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Introduction

Considered one of the major variations of the English language, Australian English is
the official language of Australia. Generally speaking, Australian English takes
features from both British and American English, so it is sometimes considered a
combination of the two variations. However, it is important to understand that there
are a number of unique features as well, including exclusive vocabulary.
Learning the specific features can be beneficial to anyone planning on travelling to
the country, or anyone hoping to find work in the country in future. So, with that in
mind, here is our phonetic guide to Australian English.

Historical facts
Australian English had its beginnings in the late eighteenth century in a convict
settlement where people of diverse speech were brought together. Some levelling of
dialects had probably already taken place in England or even at sea. The first settlers
were especially important in setting the direction of linguistic development in the new
land. The vocabulary of the language grew by borrowing from Aboriginal languages
or by retaining or borrowing from English dialects, by extending the reference of
existing resources or by conjoining existing elements in compounds or set phrases.
The controlling force in directing the actual development of the language from these
potential sources was the social experience of the inhabitants of Australia.
Australian English began to diverge from British English soon after the foundation of
the Colony of New South Wales in 1788. The settlement was intended mainly as a
penal colony. The British convicts sent to Australia were mostly people from large
English cities, such as Cockneys from London. In addition to these many of the
original immigrants were free settlers, military personnel and administrators and their
families. In 1827, Peter Cunningham, in his book Two Years in New South Wales,
reported that native-born white Australians spoke with a distinctive accent and
vocabulary, albeit with a strong Cockney influence. (The transportation of convicts to
Australian colonies continued until 1868, but immigration of free settlers from Britain
continued unabated.) A much larger wave of immigration, as a result of the first
Australian gold rushes, in the 1850s, also had a significant influence on Australian
English, including large numbers of people who spoke English as a second language.
The "Americanization" of Australian English — signified by the borrowing of words,
spellings, terms, and usages from North American English — began during the gold
rushes, and was accelerated by a massive influx of United States military personnel
during World War II. The large-scale importation of television programs and other
mass media content from the US, from the 1950s onwards, including more recently
US computer software, especially Microsoft's spellchecker, has also had a significant
effect. As a result Australians use many British and American words interchangeably,
such as pants/trousers or lift/elevator, while shunning other words such as "wildfire"
as too American when a more Australian term "bushfire" is preferred.
Due to their shared history and geographical proximity, Australian English is most
similar to New Zealand English. However, the difference between the two spoken
versions is obvious to people from either country, if not to a casual observer from a
third country. The vocabulary used also exhibits some striking differences.
So let’s come to the sound system of Australian
Sound system of language
English in Australia at the sound system level implemented in the form of nationally
colored, adopted and established in speech of various types of pronunciation. Until
recently, it was believed that there are two main (polarized) types of pronunciation,
called Educated Australian or Cultivated Australian (English) and Broad Australian
(English), that is, literary or "cultural" pronunciation and colloquial pronunciation.
For the first time this classification suggested by A. Mitchell in his monograph “The
Pronunciation of English in Australia” published in 1946 year. Since then, the main
provisions of the monograph have become traditional and not contested in Australian
studies, but itself the monograph took a place in the recommendatory list of the main
works on English phonetics among many linguists.
During the first part of the 20th century, many Australians where ashamed and
criticized the way Australians themselves used their own language. To begin with,
some Australians did not want to believe and admit that there was such a thing as
Australian English. As one correspondent from the ABC Weekly claimed in 1942,
“The attempt to create a distinct Australian accent is mischievous. For I make bold to
say at present one does not exist”.
If it was the case that some Australians believed in a possible development of
characteristic features, it was commonly criticized and considered mispronunciation
and laziness as stated by W.J. Cleary in the Sun in 1941. He claimed that “an
objectionable feature is the throatiness and distortion of the vowels, due to a tendency
to speak with the lips and teeth closed, which is generally called ‘lip-laziness’.
It is not until the second part of the 20th century that Australians accepted their own
culture and language as distinct from other English speaking countries, and
comprehended they should not feel ashamed of it, but rather be proud.
Remarkable studies have been carried out until the present day and it has been agreed
among the different scholars that a regional Australian variety is in fact present and it
differs mostly in vowel quality. Nevertheless, there has been no agreement on the
exact quality of the vowels, nor has an Australian Standard been established to
phonetically describe and transcribe these phonemes.
Mitchell and Delbridge (Mitchell & Delbridge, 1965) – henceforth MD –, in their
comparison between Australian and RP vowels, state that the Australian vowels [ɪ],
[ɛ], [æ], [ɜ], [ə], are noticeably closer than English speech. In addition to being closer,
the Australian [ɪ] is more forward than the English vowel.
Mitchell and Delbridge provide a quite exhaustive description of the differences in
place of articulation and distance between the RP and AusE vowels. What they argued
was that even though these vowels are represented by the same phonemic symbol,
they are placed in slightly different spots inside the Cardinal Vowel System.
Table 1 will illustrate the differences:

Even though some of these vowels are classified as front vowels, for instance, in both
varieties, it does not mean that they have the same exact place of articulation.
The most extensive and exhaustive research on Australian English pronunciation has
been conducted by Felicity Cox. She has published a book and numerous articles on
the subject. Cox argues that the Harrington, Cox and Evans (HCE) revised system
represents the vowels of AusE more accurately than the system introduced by
Mitchell in 1946. She goes on suggesting that sharing a phonemic system with other
English varieties is less important than providing an accurate phonetic transcription.
The fronting and raising of [ɪ, e], relative to RP, can be observed in the figures as well
as the virtually overlapping values of /ɐ/ in ‘but’ and /ɐː/ in ‘Bart’.
In order to summarize the diverse proposals and opinions in vowel representation, a
comparison between the systems proposed by the different authors is provided in
Table:

There are a number of points where all these authors agree. They all confirm an
‘Australian avoidance of unstressed [ɪ] in favour of word-internal [ə] and word-final
/iː/’ .
Another common agreement is the existence of regional variation within Australia in
pronouncing /aː/ (as in ‘palm’) or /æ/ (as in ‘Pam’) in certain words such as “dance”.
Intonation and Stress
Intonation:
Patterns of rising and falling in Australian English
Australian English, like New Zealand English, Belfast English or Glaswegian
English is considered by many to be a 'rising variety'. In other words, non-
questioning syntactic declarative utterances sometimes terminate with high rising
intonation. In recent years the term 'uptalk' has been used to refer to this type of
intonational feature.
Within the group of rising varieties, the actual phonetic realization of statement
rises varies somewhat. The final rise may begin very late in the nuclear accented
syllable, or its onset may be realized relatively early in the nuclear accented word
depending on the phonetic and phonological structure of the latter.
To date, we have focused our interest on the range of tunes that might be
indicative of uptalk in Australian English. These can include simple high rises,
expanded range fall-rises or rise-fall-rises, and compound or split fall-rises.
Rising (and non-falling) tunes are associated with more 'open' meanings,
signaling 'discourse incompleteness', whereas falling tunes have a more 'closed'
meaning, signaling discourse completion or finality.
It is quite apparent from earlier studies of intonation in Australian English that
a variety of tunes (rising and falling) occur in spoken discourse.
Australian English intonation is also characterized by less sharp increases and
falls of tone within the utterance. So, the tone of the British version seems to be more
lively and emotional, comparing with the smoother and monotonic Australian even in
the statements of the same type. In addition to the differences in pronunciation of
sounds Australians prone to reductions and omissions of sounds.
There are differences of intonation in certain types of questions in some
traditional formulas, but these phenomena began studied seriously. Researchers see
the result of the influence of Australian English intonation in standard phrases like
“Good–bye now. Is that so?” and similar phrases intonational contour of which
coincides with Australian English.
There are differences in the placement of accents in the sentence, too.
Australians avoid large number of unstressed syllables between two percussive
sounds. The secondary stress appears or unstressed word in RP (Received
Pronunciation) becomes stressed in the GAus (Great Australian). As a result, the
number of stressed syllables in the sentence in GAus is typically greater than in RP.
Typically, American English puts the stress on the final syllable, whereas
British and Australian English makes an initial syllable stressed.
British & American
Australian

Adult /’æd. ʌlt/ /ə’dʌlt/

Ballet /’bæl. eɪ / / bæl ‘eɪ/

Brochure /’brəʊ. ʃər/ /broʊ ‘ʃʊr/

Cafe /’kæf. eɪ/ /kæf ‘eɪ /

Cliche /’kli: . ʃeɪ / /kli: ‘ʃeɪ /

Detail /’di: teɪl / /dɪ ‘ teɪl /

Garage /’gær . ɑ:ʒ / /gə ‘rɑ:ʒ

Vaccine /’væk si:n / /væk ‘si:n /

Salon /’sæl. ɒn / /sə’lɒn /

Conclusion:
And as a general conclusion we would like to introduce Common and Distinctive
Features in British English and Australian English.
It is known worldwide that Australian and British are English dialects that are very
similar. Here's what Americans say about the similarities between these two dialects:
«There is a struggle to tell the difference between Australian English and British
English. They speak in a similar tone, use similar slang and generally speak in a
similar way. Some regional dialects of Australian sound like regional dialects of
British English. Also, when you hear an Australian newsreader, "Standard Australian"
sounds very similar to British RP».
Just like British English, the Australian English is non-rhotic language. That means
that if any word contains the letter ‘r’ in its last syllable, its sound is silent. The word
“car” would be pronounced without the final “r” sound (i.e. “ca”) and “warmer”
would be pronounced without the middle “r” sound  (i.e. wamer). (Example – “bar”
becomes “bah”) Also Australian English and British English are similar in intonation.
If you compare them with the American version, then you can see, for example, when
asking questions in American English voice goes up at the end of a yes/no question,
but with Australian and British English voice goes down.
If we take a closer look, we can notice that the Australian English accent seems a
bit different from the British. In the following lines, we’re going to show you the key
differences between Australian English and British English. 
- Australian accent is distinguished by its vowel phonology, while British or English
accent has both vowel and consonant phonology;
- British English focuses on the pronunciation of words and differentiating each
word separately, whereas Australian English is a fast-paced language, and words
are spoken quickly without word-by-word pronunciation. (We will illustrate an
example later);
- Australian English intonation is also characterized by less sharp increases and falls
of tone within the utterance. So the tone of the British version seems to be more
lively and emotional, comparing with the smoother and monotonic Australian even
in the statements of the same type;
- In British English diphthongs are extended and longer sounds, but in Australian the
first sound is longer than the second one;
- Another difference in diphthongs is that, for example, the diphthong in goat is
pronounced differently in Australian English and in RP. Australians retain the
traditional [oʊ] pronunciation, while modern RP has been subject to a change
called “goat-fronting”, so the word ‘goat’ is typically pronounced with [əʊ];
- The letter ‘t’ is usually softened in Australian English or ignored entirely. As an
example, in Australian, the word “batter” might sound more like “behdduh”;
- One of the most unique vowels of the vowels in Australian English is the letter ‘u’.
Whenever ‘u’ is preceded by a consonant, it is preceded by a ‘y’ sound, just like in
the word ‘yep.’ For example, the word “tune” is spoken like “tyune,” while the
word “tunic” is spoken like “tyunic”;
- Australians are more likely to reduced unstressed vowels to schwas than RP
speakers are (including in the name of Australia itself, which starts with [ə] in
GenAus and [ɔ] in RP).
- Australian English is also subject to the weak vowel merger, so pairs like Rosa’s
and roses are homophonous;
- The ‘e’ sound often in Australian and New Zealand accents becomes “i” (as in
“pit”). So you may get an answer of either “Yis” or “No” to a question;
- The diphthong ‘ai’ in some words, such as ‘like,’ or ‘night’ is pronounced as ‘oi’;
- Even though it is sometimes used in informal English, this feature is common in
Australian English. The ‘ing’ ending isn’t pronounced in full. In words ‘’singing,’
or ‘jumping’ it is pronounced as ‘singin’ and ‘jumpin’;
- In words that are spelled with ‘o’ in Australian English it is pronounced as ‘ew.’
The best examples are ‘pool,’ ‘cool,’ or ‘school.’ Australians used to pronounce
them as ‘pewl,’ ‘cewl’ and ‘skewl’;
- Australians elongate their vowels;
- Words ending with "ay" sound are pronounced "ie." Often «today» sounds like «to-
die»;
All peculiar features of Australian English are most consistently manifested in the
form of colloquial pronunciation, combined with numerous cuts. For example,
suppose dialogue.
 Australian British
— Knife a samich? — Can I have a sandwich?
— I’ll gechawun inn a sec. — I’ll get you one in a sec.
— Emma chisit? — How much is it?
— Attlebee aitninee — That’ll be eight ninety.

In addition to the differences in pronunciation of sounds Australians prone to

reductions and omissions of sounds. Sometimes it can lead to mistakes in
understanding the meaning of the statements. Differences in pronunciation can be
illustrated by the following examples:
Australian British
"egg nishner" "air conditioner"
"G'dye, myte" "Good day, mate"
"Wyne chevva cold share." "Why don't you have a cold shower."

As we can see now Aussies speak a unique dialect with plenty of distinctive

features. With diverse influences including Irish and various Aboriginal languages,
it's hard to see how it could be otherwise.