In around the mid-17th century it is noted that the Dutch chartered the western coast of Australia named New Holland which was followed by the charter of theeastern coastline by Captain James Cook in 1707, later named New South Wales. It was in the early 19th century the term AustraliaAustralia. was recognized as the name for the continent as a whole. The term Australian English has not always been used when describing the language spoken in

Terms that were previously used include those of Antipodean English, Austral English and Australasian English, relecting the language of Australasia as a whole. Prior to the European settlement in around 1788 there were long periods of indigenous settlement, that is, Aboriginal. It is estimated that at the time of the British colonisation around 250 distinct indigenous languages were in use and well over half of these are no longer in use today, as noted at, file://A:FATSILAustralian languages.htm.

It is true to say that the accents of Australian English are stigmatized, even today, especially by middle-class British English speakers. If one were to research the origins of Australian English they would probably discover the underlying reasons for this. When Australia was colonized 200 years ago it was regarded as a convict colony for Britain which saw the transportation of British convicts who had, in almost all cases, committed only minor crimes. It is also the case that these convicts were transported from London and most of them sentenced there which along with the long journey to the new continent, meant that there was an overwhelming influence of the Cockney variety of English amongst the prisoners. It is possible that this could account for the fact that Australian English appears to be stigmatized by middle-class British English speakers. Cockney was spoken by all "Londoners" at one point but this began to change when a new status, middle-class, was emerging. Middle-class speakers of British English wanted to portray themselves as such and one way in which they could achieve this was through speech. This could be seen to be the start of Standard English which meant that the Cockney variety was now seen as a language only spoken by the lower classes of London, the poor and the criminals were then seen as the inferior classes. As this was the status of the convicts this could explain the stigma attached to Australian English today.

Due to the geographical isolation of Australia, settlers were under little or no influence from non-English immigrants. The influence on Australian English from indigenous languages has been relatively non-existent with the exception of a few terms. As suggested in The Oxford Companion to the English Language, this amongst other factors meant that the term Australian English was not recorded as the national language until 1940. Even at this time the term was not seen to be respected. This occurred a few years on in around 1945.

Classification of Australian English

Linguists have distinguished three types of Australian English, as noted in The Oxford Guide to World English, these are as follows;

(i) Cultivated Australian. Also described as 'acrolect' this type of spoken Ausralian English is closely associated with the Received Pronunciation (RP) of British English. As with Britain, this is the variety that is related to those of a middle-class status, most of who will be undoubtedly educated, which is portrayed through this spoken variety. Acrolect holds a certain amount of prestige and as it is a minority associated with the elite, it is possible that speakers of general and broad Australian English would see this as disdainful.

(ii) Broad Australian. Also described as 'basilect' this type of Australian English could be described as the language used mainly between working-class males, however this is not the exclusive use as it is sometimes associated with lower middle-class males. Broad Australian could be seen to portray a notion of comradeship amongst workers. It is probable that this usage contains more 'local-type' vowel sounds.

(iii) General Australian. Also described as 'mesolect' this type of Australian English is as its name suggests, general. Mesolect is spoken by the majority of AusEng speakers and is a kind of broad in-between of acrolect and basilect.

It should also be noted that a study by Barbara Horvath (1985) recognised a further two categories, 'Accented' and 'Ethnic Broad', which recognised ethnic influences.

Linguistic Features of Australian English

Altough often compared to British English, many linguistic features of Australian English that are unique and therefore are not associated with British English. Linguistic features connected with Australian English include intonation patterns, pronunciation and vocabulary. It should be noted that there is a distinct lack of grammatical differences.

(i) Phonetic and Phonological Features

* The Cultivated and General accents of Australia appear to use 24 consonants, 11 vowels and 8 diphthongs

* There is no post-vocalic /r/ within this variety:

hair Speakers of Australian English do not

worker pronounce /r/ in any of these words

* /h/ of 'aitch' is pronounced.

* Fronted /a/. This is a similar feature to that of Southern Irish and the Liverpool or 'Scouse' variety of British English. Examples of this include the words dark, calm and heart. This appears to apply to Australian English vowels in general.

* Neutral vowel suffix's rather than the /i/ of RP. This can be seen if we look at the words boxes, dances, darkest, velvet and acid, as suggested in The Oxford Companion to the English Language.

(ii) Intonation

Another prosodic feature of Australian English and possibly the most characteristic feature world-wide is that of intonation, a feature itself of pitch variation.

There are many ways in which to describe the intonation pattern of Australian English. These include 'Uptalk', Australian Questioning Intonation and also the High Rising Terminal (HRT). As noted by Fletcher (2003), the high rising terminal intonation could be described as a complex fall-rise tune forming part of the intonation inventory that is a characteristic of Australian English. The HRT consists of a fall from a relatively high to low pitch level and then a terminal rise. The final element generally rises to a higher pitch level, relative to the speaker's normal range.

However, it is true to say that many of the linguistic features associated with Australian English are not necessarily evident across all bands. The use of the high rising terminal for example, can be seen to vary, as seen in a study carried out by Mitchell and Delbridge (1965).

This particular survey showed that speakers of Broad Australian English generally used a restricted intonation, that is, more of a monotonous, narrow pitch range. This in turn shows that the prosodic feature of intonation in relation to Australian English can be seen to be of a generic nature. It is possible that the HRT is a feature used mainly by female speakers. Using such declarative sentences could be seen as the need for confirmation or reassurance. However, if this was the case then as we can see from the Mitchell and Delbridge (1965) survey, Australia would be largely inhabited by insecure females and of course, this would not account for the masculine use of HRT. It could be suggested that the use of such intonation is to expedite speech, to question comprehension maybe.

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