Week 3

After three weeks of immense exposure to Australian English, I have to say that the Aussie accent is not as difficult to comprehend as some friends of mine have suggested. From my own observation, the major differences lie in the quality of the vowels. For instance, there is a tendency for Australian English to change various vowels into the diphthong /ɑɪ/. Examples include ‘today’ (/tə’deɪ/ → /tə’dɑɪ/), the letter ‘A’ (/eɪ/ → /ɑɪ/) and ‘me’ (/miː/ → /mɑɪ/) by some speakers. There are also other changes, such as ‘hurry’ (/harɪ/ → /hɜrɪ/) and big (/bɪɡ/ → /biːɡ/), which involve a vowel other than /ɑɪ/. In terms of the vocabulary, Aussie English makes a lot of use of contraction and the diminutive ending -ie (-y), such as Aussie, brekky, Brissie, Tassie, barbie, arvo, cuppa, etc. The meaning of some of these words may not be transparent immediately, but it is not hard to pick them up because we hear them over and over.

In the course, some of our classmates were corrected by the instructor when they pronounced several words in a non-Australian accent, which I think was not quite appropriate, as I believe we have no particular reason to support using only the Australian accent. For us English teachers, it is important to be conscious of which variety of English we teach our students, and inform them of the existence of other varieties. In an ESL classroom, where English is taught as an everyday medium of communication in a strongly regional setting, it is arguable that the local variety should be given higher priority. However, in an EFL classroom in HK, where English is more of a vehicular language than a vernacular one, communication is the ultimate goal. Therefore, exposure and tolerance to different varieties is definitely valuable.