An Overview of Aboriginal English and its Role in Promoting Identity

This article has been written by Liam McAlary, a Years 7 – 12, VCE Legal Studies and VCE English Language Tutor at Learnmate. If you’re interested in private tutoring from Liam then please check out his page here.

Hey guys, this is my second article for the month and once again it relates to Unit 4, Area of Study 1. This article focuses on one of the most interesting parts of this outcome, which is Aboriginal English.

Aboriginal English is a non-standard variety of Australian English which is used by indigenous members of the community (indigenous people make up approximately 3% of the population). Moreover, Aboriginal English plays an extremely significant role in promoting the cultural identity of Indigenous Australians, and has various features which differ from Standard or, “conventional,” Australian English. In terms of your essays, Aboriginal English will often go into a paragraph about cultural varieties with ethnolects.

Most of the features and examples that I discuss in this article are sourced from a document released by the Queensland Courts a few years ago (I cannot track it down online unfortunately).

Firstly, I will discuss some of the main linguistic features of Aboriginal English. The morphology of Aboriginal English has some distinct features from, “conventional,” Australian English. Aboriginal English speakers often do not indicate plurals or tense when they are speaking generally omitting the inflectional morphemes such as, “s,” and, “ed.” Moreover, there are also distinctive syntactic features of Aboriginal English, such as double negatives, and interrogative tags, such as, “eh,” which is used at the end of a declarative sentence to turn it into an interrogative (they (were) sitting outside the bank, eh). Phonologically, Aboriginal English is also a distinct variety of English, as certain phonemes such as, /f/, and, /v/, do not exist in Aboriginal languages are thus often pronounced with /p/, /b/, /t/, or, /d/ instead. Additionally, the /h/ phoneme is also frequently not pronounced by speakers of Aboriginal English. Finally, there are also distinct semantic features in Aboriginal English, such as the meaning of mother, which means a person’s biological mother and all her sisters, and the word camp means home.

Given that this unit is all about the role of language in creating and promoting identity, I should probably talk about what Aboriginal English does in terms of identity. Aboriginal English is covertly prestigious within the communities which use it, and for many indigenous Australians, it is their first language. Furthermore, the practice of code switching also demonstrates the significance of Aboriginal English as a means of promoting indigenous identity. Many indigenous Australians will use Standard English at work, and then revert to speaking Aboriginal English when they are with other indigenous people, demonstrating the language’s covert prestige in Aboriginal communities.

Aboriginal English also helps to reflect the schema and identity of Indigenous people. Aboriginal people’s schema is largely centred around community and the semantics of Aboriginal English, particularly the broadened meaning of Mother help to reflect this attitude. Moreover, the Aboriginal’s belief that they do not own the land, rather that they are the custodians of it is reflected by the fact that they use the word camp to mean land.

I hope you have found this article helpful.

If you loved this article, you will LOVE all of our other articles, such as: Improve At School Without Opening A Single Textbook, 2U Maths Tips from a Past Student (98 in 2U Maths)! and My Pathway To Becoming A Tutor.

LearnMate is Australia’s leading tutoring agency offering private lessons in all HSC, WACE, VCE & SACE subjects including English, maths, science, humanities, foreign languages, and so much more. Our mission is simple: to provide professional, engaging and enthusiastic HSC, WACE, VCE & SACE tutors to students, while also ensuring the student feels empowered and confident during their assessments! Ultimately, our goal is to empower students all over Australia to achieve amazing results and make their dreams come true!

The Australian accent, and what it does for Australians.

This article has been written by Liam McAlary, a Years 7 – 12, VCE Legal Studies and VCE English Language Tutor at Learnmate. If you’re interested in private tutoring from Liam then please check out his page here.

Hey guys, here is my first article for July and is my second article on Area of Study 1 for Unit 4. Today’s article will focus on the Australian accent, which is regarded as the most significant marker of Australian national identity.

Today I will briefly give an overview of the Australian accent, the three major varieties of the Australian accent (broad, general and cultivated), as well as discussing the significance of the accent for the identity of Australians.

Some key features of the Australian accent are the schwa, /ə/, the non-rhotic /r/ sound (listen to an Australian say a word with the /r/ sound, and then listen to an American say the same word and you can here the distinct difference in the way that the /r/ phoneme is pronounced and stressed), heavily nasalised vowel sounds and flapping the medial /t/, which means that a /t/ sound in the middle of a word is often pronounced with a /d/ sound instead (little said as liddle for example). Moreover, the Australian accent also features a lot of diphthongs, which are where two vowel sounds are pronounced simultaneously, and the way that we pronounce the word, “day,” evidences this.

I will now discuss the main three types of Australian accent and I will be using the lexeme, “bait,” as an example to help demonstrate some of the phonetic differences between the types of accent. The broad Australian accent is a very strong Australian accent, which heavily emphasises the features that I discussed in the last paragraph. People who speak with a Broad Australian accent tend to pronounce bait with, /^'i/. The general accent is more neutral, but still has many of the same features (albeit not as strongly emphasised). Bait is usually pronounced with /^I/ when a general accent is used. On the other hand, the cultivated accent does not have many of the features described in the previous paragraph, and instead is closer to a British accent and people with this accent generally pronounce bait with /eI/. These days, 90% of Australian accents are considered to be general, and this number is increasing.

Furthermore, the accent is also very important to Australian identity. In the Sounds of Aus documentary (which I’m sure you have all watched), Dr Bruce Moore stated that the accent, “defines Australian identity.” Additionally, there are also plenty of real life examples of the accent being used to demonstrate and promote Australian identity. When I was in year 12, I went to a lecture, and the lecturer had attended an international chemistry competition in Turkey a few years prior, and he noticed that his accent subtly broadened for the duration of the trip, suggesting that he was seeking to emphasise the fact that he was Australian and that his accent was his main tool for promoting this identity, (other people who I have spoken to about going overseas have said similar things).

Anyway, I hope you found this useful and I’ll be back soon.

If you loved this article, you will LOVE all of our other articles, such as: How To Take Notes To Maximise Success, 2U Maths Tips from a Past Student (98 in 2U Maths)! and Tips on Studying for Exams – LearnMate Tutoring.

LearnMate is Australia’s leading tutoring agency offering private lessons in all HSC, WACE, VCE & SACE subjects including English, maths, science, humanities, foreign languages, and so much more. Our mission is simple: to provide professional, engaging and enthusiastic HSC, WACE, VCE & SACE tutors to students, while also ensuring the student feels empowered and confident during their assessments! Ultimately, our goal is to empower students all over Australia to achieve amazing results and make their dreams come true!