short front vowels and in the centring diphthongs:

1. In NZE the vowel [æ] as in had is quite close to the AusE [e] as in head, that is

why the well known phrase "The cat sat on a mat" would sound somewhat like "The cet set on a met" in a NZer's pronunciation.

The NZE vowel [e] as in head is very similar to AusE [i] as in hid. But NZE [i] has

moved to a more central location and is similar to the schwa vowel. Whereas AusE [i] remains close to [i:] as in heed. The central hid vowel is probably the most salient differentiating feature of NZE. It is the speech sound most parodied by Australians imitating New Zealanders in phrases like 'fush 'n' chups.

2. In NZE the centring diphthongs as in ear and air have merged for most young

speakers whereas in AusE these two vowels remain very distinct.

As for short [i]

The short 'i' in New Zealand English is pronounced as a schwa (IPA [ə]). In Australian English, the short 'u' is the vowel closest to the New Zealand pronunciation, so an Australian hears "fush and chups" when a New Zealander is saying "fish and chips". Conversely, the closest sound in New Zealand English to the Australian short 'i' (IPA [ɪ]) is 'ee' (IPA [i]), so New Zealanders may hear Australians talking about the "SeedneyHarbourBreedge".

Recent linguistic research has suggested that this trait is sourced from dialects of English spoken by lower-class English people in the late 19th century, though why it persisted in New Zealand whilst disappearing from Australia is a mystery.

As for short [e]

The short 'e' in New Zealand English has moved to fill in the space left by 'i', and sounds like a short 'i' itself to other English speakers. For example, you may hear New Zealanders talk about having "iggs for brickfast".

As for such words as Chance, dance, etc.

The New Zealand pronunciation of words like "dance" uses the same vowel sound as the "a" in "car", i.e. [dαnts], resembling the broad A of British English. The common Australian pronunciation rhymes with "ants", i.e. [dænts]. However, either form may be used in Australia, with the former usually used in South Australia, and common in New South Wales.

As for words More/sure

"More" and "sure" are pronounced mua and shua, whereas in Australia they would be pronounced as maw-a and shaw-a.

The conclusion

It’s may be very interesting to realize that speaking the same language we sometimes cannot understand people and now we know why it happens. It can be useful to know the peculiarities of different accents if you are going abroad. One more informative fact for polyglots – there are many dictionaries of different accents and meanings of the words can surprise you! But it is so interesting! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

References

1. T.T. Vrabel/ LECTURES IN THEORETICAL PHONETICS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND METHOD-GUIDES FOR SEMINARS. – Ungvár:  PoliPrint, 2009.  – 176 p.

2. THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE / Robert Burchfield. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. – 649p.

3. Elizabeth Gordon, Tony Deverson/ New Zealand English: an introduction to New Zealand speech and usage. - Heinemann, 1985. – 88 p.

4. Varieties of English/ Edgar W. Schneider – 2004. – 1161p.

5. English around the world: sociolinguistic perspectives / Jenny Cheshire - 1991  - 684p.

6. International English usage/ Loreto Todd, Ian F. Hancock - 1986 – 520p.

7. English in Australia/ David Blair, Peter Collins - 2001 – 366p.

8. Peter Roach/ A LITTLE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHONETICS. -  http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~llsroach/peter/