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Advances in Australian English
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Advances in Australian English

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (19 January 2024) | Viewed by 6688

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Chloe Diskin-Holdaway

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia
Interests: sociolinguistics; second language acquisition; language attitudes and ideologies
Dr. Kirsty McDougall

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Section, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK
Interests: speaker characteristics; forensic phonetics; sociophonetics; theories of speech production; phonetic realisation of varieties of English

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to submit research to the upcoming Special Issue of Languages, entitled “Advances in Australian English”, a selection of articles bringing together cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research in Australian English(es) from the perspectives of sociolinguistics, language variation and change, phonetics, forensic linguistics, language contact and multilingualism, and language acquisition.

Conferences and colloquia such as Language Variation and Change-Australia, the Forum on Englishes in Australia, Sociophonetic Variability in the English Varieties of Australia (SocioPhonAus), and the Australian Linguistic Society annual meeting, as well as special sessions at the Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (SST), are by now well-established outlets for the latest linguistic research in Australian English(es). Furthermore, recent edited volumes such as Australian English Reimagined: Structure Features and Developments (2020) and textbooks such as Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription (2017) have laid the foundation for excellence and rigour in a growing interdisciplinary field. Our Special Issue will aim to capture more recent developments in this fast-moving, burgeoning and increasingly diverse area of research. We welcome submissions from all areas of research in Australian English(es) and we particularly welcome work from underrepresented communities or speakers, such as ethnolects of Australian English and Aboriginal English(es).

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution to the guest editors ([email protected] and [email protected]) or to the Languages editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purpose of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue, but this does not guarantee publication. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review. Please note that articles will be fully open access and that the article processing charges (APC) will be waived for this Special Issue.

References

Cox, F., & Fletcher, J. (2017). Australian English Pronunciation and Transcription (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316995631

Willoughby, L., & Manns, H. (Eds.). (2020). Australian English Reimagined: Structure, Features and Developments. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429019692

Dr. Chloe Diskin-Holdaway
Dr. Kirsty McDougall
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Australian English
  • sociolinguistics
  • language variation and change
  • phonetics
  • forensic linguistics
  • language contact and multilingualism
  • language acquisition
  • ethnolects
  • Aboriginal English(es)

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 3561 KiB  
Article
“It’s a Bit Tricky, Isn’t It?”—An Acoustic Study of Contextual Variation in /ɪ/ in the Conversational Speech of Young People from Perth
by Gerard Docherty, Paul Foulkes and Simon Gonzalez
Languages 2024, 9(11), 343; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9110343 - 31 Oct 2024
Viewed by 651
Abstract
This study presents an acoustic analysis of vowel realisations in contexts where, in Australian English, a historical contrast between unstressed /ɪ/ and /ə/ has largely diminished in favour of a central schwa-like variant. The study is motivated by indications that there is greater [...] Read more.
This study presents an acoustic analysis of vowel realisations in contexts where, in Australian English, a historical contrast between unstressed /ɪ/ and /ə/ has largely diminished in favour of a central schwa-like variant. The study is motivated by indications that there is greater complexity in this area of vowel variation than has been conventionally set out in the existing literature, and our goal is to shed new light by studying a dataset of conversational speech produced by 40 young speakers from Perth, WA. In doing so, we also offer some critical thoughts on the use of Wells’ lexical sets as a framework for analysis in work of this kind, in particular with reference to the treatment of items in unstressed position, and of grammatical (or function) words. The acoustic analysis focused on the realisation in F1/F2 space of a range of /ɪ/ and /ə/ variants in both accented and unaccented syllables (thus a broader approach than a focus on stressed kit vowels). For the purposes of comparison, we also analysed tokens of the fleece and happy-tensing lexical sets. Grammatical and non-grammatical words were analysed independently in order to understand the extent to which a high-frequency grammatical word such as it might contribute to the overall pattern of vowel alternation. Our findings are largely consistent with the small amount of previous work that has been carried out in this area, pointing to a continuum of realisations across a range of accented and unaccented contexts. The data suggest that the reduced historical /ɪ/ vowel encountered in unaccented syllables cannot be straightforwardly analysed as a merger with /ə/. We also highlight the way in which the grammatical word it participates in this alternation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Australian English)
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25 pages, 1244 KiB  
Article
When Positioning Mediates Social Judgements: Life-Stage, Gender, and Yeah-No in Australian English
by Stacey Sherwood, Robert Mailhammer and Mark Antoniou
Languages 2024, 9(6), 221; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9060221 - 18 Jun 2024
Viewed by 1000
Abstract
This study explores the correlation between social categories and linguistic variables, focusing on the perception of the discourse marker yeah-no in Australian English. Research suggests that these correlations reflect individuals’ recruitment of variables for the purpose of communicating social meaning. However, not all [...] Read more.
This study explores the correlation between social categories and linguistic variables, focusing on the perception of the discourse marker yeah-no in Australian English. Research suggests that these correlations reflect individuals’ recruitment of variables for the purpose of communicating social meaning. However, not all social categories which correlate with a variable in production are recognizable as social meaning. This study investigated how individuals’ positioning to a variable mediates their awareness to its social meaning by examining perceptions of gender and life-stage in yeah-no users and non-users. We found that individuals judged sentences including yeah-no as more likely to be said by a student, and this effect was stronger for individuals who did not self-report as yeah-no users. Furthermore, while there was no significant effect of gender, participants who did not self-report as yeah-no users were more likely to judge yeah-no sentences as said by a male speaker rather than a female speaker. The findings imply that the perception of social meaning is influenced by an individual’s positioning towards a variable. More broadly, the results provide support for using self-report techniques in the investigation of social meaning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Australian English)
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21 pages, 406 KiB  
Article
Language Attitudes in Australia: Results from a Nationwide Survey
by Chloé Diskin-Holdaway and Paola Escudero
Languages 2024, 9(6), 200; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9060200 - 31 May 2024
Viewed by 2055
Abstract
Recent research on attitudes to Australian English (AusE) shows that there is a general increase in its acceptance, legitimacy, and endonormativity. However, a certain “cultural cringe” exists, particularly when “broad” AusE is seen as representative of the variety. A significant gap in the [...] Read more.
Recent research on attitudes to Australian English (AusE) shows that there is a general increase in its acceptance, legitimacy, and endonormativity. However, a certain “cultural cringe” exists, particularly when “broad” AusE is seen as representative of the variety. A significant gap in the literature is how the perceptions and usage of AusE may change as the population becomes more diverse. This paper presents findings of an online survey of language attitudes towards AusE with 661 respondents across Australia, over a third of whom were born overseas. Overall, there is minimal evidence of a standard language ideology, with 80% of respondents reporting having an accent to some degree. Almost half of respondents report occasionally or frequently changing their accents due to context, interlocutor, or making themselves understood. When asked to rate AusE along six traits on a seven-point scale, the traits of educatedness, professionalism, and attractiveness were consistently centered on neutral. For friendliness and likeability, the majority skewed towards neutral and positive. For the trait of clarity, there was a greater range of responses, but overall, 50% of respondents found AusE to be somewhat, moderately, or really clear. These findings further our understanding of attitudes and ideologies in Australia’s increasingly diverse language ecology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Australian English)
23 pages, 2703 KiB  
Article
Ladz in the Hood: Features of Pasifika English in Drill Rappers from Western Sydney
by Joshua Penney and Anita Szakay
Languages 2024, 9(3), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9030079 - 28 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1512
Abstract
Despite well-established Pasifika communities in Australia, there has been no examination of the English spoken by members of these communities in the sociolinguistic literature. Yet, research shows that Pasifika English may exhibit key differences from local ‘mainstream’ varieties. In this paper, we present [...] Read more.
Despite well-established Pasifika communities in Australia, there has been no examination of the English spoken by members of these communities in the sociolinguistic literature. Yet, research shows that Pasifika English may exhibit key differences from local ‘mainstream’ varieties. In this paper, we present a case study of members of a drill rap group with Pasifika heritage to examine whether Pasifika English features are evident in their speech. We first analyze their monophthong productions and compare these to those of mainstream Australian English speakers. We also analyze their dental fricative realizations to examine whether there is evidence of th-stopping and dh-stopping, commonly described as markers of Pasifika English. Finally, we investigate whether their speech is more syllable-timed than mainstream Australian English. The results show that these speakers produce monophthongs generally consistent with mainstream Australian English vowels, despite some small differences. We also show consistent th-fronting and dh-stopping in their speech, which serves as a marker of their Pasifika heritage. We find a tendency towards more syllable-timed speech; however, this occurs to a lesser extent than has been reported for other Pasifika varieties of English. The results suggest that these speakers index their Pasifika identities by employing indicators/markers of Pasifika English that diverge from mainstream Australian English. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Australian English)
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