Intonation Patterns in Australian English

Abstract

An instrumental analysis was made of the intonation patterns used by a group of speakers of Australian English in producing a corpus of selected sentences. The results obtained were compared with those suggested for the same utterances in Received English. It would seem that there is a broad similarity in intonatory habits between speakers of the two varieties of English. Australian English, however, tends to avoid, in general, variation of pitch within syllables and, in particular, the high-fall accent. The evidence presented does not readily support the contention that in "Yes/No" questions Australian intonation patterns are clearly differentiated from those of Received English. Instead there is some indication that differentiation is more marked with questions containing a specific interrogative word.