This thesis looks at folk perceptions, reported usage, and dialect recognition of regional variation in Australian English. Australian English is a variety of English that has been regarded as having very limited forms of regional variation (Bernard 1970). Bryant (1992) was the first to explore regional variation through a traditional dialectology approach of the Australian English lexicon, and found overwhelming evidence of lexical regional variation across Australia. Phoneticians have also debunked this claim of dialect homogeny, finding regional variation in l-vocalization (Borowsky and Horvath 1997) and vowel differences (see Billington 2011).

Perceptual dialectology is an interdisciplinary field which examines lay (folk) perceptions of language through a combination of methods from linguistic anthropology, cultural geography, sociolinguistics, dialectology and social psychology of language (Preston 1999). Folk perceptions explore cultural beliefs about individuals and social groups, and reveal correlations between intergroup stereotypes and linguistic factors in order to provide a richer understanding of speech communities.

By adapting both perceptual dialectology and traditional dialectology methods to online platforms, over 5,000 native Australian English speakers have been able to take part in the study so far. The preliminary results indicate respondents embrace regional dialect stereotypes and ideologies, recognise a distinctive South Australian accent, and report regional lexical and phonetic differences. Longitudinal evaluations of dialect change will also be examined between lexical data collected by Bryant (1992) and the current study.

This thesis examines native Australian speakers’ folk linguistic ideologies and compares them to reported usage of regional variation to better understand how Australians report, perceive, and recognise variation across Australia. The thesis introduces a new methodology to Australian English linguistic study, enhances research of native Australian English speaker attitudes, and furthers the study of dialectology in Australia.

References

Bernard J 1989 ‘Regional variation in Australian English: a survey’ in P Collins & D Blair (eds) Australian English: the language of a new society St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. pp. 255-259.

Billington R 2011 ‘Location, Location, Location! Regional characteristics and national patterns of change in the vowels of Melbourne adolescents’ Australian Journal of Linguistics 31/3: 275-303.

Borowsky T and B Horvath 1997 ‘L-vocalization in Australian English’ in L Wetzels, R van Hout & F Hinskens (eds) Variation, Change and Phonological Theory Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. pp. 101-123.

Bryant P 1992 Regional variation in the lexicon of Australian English Unpublished PhD thesis, Australian National University.

Preston D 1999 ‘Introduction’ in D Preston (ed) Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. pp. xxiii-xl.

Panel: Jane Simpson, Evan Kidd, Jennifer Hendriks