ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE English Studies => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE English Language => Topic started by: thushan on February 27, 2011, 09:06:45 am
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Hey guys, what would you give this essay out of 15? Of late I've been doing not as well as I hoped; I was getting 11.5-12.5 for my last three essays and hope to do better on this one.
“Do you agree that, despite the influence of international, popular and technological cultures, Australian English is still distinctive?”
Australian English is the aggregation of all varieties of English used throughout Australian society, including ethnocultural varieties and Aboriginal English. Over the past decades Australian English has been influenced by various cultural factors. International culture has been manifesting itself in Australia through the mass immigration from Europe and Asia whilst popular culture is being imported from the United States via entertainment. Technological culture has engrained itself into Australia; Australians regularly use various forms of electronic-mediated communication such as texting. These factors have caused Australian English to merge closer to the other national varieties of English in the world. Nevertheless, Australian English remains quite distinct from the other national varieties due to the resilience of the Australian accent and Australian Aboriginal English.
The influence of Australian popular culture imported from the United States has caused Australian English to converge towards American English. Australians are exposed to American culture and language through various modes of entertainment: television, film, and music. As a result of this exposure young Australians have incorporated American lexemes into their vocabulary, and hence into Australian English; the terms ‘what’s up,’ ‘fair enough,’ ‘go figure,’ ‘buddy’ and ‘man’ are commonplace in their discourse. Distinctively Australian terms are being replaced by American equivalents; the American terms ‘buddy’ and ‘man’ have replaced the Australian term ‘mate’ and the American greeting ‘what’s up’ is replacing the Australian ‘how ya goin’ (sic). These two things, particularly the substitution of Australian phrases for American ones, highlight how Australian English is adopting features of American English and is, by extension, losing some of its distinctiveness.
Technological culture in the form of electronic-mediated communication (EMC) has brought with it a convergence of the lexicon of Australian English to that of other national varieties. EMC pervades much of the lives of Australians today; it is commonplace for Australians to send text messages through mobile phones and use instant messaging services and social networking websites such as MSN and Facebook. The desire for brevity in these media have spawned new acronyms, abbreviations and shortenings of existing words and phrases to be added to the Australian lexicon; ‘sup’ (a shortening of the aforementioned American greeting ‘what’s up?’), ‘cbs’ (an abbreviation of ‘cannot be stuffed’) and ‘rofl’ (an acronym of ‘rolling on floor laughing) are examples. Conversion, wherein nouns are used as verbs, is another process in which new lexemes were added to the Australian lexicon; the brief verb phrases ‘to friend’ and ‘to homework’ (and its present continuous form ‘homeworking’) are substituted for the lengthier verb phrases ‘to add someone as a friend’ and ‘to complete homework’ respectively. These lexemes have not only been added to the Australian lexicon; they have been added to the lexicons of other national varieties of English where EMC is pervasive. This suggests that the Australian lexicon, hence Australian English, is merging closer to those of other national varieties.
The mass immigration into Australia primarily from Europe and Asia after the Second World War has also caused a loss of uniqueness to Australian English to an extent. The immigrants’ first languages have affected the way they spoke English, and this gave rise to ethnolects. These ethnolects can be considered an element of Australian English as they are used to a great extent in Australian society, particularly in regions where the concentration of individuals of a certain ethnic group is high. Second-generation immigrants also use their ethnolect, again particularly in regions where there is a high concentration of their ethnicity or where the ethnolect is considered fashionable. These ethnolects are a reflection of the immigrants’ heritage. For instance, most Italian words end with ‘a’ or ‘o,’ such as the Italian word ‘bambino.’ This has affected the Italian ethnolect in terms of morphology, where they use the suffix ‘-o’ for many English nouns, so the words ‘car’ and ‘football’ become ‘cara’ and ‘footballa.’ Another example is the Indian ethnolect, where the lack of diphthongs in the Indian languages gave rise to the distinctive phonetic feature of Indian English – monophthongisation. The word ‘today,’ usually pronounced as /tudeɪ/, is pronounced as /tude:/. However, these ethnolects and their features are not unique to Australia; they are present in other countries where immigration is pervasive such as the UK, and amongst the English speakers of the immigrants’ native countries. One would find Indian immigrants – and hence the Indian ethnolect – in the UK, the US, Canada and India itself. This fact highlights how Australian English is adopting elements that are also prevalent in other national varieties of English, and is hence losing its uniqueness.
Despite the extensive influences of international, popular and technological culture on Australia, the Australian accent has never lost its distinctiveness. In the documentary ‘The Sounds of Aus’ John Clarke has highlighted the uniqueness of the Australian accent by describing it as ‘a miracle that no other culture has come up with.’ Prominent linguist Dr Felicity Cox has described it as ‘bulletproof’ when discussing the influence of popular culture on it. The main distinctive feature of the Australian accent, according to voice coach Victoria Mielevska, is that it is ‘based on the soft palate...starting to relax down.’ Another major feature of the accent is that unlike other accents the tongue is relatively still, hence the ‘lazy accent’ description. The [r] sound is non rhotic, so that the word ‘river’ is pronounced as /rɪvɜ/, whereas the American accent has a rhotic [r] in that the word would be pronounced as /rɪvɜr/. The [l] is vocalised, in that the word ‘hill’ is pronounced as /hɪʊ/ instead of /hɪl/. Front vowels are raised due to the lack of movement of the tongue; in the word ‘today,’ the /e/ is raised to an /ʌ/ so that the word is pronounced as /tudʌɪ/ instead of /tudeɪ/. The Australian accent can be split into three categories: the Broad accent, the General accent, and the Cultivated accent. The above features are common to the Broad and General accent. The Broad accent is the most distinctively Australian, where the above features are highly prominent in speech, and is mostly prevalent in the country. The Cultivated accent resembles British Received Pronunciation and effectively has few features in common with the other two accents. The General accent is an intermediate between the Broad and Cultivated accents, but is closer to the Broad than the Cultivated. Use of the Broad accent has decreased over the past few decades as more people are moving into the cities, which does point to a convergence of the Australian accent towards that of other national varieties. However, this is counteracted by the decline in the use of the Cultivated accent – which resembles the British accent, another national variety - as it lost its association with power, prestige and scholarship and developed overtones of snobbery and arrogance. Meanwhile, the use of the General accent has increased significantly. Since it still possesses the abovementioned distinctive features, the overall effect of this shift was that the Australian accent has drifted away from other national varieties; it has maintained its distinctiveness.
Aboriginal English has been resistant to the influence of technology, popular culture and immigration, and in doing so it has maintained the uniqueness of Australian English. Aboriginal English can be considered a part of Australian English because it is widely used in Aboriginal communities, which is a part of Australian society. Aboriginal English is a variety that developed in Australia and is found nowhere else in the world. Like the ethnolects, Aboriginal English possesses features of the native Aboriginal languages. Phonetic features include the substitution of the bilabial stop phonemes /p/ and /b/ for the labio-dental fricatives /f/ and /v/ and the use of the phoneme /d/ in replacement of /ð/. Aborigines would pronounce ‘that’ as /dæt/ instead of /ðæt/ and ‘devil’ as /debəl/ instead of /devəl/. A lexeme unique to Aboriginal English is ‘fathergether’ (a blending of ‘father’ and ‘together’), meaning a father and son. Other lexemes include ‘fella’ (a shortening of ‘fellow’) and ‘nunga’ (an Aborigine). A syntactic feature is the use of ‘eh’ and ‘unna’ as interrogative tags, for instance in the interrogative ‘Bad weather, unna? and the dropping of the copula verb in sentences with only a subject and a predicate complement; the sentence ‘he good’ assigns the predicate complement (good) to the subject (he) without the use of the copula (is). Semantic features include: the use of ‘mother’ to describe one’s maternal parent and her sisters (instead of the maternal parent alone), the use of ‘cousin’ to describe a friend, and the use of ‘business’ to describe traditional lore and ritual. One would never encounter such features of Aboriginal English anywhere else in the world, and Aboriginal English was unaffected by the influence of technological, popular and international cultures. Hence Australian English has maintained its distinctiveness in terms of one of its forms – Aboriginal English.
International, popular and technological culture has influenced the various elements of Australian English to varying degrees, such that Australian English has converged somewhat to other national varieties of English. Popular culture has had a merging effect on the Australian lexicon, where American lexical items were adopted. International culture in the form of immigration gave rise to ethnolects in Australia that are common to other countries, also having a merging effect on Australian English as a whole. Technological culture has caused the Australian lexicon to merge with that of other countries as the lexicons have all adopted the same lexemes. However, these influences did not affect the phonology of Australian English – the Australian accent - and Aboriginal English remains as resilient as ever. Whilst Australian English today has some features in common with that of other countries, it still remains distinctive and hence can be worn as a badge of Australian identity.
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I don't do this subject, but just as a general rule of thumb, avoid saying 'things' in a formal essay. ;)
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Cheers, fair enough
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It is a pretty tightly structured essay, but you make some sweeping generalisations which are likely to get on the examiners nerves.
Language formality is paramount, so as werdna has indicated, avoid colloquial language such as 'things.' Perhaps 'examples' may have been a better word in this instance.
I'll try and briefly summarise some points for improvement
-It is early days yet and you are doing very well in term of structure and examples. You are miles in front of where I was at this time last year. Your examples are good, but are far too common. You will develop better and more unique ones throughout the year.
-You have very solidly taken the stance we are adopting a lot of American Language. Whilst true to an extent, we still have been generating new words of our own. a few that come to mind are 'budgie smugglers', 'muzza', 'povo' etc. In this case it wasn't too bad, but don't fall into the trap of being overly definitive.
-The stance you take on ethnolects is most likely incorrect. You should not really say Indian English is the same everywhere in the world. An Indian who has migrated to Australia will speak and Australian variety of Indian English, which is different to Indian varieties of English elsewhere in the world. Remember that speakers model how they use language off the people they communicate with. This is why the Australian accent remains so eminent. Whilst we are bombarded with US language on TV, we don't use this to communicate in society, and hence the accent has remained relatively in tact. You seem to be basing a lot of language on phonology. Whilst it is a large part of language, it does not solely define one. Not only would there be subtle phonetic differences amongst Indian speakers of English around the world, but on the other subsystem levels, particularly Lexicology and Semantics, regional culture is almost sure to have made a unique contribution to the language used. Sorry to ramble on forever on this point but I feel it is important. In India, the term 'spastic' is seen as a perfectly acceptable way to refer to someone with a mental disability. A leading mental health organisation there is known as 'The Spastic Society of India.' In Australia however, the term 'spastic' is considered rude, offensive, and is to be avoided. This demonstrates that semantic differences exist in the two regions. The attitudes of the speakers in the two regions vary, and this is consequently reflected in language. Always remember to link language use to culture and attitudes, as this is the driving force behind language. It is great that you are using lots of metalanguage, but to take it to the next step, you have to demonstrate how your examples are relevant to society.
-On the topic of Broad, General and Cultivated Australian English, you again seem to have fallen into the trap of going for phonetics only. These are actually varieties, which vary more than just accent differences. They were actually the sociolects of Australian English, and were strongly linked with socioeconomic status. It is important to recognise this factor. They were somewhat of an attitude. They still apply to an extent, however Australia is such a multicultural society now, that variation outside of the broadness continuum exists. There is more info on this on the Australian Voices website. But basically, the sociolects are more than just accent. Broad has more slang (lexical), elipsis (sytactic) than Cultivated for example. Show the examiner that you know this. Don't assume the examiner knows. They want you to clearly and explicit express examples which cover many of the subsystems, and then relate this back to why they are used. Do they have a specific purpose? Are they identity related?
-The Aboriginal paragraph is a very good example of distinctive language in Australia. I think you have done it quite well. You have examined phonology, lexicology, syntax and semantics within it, which is a good benchmark and spread of examples. If you want to add to it, you can always talk about how Aboriginal languages have contributed to Australian English, particularly in the naming of flora, fauna and locations. The word 'kangaroo' is derived from a tribal language of the Guugu Yimidhirr people, who referred to the animal as 'gangooroo.' Things like this are guaranteed to have the examiner intrigued.
-Conclusion is a little weak. Don't just summarise what you have already written. It is boring to see students just list off their topic sentences to finish their essay. This is your last chance to impress the examiner. Give a quick snapshot that summarises your essay, then move on to linking your essay to your wider understanding of language and the course, and really reinforce your stance. With essays on Australian English and language diversity, I found that showing your appreciation for language was generally a good tactic to finish with. It is a descriptivist course, so always keep this at the back of your mind when writing. Also, you mentioned 'the lexicons have all adopted the same lexemes.' This is too strong and certainly not true. Sweeping generalisations and definitive statements will annoy the examiner and if they disagree, you will inevitable pay.
Overall, a very tightly structured essay. With a little tweaking, there is scope for it to be even better. Excellent for this early in the year.
12/15 :)
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Wow stonecold you have put a fair effort into your feedback - thanks!
Just wanted to raise a few issues here:
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"On the topic of Broad, General and Cultivated Australian English, you again seem to have fallen into the trap of going for phonetics only. These are actually varieties, which vary more than just accent differences. They were actually the sociolects of Australian English, and were strongly linked with socioeconomic status. It is important to recognise this factor. They were somewhat of an attitude. They still apply to an extent, however Australia is such a multicultural society now, that variation outside of the broadness continuum exists. There is more info on this on the Australian Voices website. But basically, the sociolects are more than just accent. Broad has more slang (lexical), elipsis (sytactic) than Cultivated for example. Show the examiner that you know this. Don't assume the examiner knows. They want you to clearly and explicit express examples which cover many of the subsystems, and then relate this back to why they are used. Do they have a specific purpose? Are they identity related?"
I always thought that the Broad, General and Cultivated specifically referred to accents? The features you have described - ellipsis and slang - would be more to do with informal vs formal speech rather than accent, although formal vs informal speech is not independent of Broad vs General vs Cultivated accent as you said. I think I'm getting confused...are those three descriptors referring to varieties of English, or simply accent?
2. Things vs examples. OK - point taken.
3. Unique examples...I have research to do then.
4. Your insight: It's excellent, and I've had those thoughts running through my mind, yet I'm nervous about straying off-topic in talking about attitudes to language varieties. Where do we draw the line between broadening the scope of the topic and going off-topic?
5. Conclusion. Fair enough, will work on that.
6. Ah. lexicons - lexemes. Should have made myself clearer. I was specifically referring to the LOL, ROFL, LMAO, etc.
Thanks mate, seriously!
EDIT: As you can see, English is not my strongest subject.
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EDIT: As you can see, English is not my strongest subject.
dw, still 50 ;)
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Very funny pi.
Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience
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EDIT: As you can see, English is not my strongest subject.
dw, still 50 ;)
give him break pi, he's got enough pressure on him as is.
He'll just have to get 49 and be content with that
Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience
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EDIT: As you can see, English is not my strongest subject.
dw, still 50 ;)
give him break pi, he's got enough pressure on him as is.
He'll just have to get 49 and be content with that
Do you really think he would be content with a 49? If he is, we certainly won't be :P
Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience
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To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be.
I'll try to do as well as I can.
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To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be.
I'll try to do as well as I can.
A masculine version of 'appianway'. Anyone remember the uproar when she was sad over losing one mark in a Physics practice exam?
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To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be.
I'll try to do as well as I can.
Good on you :)
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To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be.
I'll try to do as well as I can.
A masculine version of 'appianway'. Anyone remember the uproar when she was sobbing over losing one mark in a Physics practice exam?
No...?
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To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be.
I'll try to do as well as I can.
A masculine version of 'appianway'. Anyone remember the uproar when she was sobbing over losing one mark in a Physics practice exam?
No...?
Very old thread I read when I was bored. One guy got pissed off at your perfectionism and than the rest supported your dedication :)
Ahahaha I can relate now with Psych - getting one MCQ wrong is so frustrating :'(
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To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be.
I'll try to do as well as I can.
Thats kinda inspiring!
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Sorry it took me a while to reply.
With regard to whether Broad, General and Cultivated are accents or varieties, I maintain that they are varieties.
Wikipedia and Australian Voices both seem to focus on the accent and ignore everything else, but I really don't believe this is correct. You cannot define a language variety strictly by phonology and pronunciation.
You can have a read of them here if you like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English#Variation_and_changes
http://clas.mq.edu.au/australian-voices/australian-accent
I'll try and give you some examples
Lexicology
-Broad tends to use typically Australian vernacular, and is less affected by globalisation and Americanisms. Slang such as rhyming slang and reductions such as 'bicky' (biscuit) feature prominently. Tmesis is another feature, where words (usually dysphemisms) are infixed within other words, for example, 'sen-fucking-sational'
-General has its own variety of colloquial language, many lexemes of which have been borrowed from American culture. 'Cookie' may be used instead of 'biscuit' for example, and this variety has adopted a lot more technologically derived language, as well as the use of language typically reserved for electronic mediums such as SMS, MSN, Facebook and Twitter. Amongst teenagers, 'ceebs' is practically a codified word. There would not be too many broad speakers who would be familiar with this term though.
-Cultivated is perceived as overly formal and sometimes 'snobby'. It tends to reflect Standard English the closest and its speakers generally refrain from using colloquial language, slang and dysphemism. On the other hand, you may be able to say that this variety often uses various euphemisms to maintain the perception of 'elegance' and 'correctness'.
-Syntactically, Broad and General are more similar. They both tend to feature non standard sentence constructions such as 'me house' rather than 'my house' or 'would of' instead of 'would have'. Ellipsis is also common, with incomplete utterances such as 'need a hand?' [do you need a hand?] frequently used. Another example is the non-standard 'youse' used to differentiate between the plural and singular 'you.' This is also evident in many ethnocultural varieties. The cultivated variety however avoids these types of non-standard features
-Discourse
Broad speakers may tend to use a lot of pause fillers in their speech, and it may be less fluent. Such pause fillers may include 'umm' and 'fuckin' or reptition such as 'I went to the...the....the....' to buy thinking time when speaking. Parataxis is also more likely to feature in this variety, where many simple sentences are joined by a coordinating conjunction, usually 'and.' General has these features too, but probably to a slightly lesser extent. 'You know' is often tacked on to utterances in Broad and General because the speaker is seeking affirmation from their listener or audience. Cultivated speakers tend to look down upon the use of various discourse markers and particles because they disrupt the fluency of what they percieve to be 'proper' English
Hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea. :)
Also, VCAA have reverted to essay topics which require you to 'refer to at least two subsystems of language in your response', so if you are going to talk about the sociolects of Australian English, you are going to need to deviate from discussing phonology only anyway.
Exploring all the subsystems will allow you to show depth of knowledge, so it is something I would recommend.
If your teacher has said otherwise, then do what they want, but then on the exam change to what will maximise your marks.
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Hey Thushan I've heard about you from my friends at millpark, Kevin and Lauren.
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Aboriginal English has been resistant to the influence of technology, popular culture and immigration, and in doing so it has maintained the uniqueness of Australian English. Aboriginal English can be considered a part of Australian English because it is widely used in Aboriginal communities, which is a part of Australian society.
Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I was just unsure of a couple of details.
Is Aboriginal English considered to be part of Standard Australian English? If so, is the essay topic somewhat leading towards Standard Australian English rather than all forms of Australian English?
Lastly, into how much depth do we need to research Aboriginal English and various national varieties?
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Aboriginal English is not part of Standard Australian English. From my understanding, Standard Australian English comprises of the Broad, General and Cultivated varieties (not accents) - see Stonecold's explanation earlier in the thread.
Felicity Cox often stated that the three varieties of Australian English (not Standard Australian English) are Standard Australian English, ethnocultural varieties and Aboriginal English.
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Aboriginal English is not part of Standard Australian English. From my understanding, Standard Australian English comprises of the Broad, General and Cultivated varieties (not accents) - see Stonecold's explanation earlier in the thread.
Felicity Cox often stated that the three varieties of Australian English (not Standard Australian English) are Standard Australian English, ethnocultural varieties and Aboriginal English.
Yep, makes sense. That leads me to the question, when the essay topic states "australian english," is it referring to all three varieties (i.e. standard, ethnocultural and aboriginal) or is it merely referring to the standard? I ask this question because most essays I have read merely refer to the standard when the terms "australian english" are mentioned in the topic (my teacher, in particular). However, your focus in the essay was on all three, which leaves me in a confused state. :-\