PowerPoint Presentation

Australian English Part 3Graphemic Features and Prosodic Features

Graphemic Features aka SPELLINGOur spelling is predominantly based on British English with only little taken from American English. Defence (American) not defense (British)Program (American) v programme (British)Color v colour (the norm is to use colour)IZE v ISE (we tend to use ise)

Prosodic FeaturesHRT (High Rising Terminal) not to mistaken for Hormone Replacement Therapy, is quite common in Australia. This creates a sort of questioning pitch to a sentence and can often be applied to statements. It is suggested that this can be attributed to a marker of insecurity however recently researchers believe it is a technique to regulate conversational interaction and politeness. For example to indicate that you can understand the communication. As the question like tone elicits a response from the interlocutor that indicates a level of comprehension.

HRT is also adopted by ESL speakers or speakers whose English is of another variety. Take a look at these videos that parody HRThttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPIeOezvLgo

Thats it for the Construction of AENext we will be looking at attitudes to variations of Australian English.