THE “AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGE”

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26212, 8 September 1950, Page 6

THE “AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGE”

Drift From Standard English

COMMENT BY PROFESSOR ARNOLD WALL

Australian speech, in the opinion of Processor Arnold Wall. will continue to diverge xroin Svaadara x«n & usa speech and may even become an Australian “language,” in the same way that present-day American speech is coming to be called the "American language.” Professor Wall, a former Professor of English at Canterbury University College, returned to Christchurch this wee* from a two-month visit to his married daughters in Sydney and Melbourne. While in Australia he made several records on words of doubtful pronunciation for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The average Australian’s speech, said Professor Wall, showed no trace of the influence of radio announcers’ voices, which were very good. “The Australians’ attitude is the same as the New Zealanders’, only more so: ‘why should we be dictated to by the Oxford Dictionary?’ ” he continued. “Apparently such popular characters as ■ ‘Dad and Dave’ and ‘Bluey and Curley’ have more effect on the speech of the people than the announcers.”

Professor Wall said he thought New Zealanders would never diverge from standard English as much as Australians. because the New Zealander was more conservative. Australians had a more national outlook, which in the matter of speech extended to censure of anything resembling an English accent. This attitude was specially typical of the children. There were certain checks on this tendency of language to diverge from the mother tongue, continued Professor Wall. The correct speech of radio announcers and the standard English of the better class of periodical and newspaper were the main checks, but it appeared that neither of these was strong enough to hold back the inevitable changes. , Professor Wall's recordings were made for broadcasting in a series called “Is it Good English?” He said that while in Melbourne he had heard one of his recordings made a year earlier, and had been told that thev had been rebroadcast quite often.