Australian English Changing
Australian English essay
“How is Australian English changing to reflect the evolving identity of Australians in the twenty-first century? Discuss at least two of the subsystems in your response.”
The Australian identity is an extremely unique variety of English that is continuously changing to reflect the evolving identity in the twenty-first century. Ever since the development of technology, these technological advances have had a large impact on the English language used in both spoken and written texts in order to reflect such a change. Australian English is no exception by adopting expressions and neologisms to become a part of the international advancement. Although we have also adopted many terms from American English as well as …show more content…
these international technological varieties, we are still a proud and strong variety of English reflected through the uniqueness of different subsystems of language including phonology, lexicology and syntax.
Australia and the world have been constantly changing in its language to reflect to evolving technological advances of the twenty-first century. Modern lexical items have become much more apparent in this era, which includes new words such as intranet, modem, computer, laptop, hardware and blogging, which will continue to change not only in Australia but as the world continues to advance in technology. The is also acronyms like VCR being used which was once used much more frequently before the development of the CD-ROM and DVD which is now far more common, ‘let’s get a DVD’ rather then ‘let’s get a VCR’ tends to be said. The semantic lexical shift in words such as computer ‘mouse’, ‘hacking’, or ‘mobile’, are all completely different in their new meaning today then they are from their original intended meaning which are still used. With the introduction of ‘L337 speak’ (elite speak) associated with the gaming and ‘hacking’ world, and ‘msn’ or ‘text speak’ there has been further additions to language which in turn as affected spoken language and not just written language. Words such as ‘w00t’ used as a celebratory expression which involve the replacement of numbers for letters, acronyms including ‘LOL’ (laugh out loud) also said as ‘LUL’ or ‘LAWLZ’ and ‘OMG’ (oh my god/gosh) also said as ‘ZOMG’ for emphasis, have all become more acceptable to say within the general population, and with Australians accepting this lexical shift like rest of the world they are a part of this technological circle rather then denying it. Australians also have adopted other terms from technological advances that are becoming more frequent in everyday speech particularly in ‘teen speak’ these include suffixations such as ‘fun-ish’ and ‘laters’, and shortenings including ‘tots’ and ‘probs’. These new additions to language have been impacted largely from Northern American culture, which is where a large portion of technological language stems from.
As Australians are becoming increasingly closer to the international world, we are adopting parts of language from foreign influences, in particular those from America.
These ‘Americanisms’ including parts of speech from those of the increasing television world that our society is beginning to accept as our main source of entertainment. In everyday speech, people, especially those of a younger generation, are starting to use more of the American discourse particles such as ‘whatever’, ‘like’, ‘so’, ‘my bad’, and the term ‘dissing’ in replace of ditching (are you dissing me?). Lexical items also including ‘gotten’, ‘guys’ as gender neutral and ‘ketchup’ becoming more used in replace of ‘tomato sauce’ or even the previous Australian slang ‘dead horse’. The film industry is also causing younger kids to pick up the phonological difference in their speech with those even putting on an American sounding accent when pronouncing the said discourse particles, or even with other words such as saying ‘ax’ as ask, or ‘write me’ as a grammatically incorrect way of saying ‘write to me’, with the omission of the preposition being seen throughout America as acceptable such as in protests using ‘protest the war’, with this being used here more frequently with the lack of the correct preposition ‘protest against the war’. There appears to be a need for Australian media to connect better to the American audience to create a better international relationship, with shows like Australian’s version of ‘The Biggest Loser’ using calories as a measure even though the correct measure here is kilojoules, and Australian cricket using ‘step up to the plate’ adopted from the American baseball, rather then saying ‘step up to the wicket’. Even the Australian Labor Party is spelt with the American spelling of ‘labor’ when in Australia the correct spelling for this is ‘labour’. Although it can be argued that we are starting to move towards their culture as we progress through the twenty-first
century, there is no evidence to suggest we are other then anecdotal experiences, and as James Lambert said, “It’s not like we’re adopting American values because we adopt a few of their words. Australians always make a choice of what part of American culture they adopt”, which is true as our simple borrowings are quite minor in comparison to the strong identity portrayed Australia has remained to have.
Despite the evolving identity of Australian English having the additions of borrowings from Americanisms and international technological advances, we continue to maintain our solid identity to this day regardless we have the loss of a few ‘Aussie’ terms; Virginia Knight, the editor of Dolly magazine hypothesizes that “Really ocker Australian terms like ‘strewth’ and ‘fair dinkum’ tend to not be used much anymore. Connotations of the slightly more American-sounding words do sound cooler and a bit more hip.” Although this is may be partly true that our old colloquial lexical items may not be used much, it does not mean our language is becoming less of a unique identity. There is a range of examples from all the subsystems of language, including phonology, lexicology and syntax, that verifies Australian English’s uniqueness rather then the focus on being the loss of terms that are no longer applicable to the evolving identity that is trying to be portrayed. The phonological features that are currently valid to the modern Australian English include the broadening of diphthongs (such as /eI/ in beat, rather then /I/), pronounced use of the high-rising tone (upwards inflection at the end of a sentence), confusion of constants (such as ‘due’ and ‘Jew’ sounding the same), the non-rhotic ‘r’ unlike Americans, and the flapping of /t/ to /d/ (ex. Footy is said foody). These are particularly focused on the ‘general’ accent, as there has been a move away from the ‘broad’ and ‘cultivated’ accents to a more middle sounding accent, Sushi Das from the Sunday Age agrees, “Australians abandoned the posh English Accent many years ago. Now they are leaving behind ockerism in a move to the middle ground and away from the nobs and the yobs.” There are also lexical differences between Australian English and other varities that have not been as affected by the evolving world, which include general Australian colloquialisms such as ‘jumper’, ‘bloody’ or ‘mate’, and syntactical differences that include the susceptibility to assimilation (goin’ tonight) and ellipses (I saw ‘rim), and the use of ‘would of’ instead of ‘would have’ being used. This demonstrates that despite all the changes in the world, our unique identity is still valued and defined by so many other factors with evidence from the differences in our subsystems of language.
The world will continue to change as it continues to further develop new technologies and in turn, new parts of language. Australians, as the proud and strong identity that we are, will ensure they belong to these new advances in language in the future. There is no need for Australians to be called upon their inadequate uniqueness just due to a few borrowings here and there from the technological advances and from the use Americanisms. We are still a distinct variety of English that will continue to shine throughout the history of our language representing qualities of ourselves that are reflected through the language; and as Hugh Mckay said, “our language is changing in peculiar ways. But it still tells us something about ourselves.”
“How is Australian English changing to reflect the evolving identity of Australians in the twenty-first century? Discuss at least two of the subsystems in your response.”
The Australian identity is an extremely unique variety of English that is continuously changing to reflect the evolving identity in the twenty-first century. Ever since the development of technology, these technological advances have had a large impact on the English language used in both spoken and written texts in order to reflect such a change. Australian English is no exception by adopting expressions and neologisms to become a part of the international advancement. Although we have also adopted many terms from American English as well as …show more content…
these international technological varieties, we are still a proud and strong variety of English reflected through the uniqueness of different subsystems of language including phonology, lexicology and syntax.
Australia and the world have been constantly changing in its language to reflect to evolving technological advances of the twenty-first century. Modern lexical items have become much more apparent in this era, which includes new words such as intranet, modem, computer, laptop, hardware and blogging, which will continue to change not only in Australia but as the world continues to advance in technology. The is also acronyms like VCR being used which was once used much more frequently before the development of the CD-ROM and DVD which is now far more common, ‘let’s get a DVD’ rather then ‘let’s get a VCR’ tends to be said. The semantic lexical shift in words such as computer ‘mouse’, ‘hacking’, or ‘mobile’, are all completely different in their new meaning today then they are from their original intended meaning which are still used. With the introduction of ‘L337 speak’ (elite speak) associated with the gaming and ‘hacking’ world, and ‘msn’ or ‘text speak’ there has been further additions to language which in turn as affected spoken language and not just written language. Words such as ‘w00t’ used as a celebratory expression which involve the replacement of numbers for letters, acronyms including ‘LOL’ (laugh out loud) also said as ‘LUL’ or ‘LAWLZ’ and ‘OMG’ (oh my god/gosh) also said as ‘ZOMG’ for emphasis, have all become more acceptable to say within the general population, and with Australians accepting this lexical shift like rest of the world they are a part of this technological circle rather then denying it. Australians also have adopted other terms from technological advances that are becoming more frequent in everyday speech particularly in ‘teen speak’ these include suffixations such as ‘fun-ish’ and ‘laters’, and shortenings including ‘tots’ and ‘probs’. These new additions to language have been impacted largely from Northern American culture, which is where a large portion of technological language stems from.
As Australians are becoming increasingly closer to the international world, we are adopting parts of language from foreign influences, in particular those from America.
These ‘Americanisms’ including parts of speech from those of the increasing television world that our society is beginning to accept as our main source of entertainment. In everyday speech, people, especially those of a younger generation, are starting to use more of the American discourse particles such as ‘whatever’, ‘like’, ‘so’, ‘my bad’, and the term ‘dissing’ in replace of ditching (are you dissing me?). Lexical items also including ‘gotten’, ‘guys’ as gender neutral and ‘ketchup’ becoming more used in replace of ‘tomato sauce’ or even the previous Australian slang ‘dead horse’. The film industry is also causing younger kids to pick up the phonological difference in their speech with those even putting on an American sounding accent when pronouncing the said discourse particles, or even with other words such as saying ‘ax’ as ask, or ‘write me’ as a grammatically incorrect way of saying ‘write to me’, with the omission of the preposition being seen throughout America as acceptable such as in protests using ‘protest the war’, with this being used here more frequently with the lack of the correct preposition ‘protest against the war’. There appears to be a need for Australian media to connect better to the American audience to create a better international relationship, with shows like Australian’s version of ‘The Biggest Loser’ using calories as a measure even though the correct measure here is kilojoules, and Australian cricket using ‘step up to the plate’ adopted from the American baseball, rather then saying ‘step up to the wicket’. Even the Australian Labor Party is spelt with the American spelling of ‘labor’ when in Australia the correct spelling for this is ‘labour’. Although it can be argued that we are starting to move towards their culture as we progress through the twenty-first
century, there is no evidence to suggest we are other then anecdotal experiences, and as James Lambert said, “It’s not like we’re adopting American values because we adopt a few of their words. Australians always make a choice of what part of American culture they adopt”, which is true as our simple borrowings are quite minor in comparison to the strong identity portrayed Australia has remained to have.
Despite the evolving identity of Australian English having the additions of borrowings from Americanisms and international technological advances, we continue to maintain our solid identity to this day regardless we have the loss of a few ‘Aussie’ terms; Virginia Knight, the editor of Dolly magazine hypothesizes that “Really ocker Australian terms like ‘strewth’ and ‘fair dinkum’ tend to not be used much anymore. Connotations of the slightly more American-sounding words do sound cooler and a bit more hip.” Although this is may be partly true that our old colloquial lexical items may not be used much, it does not mean our language is becoming less of a unique identity. There is a range of examples from all the subsystems of language, including phonology, lexicology and syntax, that verifies Australian English’s uniqueness rather then the focus on being the loss of terms that are no longer applicable to the evolving identity that is trying to be portrayed. The phonological features that are currently valid to the modern Australian English include the broadening of diphthongs (such as /eI/ in beat, rather then /I/), pronounced use of the high-rising tone (upwards inflection at the end of a sentence), confusion of constants (such as ‘due’ and ‘Jew’ sounding the same), the non-rhotic ‘r’ unlike Americans, and the flapping of /t/ to /d/ (ex. Footy is said foody). These are particularly focused on the ‘general’ accent, as there has been a move away from the ‘broad’ and ‘cultivated’ accents to a more middle sounding accent, Sushi Das from the Sunday Age agrees, “Australians abandoned the posh English Accent many years ago. Now they are leaving behind ockerism in a move to the middle ground and away from the nobs and the yobs.” There are also lexical differences between Australian English and other varities that have not been as affected by the evolving world, which include general Australian colloquialisms such as ‘jumper’, ‘bloody’ or ‘mate’, and syntactical differences that include the susceptibility to assimilation (goin’ tonight) and ellipses (I saw ‘rim), and the use of ‘would of’ instead of ‘would have’ being used. This demonstrates that despite all the changes in the world, our unique identity is still valued and defined by so many other factors with evidence from the differences in our subsystems of language.
The world will continue to change as it continues to further develop new technologies and in turn, new parts of language. Australians, as the proud and strong identity that we are, will ensure they belong to these new advances in language in the future. There is no need for Australians to be called upon their inadequate uniqueness just due to a few borrowings here and there from the technological advances and from the use Americanisms. We are still a distinct variety of English that will continue to shine throughout the history of our language representing qualities of ourselves that are reflected through the language; and as Hugh Mckay said, “our language is changing in peculiar ways. But it still tells us something about ourselves.”