SOCIAL OR REGIONAL VARIETY OF AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH

Features and the History of a Social or Regional Variety of Australian English

Features and the History of a Social or Regional Variety of Australian English

With about 15.5 million people speak English as their mother tongue (of a total population of 18 million), Australia is the fourth-largest English-speaking countries as the number of inhabitants. In fact, 15.5 million Australians are well-native speakers of English, while only 2.5 million have a different mother tongue (it's aboriginal languages ??or, in the case of immigrants, the languages ??of the countries of origin (Bernard, 1981, pp. 18-27). As in other English-speaking countries, in the past the so-called received standard British English (also known as Oxonian English or Queen's / King's Inglese) was considered to be the role model. However, at least since World War II, the non-British varieties of English in general, and not just American - have become increasingly recognized as an alternative to the old standard. This has led some experts to define the current period as the era of the World Inglese (“English world”), while others even speaking of languages ??rather than English language English (Blair, 1993, p. 62-70).

This movement toward the recognition of alternative standards has also been encouraged by the development of language studies, which led to a more scientific approach and therefore more objective to language issues. It has been so demystified the irrationality of many beliefs and traditional prejudices, especially the idea that certain languages ??or varieties are somehow “superior” to others. Linguists agree that the prestige of a variety is determined by political, economic and socio-cultural. The linguist Max Weinreich has summarized the complex interaction of several factors: a language is a dialect with an army and navy (Christiansen, 2002, p. 13-28).

As a term, Australian English is relatively new, as outlined in the vocabulary Macquarie (third edition). Fifty years ago it was not yet in general use. In light of this, his rise to the level of national standard becomes even more impressive (4). However, even if it has no proper name until a few years ago, the Australian variant of the English language has long been recognized as something clearly unique. According to Bernard (1981), already in 1820, those who visited Australia could perceive a clear peculiarity in English of the children of settlers.

The English in Australia and New Zealand that have many features in common (Christiansen, 2002, p. 13-28), although compared to other varieties of English, thanks to its pronunciation and its special vocabulary, Australian English is instantly recognizable. However, although they have been identified more than 10,000 specific terms of Australian English, the syntax is not significantly different from other varieties of English. And yet, the Australian English is characterized by the fact that, as the U.S. English (and contrary to the Canadian or New Zealand), it is mostly endocentric, that is, directed toward linguistic forms independent and not from other varieties (Clyne, 1993, p. 52-61).

It is often said that in Australian English there are ...