Australia Two - Text
Female, born in Brisbane, Queensland. In this wonderful interview, she discusses the dialects of Australia, and changes they have adopted over the course of thirty years. Interviewed by Kate Foy, and edited by Shawn M. Muller on 10/10/99.
TRANSCRIPTION
I was born in Brisbane, in Queensland. Queensland’s the northeast state of Australia—it’s the pointy bit at the top—and Brisbane, the capital, where I was born, is in the southeast corner. Far north Queenslanders have quite a different dialect from those of us who live in the south of the state. I guess most of the dialects of Australia are reasonably homogenous because we were settled a lot later than some of the other countries in the New World who use English. But certainly there are regional variations, yep.
I was, I was the Aussie in the middle of, ah, the east end of London, which was quite intriguing for…for both sides I think. By the time I’d finished my training, um, I was asked could I do (in a dialect class)…would I do an Australian dialect. And I, I tried to do it and, and my classmates said, “No, no that’s not what you sounded like when you first came here. You, you’ve changed.” And, of course, one had.
Certainly the, the standard American…Australian’s are very different from it. Although, we’re constantly, um, aware of American dialects through the media, of course. But, I found it a lot easier, um, going into stores, for example, to moderate my pronunciation of a word. I mean, the classic, ah, “a tomato sandwich”… “a tomato sandwich”, um people understood.
I guess what I’m speaking is what would be called “educated Australian”, but then I am a trained actor as well so you’re probably hearing an actor’s voice, um, here. But, um, I, I would say yes probably, um, educated Australian, as it’s called. Um, middleclass so, um, you get pronunciations like, um, “library”, um, “secretary”. Um, when I was growing up it was “library”, “secretary”. Ah, and I suppose, ah, what you might say standard British pronunciation, rather than, now U.S. And I know some of my young students are, are quite, um, surprised when I tell them that only 20, 30 years ago the standard pronunciation was “library”.
Well I went to a private school but I was educated by, um, nuns and a lot of them were Irish. I don’t think that influenced me a great deal, except it opened up the world of dialects to me, you know. I was hearing my teacher everyday speaking quite differently and, and I suppose that tuned my ears up.
Transcribed by Mitchell Kelly, January 15, 2008