Phonetic archaeology and 50 years of change to Australian English

The work reported here explores the issue of Australian English accent broadness, past and present, through a diachronic acoustic analysis of the vowel,drawing on archival data collected by Mitchell and Delbridge in the late 1950s and early 1960s and more recent data from the Australian Voices project. Data from 168 female speakers from the Mitchell and Delbridge survey and 70 female speakers from the Australian Voices project were examined. All were from Sydney's North and North West and represented the Government, Catholic and Independent school systems. A number of acoustic measurements were employed to identify variation and change associated with this vowel extracted from a single word in a sentence reading task. In particular, we were interested in the degree of onglide, a feature of that is pervasive in Australian English. We provide empirical evidence showing that the broadness continuum has contracted by demonstrating that variation in the degree of onglide for has changed in interesting ways for girls from three different school systems.26 page(s

Hiatus resolution and linking 'r' in Australian English

Hiatus occurs when the juxtaposition of syllables results in two separate vowels occurring alongside one another. Such vowel adjacency, both within words and across word boundaries, is phonologically undesirable in many languages but can be resolved using a range of strategies including consonant insertion. This paper examines linguistic and extralinguistic factors that best predict the likelihood of inserted linking 'r' across word boundaries in Australian English. Corpus data containing a set of 32 phrases produced in a sentence-reading task by 103 speakers were auditorily and acoustically analysed. Results reveal that linguistic variables of accentual context and local speaking rate take precedence over speaker-specific variables of age, gender and sociolect in the management of hiatus. We interpret this to be a reflection of the phonetic manifestation of boundary phenomena. The frequency of the phrase containing the linking 'r', the frequency of an individual's use of linking 'r', and the accentual status of the flanking vowels all affect the/ɺ/strength (determined by F3), suggesting that a hybrid approach is warranted in modelling liaison. Age effects are present for certain prosodic contexts indicating change in progress for Australian English.24 page(s

Respect, Relationships, and “Just Spending Time with Them”: Critical Elements for Engaging Aboriginal Students in Primary School Education

While disparities in educational outcomes for Aboriginal children have narrowed in early childhood education and for Year 12 completions, these positive trends are not replicated in the intervening years where attendance, reading, writing, and numeracy targets have been missed. Erratic attendance in the primary years has the greatest impact on achievement; literacy and numeracy scores decline as absences increase. Family functioning and health, caregiver expectations, past encounters with the education system and socio-economic disadvantage are all implicated in poorer rates of attendance. In response to community concerns, an Aboriginal/mainstream partnership was forged in 2011 and began work in 2016 to address patterns of attendance and achievement among Aboriginal primary students in a regional city in Western Australia. This paper describes the innovative, community-led “More Than Talk” program and presents findings from teaching and support staff interviews two years after implementation. Qualitative methods were employed to analyse the data, develop themes, and ensure rigour. Findings highlighted the cascading impact of erratic attendance and the role of strong relationships, respect, and investment of time with children as critical elements in student engagement and wellbeing. Community-led, collaborative educational programs have the potential to positively impact Aboriginal students’ engagement and contribute to culturally responsive environments. If sustained, such efforts can enable learning to flourish