Australian English and National Identity

Australia is celebrated for its multiculturalism and acceptance of ethnic minorities, however, according to linguist Ben crustal ‘Australia…recaptured by a pervasive monolingual mindset which sees monolingualism as the norm and multilingualism as the exception even as a problem or deficit.’ Although ethnolects are viewed negatively by the mainstream society, its usage is both beneficial to ethnic minorities and has been adopted as the Lingua Franca in some situations. As a result of the majority’s consensus on the dislike of ethnolects, minorities are pressured to adopt Standard Australian English (SAE) in formal and public domains; limiting the usage of ethnolects. These observations are reflected in a recent interview with X; a forty-year-old

Language features, including a variety of figurative and humour devices, have been incorporated to clearly demonstrate how the authors have had similar experiences with contrasting perspectives on growing up Australian.

British linguist David Crystal once said “languages that don’t change are dead ones”, and the evolution of English language; not only in Australia, but on a global scale has developed in such a way that formal language is progressively becoming obsolete, whilst informal language is transforming into an increasingly contemporary form of written and spoken communication. The wide utilisation of informal language especially in modern-day Australian society functions to aid in the building of rapport, as well as enabling an increased association of an individual 's identity with the richness of Australian culture. Although this is clearly evident

Australia is filled with many different aspects in which makes it the country it is today. I believe it is important to study texts that explore aspects of Australia by studying texts such as ‘The Club’, by David Williamson, a play written in 1977 about an Australian football club and movies such as “The Castle”, directed by Rob Stitch in 1997, about the daily life of an Australian family when their happiness is threatened when developers attempt to buy their house to expand the neighboring airport. Both these texts show us what Australian life was like in the past. By us looking at themes such as language, tradition and the mateship shown we are able to explore different aspects of Australia that make it what it is today.

The teaching resource selected to support diverse literacy and language learning in a grade one classroom is a children’s book ‘I’m Australian Too’ written by Mem Fox and illustrated by Ronojoy Ghosh (Fox, M. (2017) ‘I’m Australian Too’ Australia; Scholastic Australia). The book is available for purchase both online and at ‘Readings’ stores in Hawthorn, Carlton, Malvern and St Kilda for $19.99. It can also be accessed as an audio copy from http://memfox.com/books/im-australian-too/. The book details all the multiple cultural identities that can be found across Australia. It poetically details that no matter where our families come from, or the hardships that may have faced, we can all find a home in Australia. The resource is useful in

Australia’s identity has always been a complicated one. Starting with Aboriginal genocide, 1800’s cowboys and villains, two world wars and a bunch of poems describing them, it makes it difficult to conclude on what being an ‘Aussie’ really is. Thankfully, the two thought-provoking poems Nobody Calls Me a Wog Anymore by Komninos Zervos, and My Country by Dorothea Mackellar both use their discerning selection of themes to reflect modern attitudes in some extent. Along with their themes, Nobody Calls Me a Wog Anymore and My Country both use their story to capture the attributes modern Australians possess to some degree.

This is mainly the language which is being used by the refugee groups. These people are not very fluent with the local standard language (Wardhaugh, 1993). In Australia, the ethnolect could be found among the Anglo and non-Anglo speakers. The most significant feature of the “ethnolect” in Australian language is the pronunciation of word “er”. The Anglo speakers have got their background from Greek speakers and hence their pronunciations vary from non-Anglo speakers. Hence in Australia there are different groups of people with various backgrounds speaking in different English language.

I think that it is important that we have our own unique type of English that we speak as Australians so that we are unique from other nations. It is important that we allow our language to change as we are a multicultural nation and our language can reflect that. 

2. Does the English we speak in Australia give us all a sense of belonging and a shared identity? Or do you think it causes more exclusion than inclusion? Explain. 
I think that Australian English gives us a sense of belonging in that we use British English in words such as colour and flavour but we don’t always use British English. I think Australian English is unique as it is influenced

Though the word ‘bloody’ and ‘hell’ are used separately in both Australian English and British English, the phrase ‘bloody hell’ has different meaning and usage in Australian culture and British culture. The phrase does not have the same cultural meaning and usage, in other words, it does not have a universal meaning, thus it became a controversial issue and as a result, the British broadcast administration had to ban the commercial because ‘bloody hell’ was thought to be a crude word. Many Australians would not consider the phrase ‘bloody hell’ an obscenity, for example Australian 25th Prime Minister John Howard believes that ‘bloody hell’ has “become part of the Australian vernacular” (Winter, & Gallon, 2008, p. 303). This shows that there is an intercultural difference, in this context of politeness, between variants of English since majority of the British see it as an obscenity phrase, where as most Australians who use the phrase in normal conversations consider it to be

The informal Australian lexicon is utilised in everyday casual conversations and is thus recognisable as a distinct, Australian characteristic. Slang has become familiarised in the lexicon due to its frequent use in informal communication at an occurrence where lexemes are recognisable to be unequivocally Australian. This further strengthens the interweaving of language and identity. One of the most recognisable lexemes is the slang term ‘Aussies’, the shortened form of ‘Australians’, “which [is] now so widely known that even the Americans will refer to Australian sportspeople as [such],” (Professor Roly Sussex). Whilst the greeting ‘G’day, mate’ has become the most popular phrase of the archetypal Australian, it transcends its simple denotation

In Australia, accent can be an important marker of identity. Users may adapt their accent in order to modify the way that others perceive them. Clothier supports this suggesting that individuals may change the way they speak, depending on the context, ‘to emphasise different identities.’ Historically, the cultivated accent has been given higher prestige than the broad accent. Users may therefore modify their accent to present a more prestigious identity in formal situations such as a job interview or whilst in court. For example, a broad speaker may modify their pronunication of the word ‘bite’ from the broad [ɒɪ] to the cultivated [aɪ], or ensure they avoid the deletion of [h] in lexemes such as ‘helmet’ and ‘happen.’ However, in more recent

J.C.: it’s an important part of Australian language and culture and is the reason behind the use of such vernacular. For instance the inclusion of teenage slang, swearing and references to teenager idioms such as “lazy prick”, “stupid wanker”, and “arvo”, I believe would allow me to speak directly to the target audience which is teenagers, and in some way shape the audience's attitudes and ideas towards the events faced in the novel. I thought using Aussie teenage lingo would be more relatable. Also I feel that authenticity is added to the text through the voices of each of the different characters. They are all modern Australian teenagers and to use another voice and different lingo would serve as an injustice to the characters telling their

Without a doubt, our language usage is becoming increasingly casual. Some argue that this is due to the influence of American culture. While it is not pervasive, the assimilation of American culture in Australia can be partly responsible for this trend. However, the predominant reason for our informal language use is due to increasing connectivity through social media and other modern communication services. Despite this trend, the register of discourses is still dictated by the context and setting of the situation.

Although English is the official language of Australia, Australia's multicultural society has created many subcategories of Australian English. It can be broke down to different groups based on the ethno-cultural groups such as Lebanese English or Greek English as well as Indigenous English. However, Australian accents comprehensively were separated into broad, general, and cultivated varieties (ABC, 2016). General accent represent the most common accents and it is natural and less strong. Conversely, Broad accents are correlated with working-class speech and are quite strong, but cultivated accents are partly close to British English.

Australia is a multicultural country that celebrates diversity. Therefore, there is no need to have a single, unified variety of English in order to be a united society. 

The English language is forever changing so I believe with the above statement, we do not need a single, unified variety of English in order to be a united society. 

Australia has a large number of citizens born overseas and we celebrate the diversity in our country. I believe that our language should reflect this and should change as more people start moving here. There are neologisms such as Singlish and Chinglish which reflect this change in English language. The language we speak should be influenced by those who have come from overseas and ever-changing to reflect that