Discuss some of the driving forces that lead to language change in the Australian context.
Language change is driven by social values and during the past 20 years the push for inclusive and non-discriminatory terms is having a considerable impact upon public language. In this regard, there seems to be an apparent increase in taboo language and a corresponding tolerance of the use of profanities. “Monash professor Keith Allan notes: “Taboos have changed. Racist, and sexist and ‘ist’ taboos in general have grown. Those sort of things are more unacceptable than words involving genitalia and their output”. . AS linguists point out, there is a correlation between our words and our mindset. According to the Governmental style guide, “racist language is the linguistic expression of racism”. The use of non-discriminatory language protects people’s face needs. Contrastingly, the subversion of these values often prompts social outrage.
Social attitudes are also having an impact upon the demise of Australian “strine” or colloquialisms that are discriminatory. Often language becomes obsolete because of such values. Also, terms become obsolete because they may be inaccessible to an increasingly multicultural blend of hyphenated Australians.
Contrastingly, dictionaries have a role in legitimising terms especially those that may be in and out of fashion. The recent addition of 500 Australian lexemes and idioms to the Oxford Dictionaries provides Australian English with prestige and honour with key ‘Australianisms’ such as ‘yonnie’, ‘piner’ and ‘coolamon’ also adding to the legitimacy of our cultural/ national identity. Along with the added vernacular comes an entire lexicon that exists for youth sports with examples such as ‘minkey’ (short for mini hockey) and ‘Kanga cricket’. This reveals the active outdoors nature of Australian kids whilst ‘Young Brits are indoors glued to their computer games.’
It is perhaps the most significant linguistic event in the history of Australian English. In a major collaboration with the Australian National Dictionary Centre, the largest update of uniquely Australian terms was this week added to Oxford Dictionaries. The 500 new terms added to this august record of vocabulary finally Until now, Australian English had unofficially been the poor relation. The strewths and shrimps thrown on the barbie had become so cliched that they’d distorted the Aussie lexicon into caricature. It led to a form of linguistic cultural cringe. Meanwhile, British English was applauded for being proper and American English was fawned over for its nonchalance. The 500 new terms added to this august record of vocabulary finally formalise diction Down Under as fair dinkum. Now these words are afforded the solemn respect that archiving adds to them, as one of the most faithful ways to record a society’s anxieties, humour, culture, history, sensitivities and obsessions. The spunky, anarchistic Australian vernacular has gained global gravitas. Nowhere else in the English-speaking world are MPs referred to as pollies and serious documentaries as docos. The words aren’t all new. Some won’t be immediately recognised by younger generations; both recent and past coinages are included. Personages add intriguing character to some of the archaic terms. Send her down, Hughie, or I’ll come and give you a Larry Dooley after I’ve drunk from my Lady Blamey is Australian for: Please send us some rain (Hughie is the imagined weather controller – not God) or I’ll come and give you a beating (Larry Dooley was an Australian boxer 1849 to 1917) after I’ve drunk from my improvised drinking glass (Lady Blamey reputedly taught WWII troops how to slice the top off a bottle to make a drinking glass).
One of the biggest drivers of language change is technology which is linked with globalisation and the exposure to global English, Americanisms and other sub cultures around the world/ global conversation and a global culture . (global entertainment options, youth sub cultures… In addition, many cultural, social sub-groups standards also deliberately subvert common usage as a means of establishing covert prestige. Example. Much youth jargon is transported from the USA and other countries, influenced by American culture via the online community and movies, music and television. However, young Australians use and adapt words selectively (that they hear in American movies, TV shows and music. As social commentator Mark McCrindle suggests: “They tend to pick up youth slang rather than everyday words”. Pam Peters, Associate Professor in Linguistics at Macquarie University, sums up globalization trends: “Younger respondents were always more regular users of the American options and this… the longer term effect is already evident in the considerable number of Americanisms, both popular and professional expressions which have been absorbed over the last six decades.” Much of the American slang adopted by Australian youth is changed or adapted to the Aussie context, as it seeps into the youth lexicon. AS Mark McCindle notes, much of the American slang adopted by Australian youth seeps into the youth lexicon.
The infiltration of American words from the American media and online sites raises concerns about the demise of a unique Australian identity. Due to America’s prominence in both the film industry and the internet, more Australians are exposed to this content from a younger age. The University Of Melbourne Professor Of Language John Hajek perceives this to be a threat to the Australian voice that is reflective of their history and identity. This was expressed by his assertion that Americanisms have replaced much of the “traditional Australian language, with their ‘awesome’ replacing our ‘bonzer’”. However, some consider Australia’s adoption of American language not as a loss, but as the natural evolution of the Australian identity. James Lambert, the editor of The Macquarie book of slang states that “Australians always make a choice of what part of American culture they adopt”.
Also the increasing use of technology systems and platforms is also having an influence on language use and language change in countries such as Australia. The need for speed and efficiency and brevity (Twitter, SMS) coupled with an increasing tolerance for grammatically lower standards is also having an influence on language use. Twitter’s 140 characters. SMS brevity and speed Chief literary critic for The Australian, Geordie Williamson says it is “the briefer, nimbler, more flirtatious forms” that succeed on the internet which are reshaping “the way we write and what we like to read”. For example, expectations regarding correct use of SAE are often lower on the internet (depending upon the website). Likewise, British broadcaster John Humphrys said texters were “language vandals” who are “doing to our language what Ghengis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago. They’re destroying it, pillaging our punctuation, savaging our sentences, raping our vocabulary and they must be stopped.” The absence of rigorous proof-reading services on the internet, as opposed to newspapers, means that incorrect and often idiosyncratic grammatical constructions are more acceptable. “…” and these changes are infiltrating common usage.
There are some things that resist change. Although youth are exposed to American sub cultures, this does not mean that young adults are changing to American English. David Crystal’s comment about the teachers/examiners – and the decent essay standard.
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