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accent change

different generations of speakersPeople of different ages have different accents and this isbecause change constantly occurs in the language. The accent

of a community changes alongside social and political changebut also because the sounds of speech make up a system thatis self-regulating and constantly in flux. We can say thatchange can be external (social/pollitical) or internal(linguistic/phonetic). Changes usually enter a dialect throughthe speech of teenagers or pre-teens who desire to expresstheir identity independent of the previous generation.

historya new dialect of EnglishAustralian English is a relatively new dialect of English and is just over 200 years old.

Australian English can be described as a new dialect thatdeveloped as a result of contact between people who spokedifferent, mutually intelligible, varieties of English.

The very early form of Australian English would have beenfirst spoken by the children of the colonists born into the earlycolony in Sydney. This very first peer group would havespoken in similar ways to each other to help bind the peergroup and express their group membership. This very firstgeneration of children created a new dialect that was tobecome the language of the nation.

The children in the new colony would have been exposed to a

wide range of different dialects from all over England butmainly the south east, particularly from London. They wouldhave created the new dialect from elements present in thespeech they heard around them in response to their need toexpress peer solidarity. Even when new settlers arrived, thisnew dialect of the children would have been strong enough todeflect the influence of new children.

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There is evidence from early written sources that a new anddistinct dialect was present in the colony by the 1830s.

early australian english

Although we can’t know exactly what early Australian Englishsounded like, we can make some educated guesses based onaudio recordings of the speech of people who were born in the19th century, from written sources, and from historicalrecords of the dialect mix present in the colony.

broadnessIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the "proto" SAusEdifferentiated into a continuum of broadness based primarilyon the realisation of the diphthongs. Accent varied, rangingfrom the most local type (Broad Australian) through to a moreBritish sounding type (Cultivated Australian). An intermediatecategory, General Australian, was the most common type.

Speakers were assigned to the Broadness categories mainlyaccording to their pronunciation of six main vowels. These arethe vowel sounds in the words “beat, boot, say, so, high,

how”. 

Over the past 40 years, Australian English speakers havegradually moved towards the center of this broadnesscontinuum. The majority of younger speakers today use aGeneral type of Australian English.

The move away from the Cultivated type is probably relatedto shift in linguistic affiliation from a British external standard

to an Australian internal standard of English. Throughout thesecond half or the 20th century, Australian English becameincreasingly accepted as the standard form of English used inthis country. This acceptance was paralleled by Australianindependence in a global marketplace.