g'day guys welcome to this episode of Oz
in English today we're going to be
focusing on the Australian accent and
specifically variations in it so this
question comes from will who left me a
voicemail on the Aussie English website
let's have a listen sup in Ohio so the
question is why do you speak a little
bit different from the ones that out me
for example use it to to hear at work or
on the street because me and Glaus here
we both think that you speak a little
bit more clear so for example when you
say wife you say like we say like we've
learned so it looks like it's open normy
and the people normally they say say
they would say wife no wife say wife
nanami so I don't know if you do that
just to be more clear or if you really
speak like this and same for like fine
the same thing so you say fine it's open
and it's clear for us but when you or
new watch a TV or you're on the street
you hear people talking you can hear
them they say fine not fine you know so
it's just a one question for you All
Right see ya my thank you for everybody
thanks so much for the question will
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the others English website anyway let's
dive into this episode guys so the
Australian English accent is renowned
for its lack of regional differences and
this isn't too surprising given that it
was only colonized in the late 1700s
about ten years after the US Declaration
of Independence so Australia the accents
in Australia at least don't really vary
like they do in places like the US which
has really different regional accents
however there still are differences so
linguists Arthur delbridge and AG
Mitchell developed a classification
system for the three main Australian
accents in 1965 and they created 3
accent categories the broad accent the
general accent and the cultivated accent
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so the general accents represent the
most common types of Australian English
accents so if you guys know the ex Prime
Minister Julia Gillard she's a good
example you know when you meet the Queen
she's one of those people that's been so
in your world me and I my whole lifetime
that you feel like you know her broad
Australian accents are more extreme and
these are associated with working-class
speech so think of people like Steve
Irwin and the character Crocodile Dundee
and mum was a maternity nurse who
actually wanted to follow her passion
which was Joey kangaroos and koalas and
wombats and platypus and then we have
the cultivated accent which is a more
prestigious variety somewhat closer to
British pronunciation from people like
Cate Blanchett yes well now I actually
grew up in Melbourne and then I came to
Sydney to go to the National Institute
here and then got catapulted out and I
thought well I'll give it five years and
see what happens and so a lot of actors
tend to have this kind of accent and
going back to answering wills question
this is probably my accent if I can be
so bold as to say I'm a cultivated
Australian English accent user
I think the main reason that I have a
cultivated English accent is probably
because I have been at university so
long and so I haven't really been around
a lot of working-class Australians the
same way I would have been if I had say
left high school and gotten a real job
and also I think because I have been so
surrounded by so many foreigners my
Australian English has been kind of
forced to become a more subtle closer to
British English you know proper British
English in the way that I speak because
it's a little easier to understand so I
think that as a result of being at
university for so long and as a result
of having so many foreign friends and
living in the multicultural city that is
Melbourne that's the reason that my
accent is as subtle and cultivated as it
seems so Australia is clearly a
continuum with regards to accents it's
not really regional like the US as we
stated so how are these accents sorted
into the three categories that they fall
in so a study was published in the
Australian journal of linguistics in
1997 and these guys tried to define this
the researchers started by making
impressionistic judgments based on large
numbers of recorded Australian subjects
so they probably had a whole bunch of
Australian sit down they listen to them
speak and they put them in one of these
three categories based on their own
subjective impressions so they place
them in these three categories the broad
accent the general accent and the
cultivated accent and then they analyzed
the vowel sounds of these speakers in
these three groups to decide which
features correspondent with each of
these accents
and the results weren't really that
shocking the further on the broad end of
the spectrum and accents it's the more
stereotypically Australian the features
of that accent the funny thing is this
study actually honed in on that same
diphthong that you were talking about in
your question will the diphthong that
you mentioned in words like fine and
wife is actually one of those diphthongs
that varies between accents so you found
it as well anyway the diphthong in fine
wife and ride so that I sound the more
broad the accent gets the more this
vowel sound moves towards the diphthong
in words like choice a voice and coin so
for broad accent people they're going to
say fine wife Android and for the
cultivated accent they're gonna say fine
wife and rides so those will be the main
differences there with that diphthong so
a cultivated accent speaker is going to
say that diphthong like the word by
whereas broad accent people are going to
say it more like in the word boy so I
and I that's the main difference there
then there's also the diphthong in words
like south proud and out so that L sound
the more broad the accent is the more
the first part of this diphthong sounds
like the e sound in dress so it's more
of an air sounds so they say the words
south proud and out more like south
proud and out so they make it more like
that at the start of the diphthong in
South proud and out at least I said it
there's a cultivated accent so a
cultivated speaker might have a
diphthong closer to the american sound
out and a broad speaker might pronounce
it a little closer to L that's one more
difference there were a few other
features to this study noticed words
like fleece and keep so that e sound in
there those diphthongs were more
pronounced in the broad accent obviously
so probably like fleece key
whereas I'd say fleece and keep words
like face and make sound like the
diphthong in the American pronounced
kite so like that ight sound so people
would probably say face and make I don't
I can't really do it in the broad accent
though that's how that would probably
sound whereas I would say face and make
and then we have words with the ruh
sound in them in goose and good
apparently in a broad accent this vowel
sound is closer to the front of the
mouth so they would probably say food
and goose whereas I would say food and
goose so the study to also found some
interesting stuff where the accent
differed between genders depending on
the vowel so the study found that there
was more variation in the pronunciation
of the word heard so that vowel sound
like in a word nurse or bird that vowel
sound differed more between women than
it did men and then we had men where
there was a significant difference
between the variation of the
pronunciation of food so that sound like
in goose or food there was more
variation between how men pronounce that
than with women's so clearly there's a
big difference between genders as well
as class in Australian English anyway
that's enough for this episode we'll I
hope it answered your question I hope
you enjoy this episode I just want to
make a little mention at the end here
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guys I hope you enjoyed the episode I
hope your English is kicking ass and
I'll talk to you soon
see you later
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you