I recently attended a Skype session with an administrator from a popular international site for voiceover artists and clients. The question-and-answer session was incredibly helpful and informative, and I’m very glad I went. Also glad because there was a particular instance that evening that provided me with opportunity for linguistic study from a rather interesting angle.
During the session, I was sitting next to a friend of mine who hails from Australia. She’s a clever, hilarious, genial, and all-around very cool person – as well as an immensely talented voiceover artist – and I greatly appreciate her conversation and comments. I was very thankful she was there for that session, in particular, because she asked the administrator so many good and relevant questions (and, quite honestly, helped the admin to keep the discussion always coming back to the topic at hand). One question she asked had to do with the significance of mentioning accent and dialect when setting up one’s profile on the site. He thanked her for the question and then said something along the lines of, “I can’t quite tell over this connection, but…I’m gonna guess…you’re…English? She smiled and said, very matter-of-factly, “No, Australian.” The admin promptly became a little flustered and quickly apologized, at which she chuckled, told him not to worry about it, and got right back to her question.
In thinking over the instance later, I recalled my friend having said before that she gets the, “Oh, so you’re English, then?” question quite a lot. This surprised me, as she certainly sounds distinctly Australian. It’s definitely detectable. But I, too, have mistaken certain phrases – spoken in certain Aussie dialects – for a British English dialect before. So I know the mix-up can happen. And then I remembered. This friend of mine also happened to mention in previous conversation that both of her parents had grown up in England. And that brought the whole thing full circle. Certain words she says, certain moments of inflection and accent, do have a momentary hint of English English. And that makes the mistake a fully feasible one.
Another Aussie friend of mine – a LibriVox acquaintance – has helped me loads along the way with dialect info and strategy, etc. He’s done extensive study on Australian English – its origin, form, and its various dialects. I’ve gained a great deal of understanding through his writings on the topic…and have been inspired to learn more.
My own attempts at Australian usually come out sounding much more like a rather confused New Zealand-ish accent – that dialect also being a one that I very much want to learn! – which has likely resulted significantly from a few too many viewings of those Hobbit production video diaries of Peter Jackson’s. (But really…how could I not watch them? With the astoundingly talented Richard Armitage playing Thorin Oakenshield? Please.)
Getting back to it, though, I get a real kick out of things like this. Like my Aussie friend being mistaken for English – even though she’s true-blue Australian – likely because she’s integrated phraseology or inflection, or even minor accent differences, from growing up as an Australian, but with originally English parents.
I have a feeling that this kind of thing might only be fascinating to a linguistics nerd, such as myself. But I wanted to share, nonetheless.
All of that said, and in honor of all the wonderful Aussies out there…
…Hooroo! Have a bonzer day, all!
;D
