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Department of English and American Studies English Language And Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Jana Krejčířová Australian English Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, Ph. D. 2016 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, Ph.D. for her patience and valuable advice. I would also like to thank my partner Martin Burian and my family for their support and understanding. Table of Contents Abbreviations ........................................................................................................... 6 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 7 1. AUSTRALIA AND ITS HISTORY ................................................................. 10 1.1. Australia before the arrival of the British .................................................... 11 1.1.1. Aboriginal people .............................................................................. 11 1.1.2. First explorers .................................................................................... 14 1.2. Arrival of the British .................................................................................... 14 1.2.1. Convicts ............................................................................................. 15 1.3. Australia in the 19th century ......................................................................... 16 1.3.1. Gold rush ........................................................................................... 17 1.3.2. The Chinese ....................................................................................... 18 1.4. Australia in the 20th century ......................................................................... 18 1.4.1. White Australia Policy ....................................................................... 20 1.5. Present-day Australia ................................................................................... 20 1.5.1. Multiculturalism ................................................................................ 21 1.6. Education ...................................................................................................... 22 1.6.1. School of the Air ................................................................................ 23 2. FROM BRITISH ENGLISH TO AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH ....................... 24 2.1. Lexicological aspects .................................................................................. 27 2.1.1. Convicts and flash language .............................................................. 27 2.1.2. Rhyming slang ................................................................................... 29 2.1.3. Aboriginal people or Aborigines? ..................................................... 31 2.1.4. Borrowings from Aboriginal people .................................................. 32 2.1.5. Aboriginal English ............................................................................. 35 2.1.6. Impact of the USA ............................................................................. 36 2.1.7. Migrants in Australia ......................................................................... 41 2.2. Phonological aspects ................................................................................... 43 2.2.1. Cockney, RP and Standard Australian English ................................. 43 2.2.2. HCE vowel system ............................................................................ 44 2.3. Morphological aspects ............................................................................... 46 2.3.1. Reduplication ..................................................................................... 46 2.3.2. Clipping ............................................................................................. 49 2.3.3. Suffixes .............................................................................................. 49 2.3.4. Hypocoristics and diminutives .......................................................... 51 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 55 References ............................................................................................................... 58 English Summary ................................................................................................... 65 Czech Summary ..................................................................................................... 66 Appendix A Map of Australia ................................................................................ 67 Appendix B Clancy of the Overflow ...................................................................... 68 Appendix C Number of speakers of other languages in Australia in 2011 ........... 70 Appendix D Translation of Bible into Kriol ........................................................... 71 Appendix E Phonemic transcription of Australian English, HCE system ............ 72 Abbreviations ACT – Australian Capital Territory AmE – American English AuE – Australian English BrE – British English HCE – Harrington, Cox, Evans system IPA – International Phonetic Alphabet MD – Mitchell & Delbridge system NSW – New South Wales NT - Northern Territory QLD – Queensland RP – Received Pronunciation SA – South Australia TAS – Tasmania VIC – Victoria WA – Western Australia 6 Introduction When it comes to English varieties, British and American are the ones that come to one´s mind instantly and people mostly do not find it difficult to provide a few examples of linguistic differences between these two varieties. However, when it comes to Australian English, people usually have a vague idea what is different there, yet providing an adequate example could be difficult for them, especially for non-English speakers. The aim of this thesis is to focus on Australian English and explore some of the aspects of language that differ from British English in order to enhance the reader´s awareness about this particular variety, but also to improve his overall comprehension of English language. The emphasis is put on several aspects that are within morphological, lexicological and phonological fields, on aspects that the author considers to be the most contrasting with British English. And because “[l]anguage is born of culture and in turn reflects the history of a culture” (“Strine”), a brief history of Australia is provided and lexicological aspects are connected to ethnic groups or events that mark their origin. As has been mentioned above, the first chapter gives a brief overview of Australian history with an emphasis on social development of the country, proceeding chronologically from the forming of Australia, through Aboriginal people, first explorers, British settlement and convicts, gold rush and White Australia Policy to the multicultural society of today. I chose to outline these aspects, because they are important milestones of Australian history and because they have a direct effect on the development of Australian English. The second chapter is dedicated to the aspects that are making Australian English distinct from British English. The development of Australian English (since the 7 First Fleet anchored at Botany Bay to present day) is described there, and the subchapters are dealing with the individual linguistic areas. First subchapter describes lexicological aspects of this language, such as flash language, rhyming slang and borrowings from Aboriginal people and from the USA, and links them to their origin. Second subchapter is devoted to phonological features that differs from RP and HCE vowel system is introduced. The last subchapter represents reduplication, hypocoristics and diminutives – morphological features that have greatly expanded in Australian lexis. It is crucial for this thesis to specify several terms to avoid ambiguity. Though Australian English is considered to have very little differences in regional variation comparing to British English (Trudgill and Hannah, 1982, p. 16), it is not completely unified and even Australian English has two categories. The first category identifies three accent types – Broad, General and Cultivated (Cox, 2006, p. 4). These accents were distinguished by Mitchell and Delbridge in 1965, where Cultivated accent represents the language of upper class, similar to Received Pronunciation (RP), and Broad accent represents the language of working class (Wells, 1982, p. 594). The majority of English-speaking Australians use General accent, which is at the centre and is also taken as a standard in this thesis. The second category identifies three dialect subgroups – Standard Australian English, Aboriginal English and Ethnocultural English varieties, where Standard Australian English is the dominant dialect and is used by the majority of speakers. Aboriginal English and Ethnocultural English are varieties used by minorities, allowing them to express their cultural identity (Cox & Palethorpe, 2007, p. 341). For the purposes of this thesis, Standard Australian English is used (unless stated otherwise). 8 In this thesis, by the term British English is understood Standard English (when speaking about morphology and lexicology) and RP (when speaking about phonology). 9 1. AUSTRALIA AND
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