Modul 7
Features of Australian
English
How Australian – English Developed
1 The First 150 Years
 The first European Australian born
in Australian  English
 Australian – English grew form the
English spoken by working –
class
 Some Aboriginal words were
added
 American & Asian enriched
Australian – English
1 Post - War Changes
 Immigrants gave their impact to
Australian – English in small
portion
 Television in mid 1950’s helped
people to accept American
English
British
Flat
Film
Lift
American
Apartment
Movie
Elevator
1 Contemporary
Many languages and dialects have
contributed to Australian English
Among of them are :
 Cantonese.
 Hokkien.
 Spanish.
 Portuguese
 Various dialect of Great Britain.
 German & American.
 Aborigines eg : Bush, Billabong.
The Australian Accent
The general characteristics of the Australian
accent are :
1 Lazy Lips and Tongues
 Running words together & leaving
out or changing consonant
especially middle of the words
Eg :








Estraya (Australia)
Estrayan (Australia)
Sinny (Sidney)
Cambras (Canberra)
Efta (have to)
Semmitch (sandwich)
G’day (good day)
Let stalk Strine (Let’s talk
Australian)
1 Unsual of the Rising Tone
 Rising tone for Australian English
indicates the speaker wants a
sign
like “mm - hm” or nod or smile
to
show that the listener
understands
 It doesn’t require any answer
 Mostly used by younger people &
women
Eg : My friend and I were in my
dad’s study, and she
touched
some books
1 Shortened Words
Australians like to shorten a long word
to one or two syllables and then add a
vowel sound on the end.
Eg :
 Australian  aussie
 Breakfast  brekkie
 Vegetables  vegies
 Football
 footy
1 Making Words Stronger
 Australians like to use “Real”
and “Really”
Eg : John is a read friend to me
 “Real”  strengthen criticism
Eg : He’s a real pain in the neck
 He is very boring and
annoying person
 Heaps  like very much
Eg : “I like Indonesian food
heaps’
 I like Indonesian food
very much