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1. History and Social Context

The Commonwealth of Australia has been peopled by the indigenous Aborigines for almost 50,000 years. New Zealand, on the other hand, is a much more isolated group of islands that wasn’t inhabited until about 2000 years ago by people who came to be known as the Maori. The populations of both indigenous cultures were greatly reduced by infectious diseases, government policies and marginalization. Both nations were first discovered by Europeans in the early 17th century, though attempts at European settlement and colonization waited until late in the next century. Both came under British rule as the colony of New South Wales. Although both maintain close relationships with the UK, Australia officially severed Britain’s ruling powers in the late 20th century. NZ remains a constitutional monarchy.

Australia was first used as a penal colony from 1788 to 1848, when settlers petitioned against its continuation as such. About 90% of the population is from Europe, a significant portion of them from the British Isles, and it wasn’t until around 1860 that native born Australians finally outnumbered first-generation immigrants. Most of the convicts and free settlers were from larger cities in England, especially in and around London, so there is a heavy Cockney influence on Australian English. There is also a bit of Standard British/Received Pronunciation and Irish influence on the dialect, especially on the lilt or intonation and on some word usage, but primarily from the 1800s and before, so more recent developments in these accents haven’t made their way into the Australian accent.

Today, there are three major dialects in Australia: Broad Australian, General Australian, and Cultivated Australian, which is very close to Standard British. These materials will focus on the Broad and General variants.

Similar settlement patterns in New Zealand have resulted in a dialect that has much in common with the Australian accent. The two are presented together in this packet with the minor distinctions noted as necessary. There is a Scottish influence on the dialect in the far southern end of New Zealand, and this dialect is commonly called the “Southland Burr.” This is a rhotic dialect, whereas this packet will focus on the more familiar non-rhotic (dropping final-R sounds) dialects of Australia and New Zealand, though these materials include some recordings of native rhotic speakers.

2. Sound Placement

Where the sound “lives” in the mouth.

Australian and New Zealand dialects are often described as having a nasal quality to their sound—This is especially true of Broad Australian and New Zealand. It usually helps to focus on a “flattening” sensation in the mouth, as though you are flattening out your tongue and flattening the sound against the roof of your mouth. The mouth can be very open, overall, which is helpful for projecting for a larger space, so it may be useful to think of the mouth, especially the back, as being much more open, though a lot of vowel sounds move towards the front of the mouth. Bringing together this idea of the open throat, flatness, and placement in the roof of the mouth, it’s useful to think of the sound as being very broad in the mouth.

4. Helpful Hints

Often actors have some difficulty speaking stronger forms of this dialect clearly. It is common for people to simply become unclear, making every vowel a rather neutral “schwa” sound, (like the a in the word alone) mumbling the consonants, and allowing all of the words to run together in a jumble. You must make all of the substitutions clear, and then later you can relax it.

It is useful when working on any accent to start with the extreme stereotype of the dialect, and then to later allow it to become more natural. Paul Hogan’s Crocodile Dundee character and Steve Erwin are both examples of Broad Australian, so they’re good extreme versions to start working with. Tossing about the phrases “Crikey,” “G’day, mate!” and “Shrimp on the Barbie” may help you to become more comfortable with the sound changes, even though no one really says “Crikey.”

5. Consonants

AU

NZ

1. The /r/ is like most American dialects before a vowel, but the /r/ is dropped when following a vowel, though it may come back in to link into another vowel that follows:

red, rules, Ralph, running;

bring, approximately, trying, strong, retrieve;

around, arranged, very, snoring, stories, clearing;

near, square, start, force, north, nurse, letter;

cure, hurry, moral, merry, Mary, marry;

power of, bear on, wire it, farther along

Practice: The fire tore through our higher floors before it was stopped.

AU

NZ

2. /t/ between two vowels becomes a D-like [ɾ], as in most American accents, and when /t/ comes after /n/, it is often dropped:

butter, beautiful, what is, got a, not all, forget about it;

twenty, plenty, bounty, sentence, winter, intimate, rented

Practice: You're better off waiting twenty minutes later to go.

AU

NZ

3. /l/ becomes [ɫ], a darker, harder L-sound:

last, love, life, allow, follow, believe, still, filed, enabled

Practice: I've allowed Carol to be late eleven times this last year.

AU

NZ

4. /ŋ/ can become /n/, especially in a broader accent:

driving, having, doing, singing, being

Practice: The wind is blowing something that's hitting the roof.

Practice Sentences

AU

NZ

C1. The fire tore through our higher floors before it was stopped.

Carl forgot the forty dollar charge, so they turned the power off.

C2. You’re better off waiting twenty minutes later to go.

C3. I’ve allowed Carol to be late eleven times this last year.

C4. The wind is blowing something that’s hitting the roof.

V1. I was awfully cautious about eating the sauce.

V2. I got lost singing the wrong lyrics to the song.

V3. My barber opened a larger spa in an old farm building.

The students were amused when the fuse blew.

V4. You can’t demand they learn the dance any faster.

V5. The manager had a really bad copy of the plans.

The presents were the best I’d ever sent.

We didn’t buy the biggest fish in the market.

The leaves drifted easily in the breeze.

D1. Now I want to take a shower at our house.

D2. The day I saved on that actually paid for the delays.

D3. We towed the boat over to the cove.

D4. I had to apply for a time just like Michael did.

Practice Monologue:

C’mon, Ash, are you going to come to my birthday or not? Look, I know you don’t really care for most of my other friends, but you and me – we go way back. You can’t just pull a no show when I’ve gone and properly invited you and everything. It’s a party, mate, so just be there! Oh, and, I do want you to talk to my baby sister. Whether you like it or not, she still thinks the world of you, and you’ll crush her dreams if you don’t at least acknowledge her. Just smile and say how great it is to see her all grown up, okay? If you do that, I might just forgive you for not bringing me a gift, because, hey, I know you won’t. But it’s okay because that’ll be present enough.