Cultivated Australian and RP Accents Tutorial

I had an inquiry from someone on my YouTube channel who was asking for a clarification about Cultivated Australian accents, and specifically this person was asking about the distinction between that and Standard British accents, what is commonly called RP or Received Pronunciation.

What Is a Cultivated Australian Accent?

This inquiry included very specific examples of individuals: Jeffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Kate Blanchette, Malcolm Frazier, when he was younger, and Cyril Richard.

I think that these folks do in general utilize that Cultivated Australian accent, some a little bit more than others.

Now any designation of an accent is always somewhat broad, so there's a generalization that's going on. There's more than three accents in Australia, but we're going to focus on three variations, three terms that are commonly used to describe the variations.

Cultivated Australian accents are generally the most posh or upper class of these accents, though it typically only includes perhaps 10% of the population.

Another smaller category is a Broad Australian accent. Decades ago, it may have included as much as 35% of the population, but today it's likely closer to 5-10% of Australians.

Most Aussies speak with something in the middle, commonly known as General Australian accents.

These same terms are oftentimes used for South African accents as well: Cultivated South African, General South African, and then Broad South African. The same is commonly true for Kiwis - New Zealand accents.

Broad, General, & Cultivated Australian Accents

With all of these accents, broader or stronger accent are usually people more of working class - in Australia, this is Broad Australian is typically more people who live in the Australian Outback.

Whereas the people who are considered more posh, who oftentimes have a lot more money, are in the land of Cultivated Australian - both literally and figuratively. You won't hear this accent in the Outback. This is typically rick people with more extensive education. You'll hear a very high percentage of these speakers in the Australian Senate, and likely a reasonably high percentage in the lower house, the Aussie House of Representatives.

In the middle, that's General Australian - most people in Australia.

It's a bit like a dimmer switch, with Cultivated at the top, General in the middle, and Broad at the working-class low end. Typically the high vs low relates to education and economics - more money & opportunities = more likely Cultivated.

London Accents

I use this same dimmer switch metaphor for greater London accents: RP, Standard British is the high end and East End Cockney accents are the low - with Contemporary London Estuary accents throughout the middle - again, that's most people in greater London.

Comparing Cultivated Aussie with RP

In the video above, I compare RP to Cultivated Australian accents because they have a lot in common!

It's almost as though the next step up in posh with the Cultivated Australian is, in fact, RP, so the accent reflects a blend of General Australian and Standard British - minimizing some of the Aussie-ness as it gets more and more posh.

In the video, I focus on both the intonation of Cultivated Australian and the diphthongs, as each of those create the biggest distinction between Cultivated Aussie, and the accents on either end that are influencing it: General Australian and Received Pronunciation. Placement certainly comes into play as well.

You can hear all of this in the video above.