Diplomarbeit / Diploma Thesis
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DIPLOMARBEIT / DIPLOMA THESIS Titel der Diplomarbeit / Title of the Diploma Thesis “We’re all mates here, mate”: Linguistic stereotyping of Australians in two American animated children’s films verfasst von / submitted by Teresa Baier angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Magistra der Philosophie (Mag. phil.) Wien, 2017 / Vienna, 2017 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt / A 190 344 353 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt / Lehramtsstudium UF Englisch UF Spanisch degree programme as it appears on the student record sheet: Betreut von / Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Barbara Seidlhofer Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof Barbara Seidlhofer, for giving me the opportunity to work on this topic, for her genuine interest in my work, and her invaluable advice. Her guidance, together with her refreshing views on things, helped me throughout the research and writing process. I am particularly grateful to my family, and especially my parents, for their love and their continuous support, for giving me the opportunity to study at university, and for always believing in me and in what I do. Finally, I want to thank my best friend and partner for his unwavering support, for always believing in me, for listening to my endless talks about my paper, for commenting on and proofreading my work, for pushing me when I had lost my motivation, and for slowing me down when I needed a break. Table of contents List of abbreviations .......................................................................................... i List of figures .................................................................................................... i List of tables ...................................................................................................... i 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 2. Key concepts ................................................................................................................ 4 2.1 Sociolinguistics ....................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Language attitudes .................................................................................................. 5 2.3 Social stereotypes ................................................................................................... 7 2.4 Linguistic stereotypes and indexicality .................................................................. 8 3. Previous research ...................................................................................................... 10 3.1 Discrimination by means of accents in animated children’s films ....................... 11 3.2 Stereotypes employed in animated children’s films ............................................. 12 3.3 Accents and story setting ...................................................................................... 14 3.4 Effects of linguistic stereotyping on children’s language attitudes ...................... 14 3.5 Australian English in animated children’s films .................................................. 16 4. Australian stereotypes .............................................................................................. 17 4.1 The development of a national type ..................................................................... 17 4.2 Mateship: an Australian key concept ................................................................... 19 4.3 Australians in international media: Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin ......................... 21 5. Australian English .................................................................................................... 23 5.1 Social variation within AusE: the AusE broadness continuum ............................ 24 5.2 AusE vowels ......................................................................................................... 27 5.3 AusE consonants .................................................................................................. 32 5.4 High Rising Tune ................................................................................................. 33 5.5 AusE vocabulary .................................................................................................. 33 6. Attitudes towards AusE ........................................................................................... 35 6.1 Australians’ attitudes towards AusE .................................................................... 36 6.2 Americans’ attitudes towards AusE ..................................................................... 37 6.3 Crocodile Dundee and Danes’ attitudes towards AusE........................................ 38 7. The film medium ....................................................................................................... 39 7.1 Making an animated film ...................................................................................... 39 7.2 Giving characters a voice ..................................................................................... 40 7.3 Dialogue in film .................................................................................................... 40 8. Methodology .............................................................................................................. 42 8.1 The films ............................................................................................................... 42 8.2 Data collection and coding ................................................................................... 45 8.3 Problems ............................................................................................................... 49 9. Results and discussion .............................................................................................. 50 9.1 Accent distribution ............................................................................................... 50 9.1.1 General accent distribution ............................................................................ 50 9.1.2 Character role ................................................................................................ 52 9.1.3 Character type ................................................................................................ 54 9.1.4 Motivation ..................................................................................................... 56 9.1.5 Sex ................................................................................................................. 57 9.2 The purposes of AusE........................................................................................... 59 9.2.1 AusE as a signal of setting ............................................................................. 60 9.2.2 AusE as a tool for characterisation ................................................................ 76 9.2.3 AusE as a tool for comic effect ..................................................................... 88 9.3 The AusE-speaking characters along the continuum ........................................... 92 10. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 94 References.................................................................................................................... 101 Appendix ..................................................................................................................... 105 Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 105 Deutsche Zusammenfassung .................................................................................... 106 List of abbreviations AAVE African American Vernacular English AmE American English AusE Australian English AusNC Australian National Corpus BE British English EngEng English English GA General American HCE Harrington-Cox-Evans system of AusE transcription HRT High Rising Tune MD Mitchell-Delbridge system of AusE transcription MUSE Mainstream US English NNE Non-native English NZE New Zealand English RP Received Pronunciation SAusE Standard Australian English SRT Subjective Reaction Test SSBE Standard Southern British English List of figures Figure 1 General accent distribution .............................................................................. 51 List of tables Table 1 Vowel symbols of AusE with example words .................................................. 28 Table 2 Consonant symbols of AusE with example words ............................................ 32 Table 3 Characters by language groups and character roles .......................................... 52 Table 4 Characters by language groups and character types .......................................... 55 Table 5 Characters by language groups and motivations ............................................... 56 Table 6 Characters by language groups and sex............................................................. 57 Table 7 Distribution of AusE accents among character roles ........................................ 92 i 1. Introduction When I came across Lippi-Green’s (1997) work on linguistic stereotyping in animated children’s films I was immediately intrigued, being a lover of accents and Disney films alike. My interest in the subject only grew as I read other