Aussie English

Australian English terms and explanations, accompanied by humorous cartoons.

The English language arrived in Australia with the first motley bunch of European settlers on 26 January 1788. Today there is clearly a distinctive Australian regional dialect with its own place among the global family of ‘Englishes’. How did this come about? Where did the distinctive pattern, accent, and verbal inventions that make up Aussie English come from? A lively narrative, this book tells the story of the birth, rise and triumphant progress of the colourful dingo lingo that we know today as Aussie English.

ESL Conversation Dialogues Scripts 21-30 contains dialogues featuring Australian English expressions, with a number of common expressions thrown in to challenge the student. While intermediate level and above is recommended, these dialogues can also be used to challenge beginners into improving their reading and pronunciation skills. The 10 dialogues in volume 3 feature over 200 Aussie English expressions which can give students planning to go to Australia, or those who have recently arrived, a quick crash course on common Aussie Lingo. This volume also features a bonus glossary with a brief explanation of what the Australian English words, phrases and idioms mean. Normally a glossary is not included as most native English speakers from Australia would know the meanings of the expressions used in the dialogues in the series, and would be able to explain them to students, but in an effort to help people to understand Australian English, even those native English speaking tutors and teachers who are not Australian would be able to quickly understand these dialogues and be able to teach them to others, with help from the glossary. These dialogues have been tested in private tuition lessons hundreds of times and have received great feedback from students new to Australia who are struggling to understand Australians. It is recommended that tutors add to the enjoyment of the lesson by using a strong Australian accent when reading their part of the dialogue. This series of dialogues and conversations has been released to fulfil a demand in the ESL industry for more mature style conversations for use in private tuition as well as pair or group work in the adult classroom. These have been reformatted for use on an ebook device, so users can practice reading the dialogues out loud and discuss the language used with their tutor or with each other. These eBooks contain just dialogues. It is up to the tutor to create their own lessons around these dialogues. For ESL tutors, the ideas are endless. As a tutor I've always found dialogues to be useful in vocabulary acquisition, pronunciation practice, confidence building, and more besides. Students regularly comment on how useful the dialogues are and always request more, which is why there are more sets of dialogues due out soon. I wish you all the best in teaching Australian English.

Have you ever wondered if time travel is actually possible? Or where the Australian accent came from? Or what it feels like to have dementia? If you’re an inquisitive person who likes to understand how things came to be the way they are, this collection of thought-provoking explainers from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald has got you covered. Explain That answers some of the year’s – and life’s – most baffling questions. Thoroughly researched and eloquently set out by some of Australia’s finest journalists, it provides nourishment for curious minds and fun facts to share with friends and family. What do sharks want (and why do they bite)? How do you win an Oscar? Who thought up table manners? Funny, weird and insightful topics are inventively illustrated and embellished with diagrams, pictures and factoids. If you like to learn new things, if you enjoy trivia or you want to reflect on some of the big questions, this is the book for you. Absorbing, illuminating and always engaging, Explain That is for anyone who has ever asked how and why?

Australia's English raises many questions among experts and the general public. What is it like? How has English changed by being transplanted to other parts of the world? Does the rise of AusE and other varieties endanger the role of English as a world language? Past studies have often been selective, focusing on the esoteric and non-typical, and ignoring the contact situation in which Australian English has developed. This book and its companion, Australia's Many Voices. Ethnic Englishes, Indigenous and Migrant Languages. Policy and Education, develop and apply a comprehensive and integrative approach that anchors English in the entire 'habitat' of Australia's languages that it both upset and transformed. Based on a wide range of data and on the assumption that all manifestations of Australian English must cohere as a system, this book retraces the social, psycholinguistic and linguistic history of the language. It locates the contact with indigenous and migrant languages and with American English in the appropriate sociohistorical context and shows how several layers of migration have shaped it. As it stratified, it was gradually accepted and developed into a fully-fledged national variety or epicentre of English that could be raised to the status of national language. Implications on educational policy and attempts to reach out into the Asia-Pacific region have followed logically from national status. The study is of interest for specialists of English and Australian Studies as well as a range of other disciplines. Its discursive, non-technical style and presentation makes it accessible to non-specialists with no background in linguistics.

This unique collection fills a ten-year gap in studies on the nature of Australian English, and it is the first to deal exclusively with varieties of English on the Australian continent. The book contains chapters on the phonology, morphology, syntax and the lexicon of the dialect, and chapters on variation within the dialect that include Aboriginal and ethnic varieties as well as regional and generational differences with a focus on questions of Australian identity and intercultural relations. With selected contributions by Australia's leading linguists this volume records the most recent developments in the study of English within Australia.

The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage is an up-to-date, evidence-based account of the variable points in Australian usage and style, in alphabetical format. Its description of Australian English uses a wealth of primary sources (linguistic corpora; the internet; public surveys of usage, conducted through Australian Style) as well as the latest editions of English dictionaries, style manuals and grammars. With all this input the Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage provides in-depth coverage of the currency of alternative usages in spelling, punctuation and word choice in Australia, while showing the influence of British and American English here as well. This book is designed for everyone who writes and edits documents and non-fiction texts, for print or electronic delivery. Tertiary students and staff will get plenty of help from it, as well as professional editors who work with manuscripts of many different authors and commissions from multiple publishers.