Australian English phonology

Australian English (AuE) is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world. As with most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.

The Australian English vowels /ɪ/, /ɪə/, /e/, /eː/ and /ɜː/ are noticeably closer (pronounced with a higher tongue position) than their contemporary Received Pronunciation equivalents.

Vowels

The vowels of Australian English can be divided according to length. The long vowels, which include monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centring diphthongs. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, correspond to the RP lax vowels. There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving Australian English phonemic length distinction, which is unusual amongst the various dialects of English.^[2] As with General American and New Zealand English, the weak-vowel merger is nearly complete in Australian English: unstressed /ɪ/ (sometimes transcribed as /ɨ/) is merged with /ə/ (schwa) except before a following velar.^[3]

There are two families of phonemic transcriptions of Australian English: revised ones, which attempt to more accurately represent the phonetic sounds of Australian English; and the Mitchell-Delbridge system, which is minimally distinct from Jones' original transcription of RP. This page uses a revised transcription based on Durie and Hajek (1994) and Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) but also shows the Mitchell-Delbridge equivalents as this system is commonly used for example in the Macquarie Dictionary and much literature, even recent.

Monophthongs

Monophthongs of Australian English on a vowel chart, from Cox (2012:159)

• The target for /ɪ/ is tenser (higher) than in other varieties of English—[ɪ̝]—and may sometimes sound like it has shifted to /i/ to speakers of other dialects or languages.^[4] Thus, words like bin and sin may sound quite similar bean and seen, although there is never a full merger, as /iː/ is most commonly a diphthong of the [ɪi̯ ~ əi̯] type.
• /e/ is higher than /ɛ/, the corresponding vowel in North American or British English. This feature is shared with New Zealand English and South African English, though in those varieties it may be as high as [ɪ].
• For some Victorian speakers /e/ has merged with /æ/ in pre-lateral environments, and thus the words celery and salary are pronounced alike.^[5] See salary-celery merger.
• The sound /æː/ is traditionally transcribed and analysed the same as the short /æ/, but minimal pairs exist in at least some Australians’ speech.^[6][7] It is found in the adjectives bad, mad, glad and sad, before the /ɡ/ sound (for example, hag, rag, bag) and also in content words before /m/ and /n/ in the same syllable (for example, ham, tan, plant).^[8] In South Australia plant is pronounced with the vowel sound /ɐː/, as in rather and father. In some speakers, especially those with the broad accent, /æː/ and /æ/ will be shifted toward [ɛː] and [ɛ], respectively.^[9]
• There is æ-tensing before a nasal consonant. The nasal sounds create changes in preceding vowels because air can flow into the nose during the vowel. Nasal consonants can also affect the articulation of a vowel. So for several speakers, the /æː/ vowel in words like jam, man, dam and hand will be shifted towards [eː].^[10]
• The trap-bath split is partially in effect in Australian English. It is more advanced in South Australia, but failed to progress as far in the other Australian states, which were largely settled earlier.
• /æ/ is pronounced as fully open [a] by many younger speakers.^[11]
• As with New Zealand English the START vowel in words like park /pɐːk/, calm /kɐːm/ and farm /fɐːm/ is central (in the past even front)^[2] in terms of tongue position and non-rhotic. This is the same vowel sound used by speakers of the Boston accent of North Eastern New England in the United States and most accents in Northern England. Thus the phrase park the car is said identically by a New Zealander, Australian, Bostonian,^[12] or Northern English person.
• The phoneme /ɜː/ is pronounced at least as high as /eː/, and is often pronounced rounded.^[7][13] This glyph is used — rather than /ɘː/ or /uː/ — as most revisions of the phonemic orthography for Australian English predate the 1996 modifications to the International Phonetic Alphabet. At the time, [ɜː] was suitable for any mid-central vowel, rounded or unrounded.
• As in most varieties of English, the phoneme /ə/ is used only in unstressed syllables.
• The vowel /iː/ has an onset [ɪi̯], except before laterals.^[5] The onset is often lowered [əi], so that beat is [bəit] for some speakers.
• As in American English and modern RP, the final vowel in words like happy and city is pronounced as /iː/ (happee, citee), not as /ɪ/ (happy-tensing).^[14]
• In some parts of Australia, a fully backed allophone of /ʉː/, transcribed [ʊː], is common before /l/. As a result, the pairs full/fool and pull/pool differ phonetically only in vowel length for those speakers.^[7] The usual allophone is further forward in New South Wales than Victoria. It is moving further forwards, however, in both regions at a similar rate.^[5] Many cases of RP /ʊə/ correspond to the sequence /ʉː.ə/ in Australian English.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs of Australian English on a vowel chart, from Cox (2012:161)

• The first element of /ɑe/ may be raised and rounded in broad accents.
• The first element of /æɪ/ is significantly lower [a̠ɪ] than in many other dialects of English.
• The onset of /əʉ/ actually begins somewhere between /ə/ and /ɡ/: [ɜʉ̯~ɐʉ̯]. There is significant allophonic variation in this vowel, including a backed allophone [ɔʊ] before /l/. The first part of this allophone is in the same position as /ɔ/, but the two remain distinct.
• Two additional diphthongs – /ɪə/ and /ʊə/ – are traditionally included in descriptions of Australian English. The sound /ɪə/ is usually pronounced as a diphthong (or disyllabically) only in open syllables. In closed syllables, it is distinguished from /ɪ/ primarily by length^[7][13] and from /iː/ by the significant onset in the latter.
• The phoneme /ʊə/ is rare and almost extinct. Most speakers consistently use [ʉː.ə] or [ʉː] (before /r/) instead. Many cases of RP /ʊə/ are pronounced instead with the /oː/ phoneme in Australian English, but unlike in some British accents there is no general merger between /oː/ and /ʊə/. "pour" and "poor", "more" and "moor" and "shore" and "sure" are homophones, but "tore" and "tour" remain distinct.

Examples of vowels

• One needs to be very careful of the symbol /ɔ/, which represents different vowels: the LOT vowel in the Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) system (transcribed /ɒ/ in the other system), but the THOUGHT vowel in the Mitchell-Delbridge system (transcribed /oː/ in the other system).^[8]

Consonants

Australian English consonants are similar to those of other non-rhotic varieties of English. A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below.

Non-rhoticity

• Australian English is non-rhotic; in other words, the /ɹ/ sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. A final /ə/ is pronounced as lowered [ɐ] in most speakers (this should not be interpreted as a phoneme /ɐ/, as it can only appear in closed syllables), or [ə] for some. So the words butter [ˈbɐɾə], here [hɪə] and park [pɐːk] will not contain the /ɹ/ sound.^[16]

Linking and intrusive /ɹ/

• The /ɹ/ sound can occur when a word that has a final ⟨r⟩ in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. For example, in car alarm the sound /ɹ/ can occur in car because here it comes before another word beginning with a vowel. The words far, far more and farm do not contain an /ɹ/ but far out will contain the linking /ɹ/ sound because the next word starts with a vowel sound.
• An intrusive /ɹ/ may be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have ⟨r⟩ in the spelling. For example, drawing will sound like draw-ring, saw it will sound like sore it, the tuner is and the tuna is will both be [ðə‿ˈtʃʉːnəɹ‿ɪz].

Intervocalic alveolar flapping

• Intervocalic /t/ (and for some speakers /d/) undergo voicing and flapping to the alveolar tap [ɾ] after the stressed syllable and before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/, though not before syllabic /n/ (bottle [ˈbɔɾl̩] vs button [ˈbɐtn̩]), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else [wɔɾ‿ˈels], whatever [wɔɾˈevə]). For those speakers where /d/ also undergoes the change, there will be homophony, for example, metal and medal or petal and pedal will sound the same ([ˈmeɾl̩] and [ˈpeɾl̩], respectively). In formal speech /t/ is retained. When coating becomes coatin' , the t remains voiceless, thus [ˈkəʉtn̩]. [t] in the cluster [nt] can elide. As a result, in quick speech, words like winner and winter can become homophonous (as [ˈwɪnə]). This is a quality that Australian English shares most notably with North American English.

T glottalisation

• Some speakers use a glottal stop as an allophone of /t/ in final position, for example trait, habit; or in medial position, such as a /t/ followed by a syllabic /n/ is often replaced by a glottal stop, for example button or fatten. Alveolar pronunciations nevertheless predominate.

Velarised alveolar lateral approximant

• The velarised alveolar lateral approximant, or "dark L", may appear in all Australian English pronunciations of /l/.

Yod-dropping and coalescence

• Standard Australian English coalesces /tj/ and /dj/ into /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively. Because of this palatalisation, dune is pronounced as /dʒʉːn/, exactly like June, and the first syllable of Tuesday /ˈtʃʉːzdæɪ/ is pronounced like choose /tʃʉːz/. /t/ and /d/ in the clusters /tɹ/-/tw/ and /dɹ/-/dw/ are similarly palatalised.
• Word initial /sj/ and /zj/ have merged with /s/ and /z/ respectively. Other cases of /sj/ and /zj/ are often pronounced respectively [ʃ] and [ʒ], as in assume /əˈʃʉːm/ and resume /rəˈʒʉːm/.
• Similarly /lj/ has merged with /l/ word initially. Remaining cases of /lj/ are often pronounced simply as [j] in colloquial speech, though this is stigmatised particularly in the case of the word Australia, so it is often pronounced as four syllables to avoid the /lj/.
• /nj/ and other common sequences of consonant plus /ɪ/, are retained.

Other features

• Between voiced sounds, the glottal fricative /ɨ/ may be realised as voiced [ɦ], so that e.g. behind may be pronounced as either [bəˈhɑend] or [bəˈɦɑend].^[17]
• The sequence /hj/ is realised as a voiceless palatal fricative [ç], so that e.g. huge is pronounced [çʉːdʒ].^[17]
• The word foyer is usually pronounced /ˈfoɪ.ə/, as in NZ English, rather than /ˈfoɪ.æɪ/ as in British English.
• The word data is commonly pronounced /ˈdɐːtə/, with /ˈdæɪtə/ being the second most common, and /ˈdætə/ being very rare.
• The trans- prefix is pronounced /tɹæns/, even in South Australia, where the trap-bath split is significantly more advanced than in other states.
• In English, upward inflexion (a rise in the pitch of the voice at the end of an utterance) typically signals a question. Some Australian English speakers commonly use a form of upward inflexion in their speech that is not associated with asking questions. Some speakers use upward inflexion as a way of including their conversational partner in the dialogue.^[18] This is also common in Californian English.

Relationship to other varieties

Australian English pronunciation is most similar to that of New Zealand English: many people from other parts of the world often cannot distinguish them but there are differences. New Zealand English has centralised /ɪ/ and the other short front vowels are higher. New Zealand English more strongly maintains the diphthongal quality of the NEAR and SQUARE vowels and they can be merged as something around [iə]. New Zealand English does not have the bad-lad split, but like Victoria has merged /e/ with /æ/ in pre-lateral environments.

Both New Zealand English and Australian English are also similar to South African English, so that they have even been grouped together under the common label "southern hemisphere Englishes".^[19] Like the other two varieties in that group, Australian English pronunciation bears some similarities to dialects from the South-East of Britain;^{[20][21][22][23]} Thus, it is non-rhotic and has the trap-bath split although, as indicated above, this split was not completed in Australia as it was in England, so many words that have the bath vowel in Southeastern England retain the trap vowel in Australia.

Historically, the Australian English also had the same lengthening of /ɔ/ before unvoiced fricatives, but, like the English accents, this has since been reversed. Australian English lacks some innovations in Cockney since the settling of Australia, such as the use of a glottal stop in many places where a /t/ would be found, th-fronting, and h-dropping. The intervocalic alveolar-flapping, which Australian English has instead, is a feature found in similar environments in American English.

AusTalk

AusTalk is a database of Australian speech from all regions of the country.^[24][25] Initially 1000 adult voices are to be recorded; the project commenced in 2011, and the first phase is expected to run until June 2015. The database is expected to be expanded in future, to include children's voices and more variations. As well as providing a resource for cultural studies, the database is expected to help improve speech-based technology, such as speech recognition systems and hearing aids.^[26]

The AusTalk database was collected as part of the Big Australian Speech Corpus (Big ASC) project, a collaboration between Australian universities and the speech technology experts.^[27][28][29]

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

• Macquarie University - Australian voices