Remember the Main Ideas

Question 1

Australian English

Answer 1

• What makes this variety unique as a national variety (accent, lexicon, grammar)
• Broad/General/Cultivated accents
• Global contact and social changes and how they shape contemporary Australian English
• Attitudes towards Aus language varieties
• SAE and its prestige value
• Regional variation within Australia
• Non-standard varieties (ethnolects, Aboriginal English, creoles) operating in Australia
• Role of language in constructing national identity

Question 2

Individual and group identities

Answer 2

• Social and personal variation (age, gender, occupation, interests, education, aspirations)
• Individual identity and group membership
• Standard and non-Standard English and prestige varieties
• In-groups and exclusion
• Social attitudes to non-Standard accents and dialects

Question 3

The concept of register

Answer 3

• Relationship between speaker/writer and interlocutors/audience
• Physical setting, and situational and cultural context
• Subject matter/topic/domain/field
• Mode (spoken/written/electronic)
• Social attitudes and beliefs of participants
• Trend towards informality

Question 4

Social purpose of language

Answer 4

• Inclusion and exclusion; in-groups and out-groups; social distance and intimacy
• Prestige forms of language
• Political correctness
• Discrimination
• Euphemism and dysphemism
• Taboo and swearing
• Jargon and slang
• Manipulation of language (doublespeak, obfuscation, gobbledegook)
• Politeness strategies and social harmony
• Language in the public domain: public language
• Linguistic innovation
• How language can establish expertise
• How language represents or shapes social and cultural values, beliefs, attitudes
• How language can express and construct identity
• Other functions of language (recording, clarifying, entertaining, promoting, persuading, commemorating, celebrating, instructing, informing)

Question 5

Attitudes to varieties of English

Answer 5

• Standard and non-standard varieties
• Prestige varieties
• Value judgements (where they come from; prescriptivist/descriptivist approaches; language ‘offences’ and attitudes to language variation’)

Question 6

Modes of language: spoken

Answer 6

• Features of mode
• Functions it serves
• When it is employed
• Changes in language due to technological changes

Question 7

Mode of language: written

Answer 7

• Features of mode
• Functions it serves
• When it is employed
• Changes in language due to technological changes

Question 8

Mode of language: electronic

Answer 8

• Features of mode
• Functions it serves
• When it is employed
• Changes in language due to technological changes

Question 9

Language change

Answer 9

• Australian English and its development and evolution over time
• Taboo, swearing and dysphemism and the role of changing social values
• PC, non-discriminatory language and changing social values
• Linguistic innovation and informal language
• Technological advances and their impact on language
• Global contact and other social changes and their impact on contemporary Australian English
• Migrant ethnolects and Aboriginal Englishes