Australian English Gday Mate! Lets chuck some prawns and snags on the barbie. Wanna a VB Tommo/scotty/Robbo/Micky/Gunny?

What is Australian English? Australian English is one of many varieties used around the world. Therefore it is called a Pluricentric language; one that functions as a national language in several countries with its own national dialect. Think about what is Australian to you? This pod cast we will look at Lexical features and Grammatical features of Australian English.

Lexical features of Australian English Lexicon has taken little from the Indigenous Australian language but has been rather borrowed from other variations of English (American/British) Those words taken from the Indigenous Australians are usually referred to in cultural terms, ir boomerang, corroboree, kookaburra, mallee, jarrah. Idiomatic/Colloquial expressions are also indicative of our lexicon.

AUSSIE LEXICON Activity: Pause this podcast and brainstorm any lexical items, that you believe to be apart of the Australian Lexicon.

Do they look Like this? I reckon. This is an efficient way of saying ‘I have calculated the likelihood of various possibilities and settled on this as the most likely. You may disagree if you wish, but that will simply expose you as the intellectual fraud that you are.’ It implies that you have carefully thought about this in the past and that you have already moved on to other, more interesting topics. Arvo. Afternoon (e.g. let’s meet in the arvo). Not to be mistaken for a name of a place. You will get strange looks if you ask someone to direct you to the arvo. Mate. Wide applications. Friend. Good friend. VERY good friend (wink wink nudge nudge). Person that bumped into you on the bus. G’day mate. Aka Hello. This phrase was used much more frequently by Australians before it was co-opted in 1988 by the writers of Crocodile Dundee II. How ya Goin? How are you today? This is basically used to see how some one is feeling. Going should not be mistaken for How am I going somewhere. This is not for directions.

OR THIS?? Also embedded on the wiki

Lexical features of AE From these lexical items, what can we deduct about Australians? Many lexical items offer insight into the values Australians hold close to them ie, fairness, community, egalitarianism. Sayings like FAIR GO, WET BLANKET, BATTLER are the quintessential Aussie lexical items indicative of these values. Obviously some sayings are not as common as others however from a foreign perspective these are the common Aussie sayings. Perhaps it is right to say that the Australian lexicon is a mixture of local and foreign Englishes.

Grammatical Features of AE Particularly in focus here is the vernacular (non standard) varieties and features of AE. Here you will link in the terminology and meta language you have learnt over the past year and apply it to a social setting.

Grammatical Features of AE Pronouns Colloquial Australian English has the plural second person pronoun forms that have become ubiquitous/universal. Ie Yous and You guys. A striking feature is to attribute gender with animate and inanimate nouns. Ie She can refer to a car or boat. ‘er (her) can refer to a leg of lamb (chuck ‘er on the barbie) The use of whom is almost non existent. Most tend to favour who. The use of me instead of I or my. ‘Me, Jim and Leah’ or ‘Jim, Leah and me’. ‘He was angry at me scoring a goal’ instead of ‘He was angry at my scoring a goal.’

Grammatical features of AE Nouns and noun Phrases A common feature is to use ‘old’ otherwise pronounced as ‘ol’ in front of a noun or noun phrase. Ie went down to the ol river yesterday. Verbs and Verb Phrases Frequent use of –ing as a progressive indicator of something. ‘I am enjoying this latest book I bought.’ ‘I am enjoying my yoga classes. Top stuff that!’ The frequent deletion of have as ‘Ive’. ‘I only been there a couple of times’ Mandative subjunctive: The mandative (to command/order) subjunctive is a very distinct kind of directive and it always takes the same form as a directive. I insist [they get here at 11am sharp no later.] I beg [that he return the money]. I demanded [that she give me her files]. We asked [that Bob tell the truth].

Grammatical features of AE Verbs and Verb Phrases: The replacement of HAVE with OF after a modal verb. ‘I would of picked it up for you!’ ‘I should of gone to that party I heard it of pretty good’ The replacement of SHALL with modal WILL in particular in a first person interrogative ‘Will I call a taxi?’ ‘Will I go get some milk?’ ‘Will I pick up Nan on the way home?’ Omission of auxiliary HAVE. ie. ‘I gotta go’ (I have got to go), ‘I better get going’ (I have to get going), ‘I gotta go do some work’ (I have to go and do some work) Using WAS instead of were when referring to past tense sentences. ‘You was there!’, ‘Course they was’. This is also indicative of British English and most likely derived from there. Increased use of GOTTEN in intransitive constructions (describes verbs and clauses that do not need an object noun phase) ‘She’s gotten really angry’, ‘He’s gotten the beer and headin over to Thommos’

Grammatical Features of AE NEGATION: The use of DON’T instead of DOESN’T. ‘He don’t wanna come to the party’ Double Negation in vernacular speech ‘I never said nothing to them cops!’. ‘You never said nothing about that.’ The use of NEVER as a general negator in place of auxiliary NOT. ‘You never got it?’ ‘You did not get/receive it?’

Grammatical Features of AE INTERROGATIVES: When interlocutors pose yes-no questions by using rising intonation. Ie, ‘It’s a nice day outside, isn’t it? ‘You’re gunna be home soon, arent ya?’ DISTINTIVE DISCOURSE FEATURES: a colloquial construction that often ends a sentence with the word BUT. ‘Yeh I know her. Her Im not gunna invite but.’’ It was a good try but’

IN CONCLUSION Whilst these are common usages throughout Australian English, it is important to recognise that variations do occur and do so in relation to region, ethnicity, social status. All factors we discussed in our first PP. It is also important to not that variation may also occur due to the derivation of sayings from trends. As the world gets more Americanised many saying work their way into our lexicon. Grammar is extremely variant within Australia and must be taken into consideration when assessing Australian literature.

Finally….. Check out this funny vid on Aussie accents. ure=related ure=related