The political correctness debate is one which has been surfacing over the past few years, particularly with certain political figuring bringing this debate to the public platform. Let’s firstly define politically correct language. Political correctness is the avoidance of expressions which may offend, exclude or marginalize certain groups or individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

Politically correct (PC) language is a framework used to promote and maintain social harmony. However, PC language can also be viewed to be a hindrance to expression and freedom of speech. The take an individual has on this debate is dependent on the connotations they associate with the phrase “political correctness”. Do they consider political correctness to be a social stabilizer or do they see it as language policing?

On one hand, the use of political correctness helps to confront prejudice in society and reinforce the idea of egalitarianism. This is achieved by slowly weakening the links between certain titles and the social groups they are associated with. This includes terms such as ‘black’, ‘wogs’, ‘curries’, ‘retarded’, ‘spastic’. Using PC terms such as ‘African-American’, ‘from Greek ethnicity’, ‘South-East Asian’ and ‘person with a disability’ are more respectful ways in which to address individuals without using titles which associate them with certain stereotypes or prejudiced thoughts. In particular, using ‘person with a disability’ rather than ‘disabled person’ is a way in which to dilute the link between the individual and the “disability” and to reiterate that the disability is only a single element of many which make up the individual.

While these are the currently accepted, politically correct terms, their appropriateness is likely to change with time. Originally, it was socially acceptable to use terms like ‘retard’, ‘chairman’, ‘policeman’ ‘black’, ‘man up’, ‘mother tongue’. However, with time, values change and society progresses and what is at one point considered socially acceptable becomes politically incorrect as further neutral terms are normalized. Thus, replacements such as, ‘differently abled’, ‘chairperson’, ‘police officer’, ‘African American’ and ‘native language’ are formed. As society continues to progress, these phrases will be outdated and replaced by new, more socially acceptable terms. This consistent cycle is spinning at a more rapid rate with globalization. With globalization, ideologies and values can be shared on wide platforms instantaneously. Through the sharing of ideas, new ideas and perceptions are molded and with this, the language we use to express ourselves also changes and develops.

This rapid evolution in “socially acceptable” language angers the public. Certain PC subtleties are seen by many as unnecessary. The trend towards political correctness is seen to inhibit freedom of expression, restricting individuals from speaking their mind in fear of causing offence. When there is public backlash over the lack of political correctness in a given situation, many individuals find this reaction to be highly excessive and a sign of over-sensitivity of the millennial generation. In an interview with ABC News, former solider stated that, ‘we just seem to bend over backwards for anyone that’s different. It is making Australia a lot softer, it’s making us a big more of a pushover country’.

This frustration of many is further exasperated by the rapid evolvement of normalized accepted terms in society. 

When language used in the public domain borders on politically incorrect, there is a public uproar, in particular, by the younger generation. Donald Trump is a prime example of this and as put by The Atlantic, “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Simply put, the language choices of Donald Trump are strikingly bold; they incite fear and frustration amongst the public, deepening social prejudice through the reinforcement of stereotypes.

However, Trump’s language echoes the frustration of Americans. It is void of obfuscating, complex politically correct language, giving the indication that Trump speaks his mind, hence garnering public support and above all trust. Building trust for a politician is next to impossible, however, when Trump speaks his mind, without fear of causing office to minority groups, he is indeed able to build trust, as he speaks aloud what many think but fear to vocalize.

While this may sound bizarre given the strong global hatred towards Donald Trump, the matter of the fact is that Donald Trump won a majority vote. With a strong following of supporters despite his many controversies, it is important to recognize the power of Trump’s linguistic choices.

We all remember the famous, ‘build a wall’ statement, which became a defining factor of Trump’s presidential campaign. While a highly politically incorrect agenda, which marginalized Mexican people, many people supported Trump’s endeavors. In particular, Americans who were frustrated with their employment conditions are given an excuse to place blame onto a certain group of people. Trump, an influential figures’ use of politically incorrect language to target Mexican’s effectively gave the freedom to others to speak what they had previously restricted themselves from vocalizing for fear of being politically incorrect.

Aside from freedom of speech, the second major issue associated with political correctness is obfuscation. This form of political correctness is institutionalized and because of this here is a genuine danger that the immense emphasis on being politically correct means that often, vital information can be omitted from news scenarios because it targets or potentially targets a certain individual or minority group. As a result, information presented can be bias and incomplete. The 2013 Rotherham child sex abuse scandal in the United Kingdom is a strong example of this. An estimated 1400 children were violated sexually. However, in the media, it was intentionally omitted that the majority of perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage. Similarly, in fear of provoking racial attacks against migrants during refugee resettlement, the German media made an effort to hide that the multiple sexual assaults during the 2016 New Year celebrations were conducted by men of North African or Middle Eastern ethnicity. The omission of such details does avoid marginalizing ethnic groups, but at the cost of significant and rightful information for the public. This tradeoff is one which is still being explored in society as the wave of political correctness is still quite new.

This debate is one which is still raw in society; it is yet to progress and as the world develops, the role PC language plays in our society will become clearer. Will PC language become more prevalent as society focuses more on social inclusion? Or, will the movement towards PC language be restricted due to the black-lash it faces for the shortcomings of this framework of communication?

Examples of Political Correctness:

2017 Australia Day Lamb Ad by Meat and Livestock Co: This company releases an Australia Day lamb ad every year which aims to show a progressive and egalitarian Australian society, celebrating the idea of a politically correct society.

Facebook video by The Line promoting gender equality and challenging the expectations of men and women:

Understanding the Syntax Subsystem for English Language

One of the most common areas of difficulty and confusion in English Language is the syntax subsystem, so you are not alone if you find this difficult. You will already have an intuitive understanding of how syntax in English works (you speak the language after all), but being able to effectively analyse and parse sentences and utterances can be tricky. It is important that you understand what the following word classes (aka parts of speech) are, and what their role is in a sentence, you may need to revise them from Unit 1/2.

• Noun
• Verb
• Adjective
• Adverb
• Pronoun
• Preposition
• Conjunction
• Determiner
• Interjection

There are innumerable online and physical resources, such as Sara Thorne’s fantastic Mastering Advanced English Language, which you can look at to revise these word classes. These are the fundamental building blocks that we have at our disposal when building up a sentence and are vital for understanding syntax. Syntax is how we arrange these building blocks into phrases, which we combine to form clauses, which in turn create sentences.

What Is a Phrase?

Phrases are words or groups of words that function together in a clause. Often we class phrases in terms of what role they are playing: we might have a noun phrase, a verb phrase, or an adverbial phrase, for example. Look at the example below to get a feel for what is meant by a phrase.

Authorised Officers are here to help keep your public transport running smoothly and make sure everyone is paying their way.

The main phrases are:

• 'Authorised Officers', 'your public transport', 'everyone', 'their way' (noun phrases)
• 'are', 'to help keep…running', 'make sure', 'is paying' (verb phrases)
• 'here’, 'smoothly' (adverbial phrases)
• ’and’ (coordination conjunction)

What Is a Clause?

Clauses can be entire sentences or be one of several parts of a sentence. At a minimum, standard clauses must contain a subject and a verb, but usually have other components too. To help us understand what makes up a clause, it is important to re-familiarise yourself with the five clause elements:

• Subject
• Verb
• Object
• Complement
• Adverbial

Clauses must contain a verb, or else we class them as fragments. The following is a clause:

They watched the sunset together.

But this is a fragment:

What a sunset!

Note that the clause above contains a subject (They), verb (watched), object (the sunset) and adverbial (together), whereas it is not entirely clear how to classify the elements of the fragment, because there is no verb telling us how the words relate to each other.

There are two types of clauses we need to be concerned about: independent (main) clauses and dependent (subordinate) clauses. An independent clause can stand by itself as a simple sentence, whereas a dependent clause sits inside another clause and usually adds extra or supporting information.

Sentence Structures

Now for one of the key skills that is assessed in short answer questions and analytical commentaries: understanding how we combine clauses to create different structures.

Simple Sentences & Utterances

The first sentence structure is the simple sentence, which contains only one clause. Often these are seen as “short” sentences, but this is not always the case. For instance below is an example of a simple sentence:

All the school children, their families and their teachers were at the carnival for a day of fun and competition.

Compound Sentences & Utterances

Compound sentences consist of at least two independent clauses (ones that have a subject, a verb and form a complete idea on their own), joined by a comma, semicolon or a coordinating conjunction. Take for example the following compound sentence comprised of three clauses:

She swam and she surfed, but her thoughts inevitably returned to the dangers of the sea.

Complex Sentences & Utterances

Complex sentences, on the other hand, contain one independent or “main” clause, as well as one or several subordinate clauses. To identify a subordinate clause, you need to think about whether the clause you have identified stands as a complete thought, or whether it relies on the rest of the sentence to make sense. An example is included below, where only the main clause is bolded.

Now, if you turn to your right, you’ll see the gallery, which was constructed in 1968.

Compound-Complex Sentences & Utterances

Compound-complex sentences, exactly as one would expect, are a combination of several independent and subordinate clauses, to form what is most often quite a long sentence. If you know how to identify compound and complex sentences, this one should not pose much difficulty. Here is an example, where only the dependent clause is bolded.

Now it wouldn’t matter how fast he ran, he would never make it there in time, nor would he have anyone to blame but himself.

Give me a ring if you’re coming, or tell Max on his way home from work.

Sentence Fragments (Minor Sentences)

It may occur to you that not every sentence or bit of language that you ever come across fits neatly into one of the above categories, especially if there is not any identifiable independent clause. These we class as sentence fragments, and they are often found in informal spontaneous discourses.

Too easy mate, good on ya, etc.

Like any skill in English Language, getting good at syntax takes practice. To build your confidence, try parsing any of the texts you come across in school, or even texts you see in a magazine or newspaper. Check with a teacher, friend or tutor to see if you got it right, and where you might still need a little bit of work. And, come back to this blog post anytime you need a refresher!

Be sure to read our Ultimate Guide to English Language for an overview of the study design, what’s involved in the exam, how to study for the subject and more!

For an overview of English Language, the study design, what’s involved in the exam and more, take a look at our Ultimate Guide to English Language.

There are several strategies you can use to your advantage to extend yourself in VCE English Language. 

Make Finding Examples a Habit

One simple way to expose yourself to more examples is to follow news pages on social media so that you can see regular updates about current affairs. Have a read through of point 7: Year 12 Essay Topic Categories in our Ultimate Guide to English Language so that you can understand what types of examples you should be keeping an eye out for. 

Right from the start of the school year, make sure you set up a system to keep track of your examples. You could do this by setting up a document with headings (such as ‘free speech’, ‘egalitarianism’, ‘political correctness’, ‘double-speak’, ‘ethnolects’ and ‘Australian identity’) and adding examples to this document throughout the year as you find them. For more information about the potential headings you could use, have a look at the dot points in the VCE English Language Study Design from page 17 onwards. 

I’d also highly recommend checking out Building Essay Evidence Banks for English Language as it teaches you a great table method for storing and analysing your examples. 

The advantage of creating an example/evidence bank of some sort is that if you start looking for examples right at the start of the year, you’ll have more time to analyse and memorise them. Additionally, you’ll also be able to use them far earlier in your essays, which means that the quotes and examples you select will become much easier to remember for the final exam.

Have a Basic Understanding of Australian History, Politics and Social Issues

Having a basic understanding of Australian history, politics and social issues is highly beneficial for enhancing your analytical skills for English Language. This is essential in developing strong contentions for your essays. Some key issues that would be worth having some background information on include the following:

Australia’s colonial history and treatment of Indigenous communities, racism, and the language surrounding these matters.

 Look into the following: 

• How does language reflect or perpetuate prejudice? 
• How does hate speech affect social harmony? 
• How can language be used to establish in-group solidarity?

Sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia.

• How can bias and prejudice be conveyed through language? 
• What are some examples of implicit and explicit bias? 
• What role does political correctness play in this context? 
• Does political correctness create benefits or does it restrict societies? 

Environmental issues, and the way this intersects with politics. 

• How can euphemisms, doublespeak, and bureaucratic language be used to obfuscate or mitigate blame? 

Immigration and refugee policy related discourse. 

• What are the origins of pejoratives such as ‘boat people’ and ‘queue jumper’ that are frequently used against refugees? 
• How does this influence the values or beliefs of a society? 

Business and economic issues, labour exploitation 

• How can bureaucratic language and jargon be used to mislead and manipulate?

Political affairs (historical and recent)

• How can formal language be used to mitigate blame and responsibility, negotiate social taboos, or establish national identity? 

Having an awareness of key events and social issues in Australia, an understanding of the groups that make up Australia, and exposing yourself to a diverse set of media is really important in developing your essay writing skills. It does take time, but what will ultimately happen is that your discussions in your essays will be much more insightful and demonstrate a well thought out argument.

Apply Your Critical Thinking Skills

When writing essays, try your best to apply your critical thinking skills. Identify the assumptions you’re making when you present a certain point, and try to develop arguments against your position so that you can better understand why you have chosen your side. Developing a holistic and detailed contention is far better than just picking one side out of simplicity, as it allows you to demonstrate consideration and analysis of a range of factors that affect a certain issue. Use your evidence (contemporary examples, linguist quotes and stimulus material) to develop your points, and position yourself to be mindful of any biases you may have by continuously asking yourself what has influenced your way of thinking. Above all, try to discuss your essay prompts with your peers, as this will provide you with different perspectives and help you strengthen your own point. 

Consistently Revising Metalanguage

Consistently revising metalanguage is crucial for doing well in English Language. Throughout Year 12, consistently revising metalanguage will be your responsibility. It is likely that you’ll be spending a greater proportion of class time in learning content, and writing practice pieces. Therefore, it’s really important to figure out a way that works best for you in being able to frequently revise metalanguage. Flashcards are useful for revision on the go, as well as making mind maps so that you’re able to visualise how everything is set out in the study design. 

One issue students run into when it comes to learning metalanguage is that they’re able to define and give examples for metalanguage terms, however, they are unable to understand how those terms fit into the categories under each subsystem. For example, a student is able to remember what a metaphor is, but unable to recall that it fits under semantic patterning. Similarly, a student may know what a pause is, but not know if it’s part of prosodic features or discourse features. 

It’s important to know what all the categories are because the short answer questions usually ask you to identify features under a particular category (e.g. you’d be asked to talk about semantic patterning, not metaphor or pun). Therefore, spending time on just revising the definitions alone isn’t sufficient in learning metalanguage. You also need to be able to ensure that you can recall which category each term fits under. Refer to the study design (pages 17-18), for a list of categories you need to remember; these include: 

• Prosodic features
• Vocal effects
• Phonological patterning
• Processes in connected speech
• Word classes, word formation processes
• Sentence types
• Sentence structures
• Syntactic patterning
• Voice
• Coherence
• Cohesion
• Features of spoken discourse
• Strategies of spoken discourse
• Semantic patterning
• Sense relations/other semantics

Using Meaningful Examples in Essays

When you talk about a certain variety of English, say for example ethnolects or teen speak, rather than just providing a lexical example or translation, try to find a contemporary example of the term being used in the media, online or by a prominent individual. For example, rather than saying:

 ‘The lexeme ‘bet’ is an example of teen speak which allows young people to establish solidarity’,

you could say:

 ‘Bakery owner Morgan Hipworth, who largely has a teenage following and is a young person himself, employs teenspeak in a video recipe, where he responds to the question “Can you make a 10 layer cheese toastie?” with “Bet, let’s go.”’ 

This will provide you with a better opportunity to talk about in-groups and identity, rather than just defining and identifying an example as part of a particular variety. In doing so, you’re better able to address the roles of different linguistic examples in a contextualised and detailed manner. 

In Building Essay Evidence Banks for English Language you’ll see that a short analysis for each of your examples (the ones you are collecting throughout the year) is encouraged, but, you could take things one step further - add on an extra column and combine your analysis and example in a practice sentence. Head to the blog to learn more about building evidence banks.

For an overview of English Language, the study design, what’s involved in the exam and more, take a look at our Ultimate Guide to English Language.

What Is a Short Answer Question? 

The English Language exam is split into three sections - Short Answer Questions, Analytical Commentary and an Essay (see here for an explanation of what’s involved in the Essay component). The Short Answer Questions (SAQs) are at the very start of the exam and include 15 marks in total, usually consisting of 3-5 questions that are in response to a text. SAQs are designed to test your knowledge of metalanguage and your ability to elaborate on the situational and social context of the text in a concise manner. 

As SAQs only have 15 marks, you should aim to spend 20-25 mins on this section in the exam. Because there are only about 25 minutes available to allocate to this section, they are also a test of your ability to quickly identify key features in a text. 

The good thing about SAQs is that because there are specific mark allocations for each question, there’s a formula that you can apply to every question to help you obtain all the marks possible - and that’s what we’ll go through in this blog post, so you can ace every SAQ you come across :) 

Common Command Words and What They Mean 

The first thing you should do when approaching an SAQ is to recognise (and even better, highlight) the command words in each question in order to help you understand exactly what is required. 

Here is a list of commonly seen command words and what they entail:

Identify
‍In response to this command word, you should state the example using metalanguage and line numbers.

Describe 
If you are asked to ‘describe’, you should state the example with metalanguage and also give some details about it, such as how it links to the context of the text and/or its functions and social purposes. 

Analyse, comment on, explain, discuss 
‍Now we get to the heavier words that require a lot more elaboration and analysis. For these types of words, you should state the example with metalanguage, describe the immediate impact it creates and then link it to the broader context of the text (whether that be situational or social). So, you can think of these questions as a combination of ‘identify’ and ‘describe’ questions, with a bit of further elaboration attached to them. 

Mark Allocations

SAQs usually range from 1-6 marks each and the way you should answer the question depends on how many marks are available. 

As a general rule of thumb, do as the question says. 

For example, if we look at this question:

‘Give one function of this text. Using appropriate metalanguage, identify two different language features that support this function.’ (3 marks) 

The key phrase here that would distinguish a 2/3 from a 3/3 response is ‘that support this function’. Rather than simply stating two different language features, you should explain how they support the function of the text. It doesn’t have to be long, but at least 1 sentence of elaboration would be required to get full marks.

So, the overall mark allocation for this question is: 

1/3: Stating the function 
2/3: Identifying two language features 
3/3: Linking the language features to the function

A question with a higher mark allocation might be:

‘Using appropriate metalanguage, analyse at least three stylistic and discourse features that contribute to the cohesion of this text. Refer to line numbers in your response.’ (5 marks)

This question has 5 marks, but only one command term (analyse). As such, in response to this question you would have to elaborate on each example - in this case, stylistic and discourse features - and link to how they contribute to the cohesion of the text. 

Each example should be followed by at least 1 sentence that explains how it contributes to the text’s cohesion. You could also link the examples to their social purpose/function if this is relevant. 

As a general rule, any sort of ‘analyse’ or ‘discuss’ question can follow this template: 

1) Identify the example using appropriate metalanguage
2) Describe the immediate effect of that example (e.g. if it creates a humorous effect, if it makes the text hard to understand)
3) Provide further elaboration such as linking to social purpose/function/identity

If you think back to what we covered in the earlier section of this blog, you’ll see that this template follows the rule that higher-order command words (like ‘analyse’ and ‘discuss’) are a combination of ‘identify’ and ‘describe’ questions, with a bit of further elaboration also required.

General Tips

Finally, here are some general tips to keep in mind when answering SAQs:

• Use precise, specific metalanguage (e.g. ‘first-person subject pronoun’ instead of just ‘pronoun’)
• Always link to the broader context for questions with more than 1 mark (whether that be situational or cultural)
• Highlight keywords and/or line numbers to help you avoid silly mistakes
• Always include line numbers when quoting examples 
• If you’re unsure as to how much you are expected to write, the amount of space given to you in the answer section is usually a good indicator. 

For more about how you can boost your marks in English Language, see this blog post about how to extend your skills further.

Have a read of our Ultimate Guide to English Language if you haven't already.

[Video Transcription]

Sometimes when using language we may want to, or need to discuss a topic that is uncomfortable to deal with directly. For these cases we often employ the technique of euphemism to make the bad things sound better. As Quentin Crisp put it, "Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne".

Semantic Fields and Situational Contexts

Euphemism is found in a wide range of semantic fields and situational contexts, but a few where they appear often include:

• In the domain of politics and political correctness
• In public-facing language, such as press conferences and interviews
• In discussions around uncomfortable topics such as death, termination of employment, and sex
• In the corporate world

So this begs the question of why people sometimes choose to employ euphemism, and what social effects it has on relationships and also society as a whole?

The Purpose of Euphemism

There are two sides to the euphemism coin, which are important to keep in mind when discussing and observing the use of euphemism. On the one hand, it can allow us to talk about uncomfortable topics more easily and without losing face, but on the other it can mask the truth or even be used to actively confuse others.

Many would argue that the primary purpose of euphemism is to maintain positive face, and it can often be very effective in doing so. Let’s consider the example of an employer navigating the social taboo topic of dismissing one of their employees. No matter how they go about broaching this topic, some of the face needs of the employee will not be met. According to a variety of online human resources sites, some of the euphemisms that employers or hiring managers are encouraged to use, include:

• "Exit strategy”
• “Career change opportunity”
• “Freeing for availability to the industry”
• “Making a team move”

These terms are widely favoured over the bluntness of something like “you’re fired”. By using such euphemisms, employers seek to put the focus onto the minor upsides of being laid off, rather than directly dealing with what will often feel like a personal attack for the employee. In this way, they try to, although not necessarily effectively, meet the face needs of both their employee and themselves in navigating this socially taboo topic.

The euphemisms that we use can also reflect and reveal our shifting social mores as the euphemisms that we use change over time. For example, if we consider the words we use surrounding the semantic domain of animal slaughter, we are seeing more and more euphemisms being employed today, as the topic becomes taboo and unpalatable. Instead of “killing” animals, today people are describing animals as being “depopulated” or “harvested”. We can even see this shift in how we describe the deaths of household pets, who are “put down”, rather than “euthanised”. Such euphemisms reflect our society’s shifting values and attitudes, namely that we now value animal life far more than we have in the past. We now wish to avoid the negative connotation surrounding the traditional lexemes of this semantic field, in order to maintain social harmony and positive face.

However, euphemism is also often used to hide or conceal the truth, and can mislead both those who hear it, and even those who use it. Clear communication is sometimes sacrificed for the sake of maintaining one’s positive face. When euphemism is used to obfuscate the truth, it is often classed as “doublespeak”, a term stemming from the neologisms “doublethink” and “newspeak” in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. For example, local councils may describe a “pot-hole” as a “pavement deficiency” to save face in being unwilling or unable to repair roads. This term is deliberately ambiguous as to the nature of the specific damage, and has been chosen over the far clearer and more familiar term “pot-hole” in an effort to obscure the truth. According to linguist Kate Burridge, euphemisms such as these “tell us how it isn’t”.

Even something as commonplace as life-insurance policies are in reality euphemistic terms for something that really insures one’s death. But insurance agencies and carriers don’t want their product being associated with the social taboo of death, and instead they choose to use the more positively-connoted term “life” to create positive brand recognition. All sorts of euphemisms surround us constantly, and we are often so used to them being used, that we don’t even notice.

Linguist Stephen Pinker describes a “euphemism treadmill”, which is a good metaphor for the way that the connotations of euphemisms can often change over time, as they are used and over-used. The classic example of this process is in the terms used by Nazi officials in the late 1930s and '40s to describe the Holocaust. Initially, the term “Sonderbehandlung” or “special treatment” was used to refer to the summary execution of so-called “unfavourable people”. However, this term quickly became as negatively connoted as the term it was designed to replace among the German people, and so the phrase “die Endlösung der Judenfrage”, “the final solution to the Jewish Question” was formulated - a phrase which again became infamously associated with the atrocities of the Holocaust during the Nuremburg trials. In fact, we’ve observed the overwhelmingly negative connotation of this former euphemism recently in Australia, with Fraser Anning being met with widespread criticism after using this term in the senate. In this example, we can see how over time euphemisms can lose their ameliorating effect as they become more associated with that which they are trying to mask.

Whether you believe that euphemisms are a valuable and useful part of our language, or that they are ambiguous and misleading, their prevalence in our contemporary Australian society make them an important part of a discussion of the evolving semantics of Australian English and of language as a whole.

A focal point of the English Language Study Design, specifically Unit 4 Area of Study 1, is the construction of the Australian identity through language. In order to understand how language is used to reflect the Australian identity, it is important to first understand what values or standards of behaviour an Australian identity is comprised of.

When it comes to constructing essays, it is important to find contemporary examples from Australian media and link them to Australian cultural values. These examples must be explained using subsystems to display their linguistic relevance.

Australian cultural values are influenced by Australia’s history. Convict settlement, the influence of the British monarchy, an influx of new migrants and globalization of language have all influenced the cultural values Australian’s hold today. These events in history have enabled Australians to develop values by which they hold themselves, including egalitarianism, mateship, antiauthoritarianism and larrikinism.

The most significant value is that of egalitarianism. This is the doctrine that all people are equal and deserving of equal rights and opportunities. Class distinctions are far less significant in Australian society compared to the United Kingdom where social circles have been constructed around rigid hierarchies. In contrast, Australians of lower socio-economic standing typically do not see themselves as being less equal than privileged Australians.

This notion is reflected in the language used in Australian society. Addressing individuals as ‘mate’ and using colloquialisms such as ‘pollies’ to refer to politicians demonstrates that Australians value one another on an equal ground, irrespective of socio-economics or class.

This value extends into Australia’s sense of multiculturalism. Australia houses citizens with diverse ethnic backgrounds and prides itself on this cultural diversity. Many ethnolects have established themselves within Australian culture overtime and spread across society. These ethnolects are also finding their way onto platforms such as television to reflect present Australian society. Comedians such as Nazeem Hussain or the Channel Nine show, ‘Here come the Habibs’ use phonological, lexical, syntactical and semantic features of their respective ethnolects in a comedic manner to portray cultural diversity in a public space and celebrate the Australian value of multiculturalism.

Ethnolect speakers express their multicultural identity by molding Australian English along with their ethnic language to create their unique ethnolect. This is particularly evident with Greek and Lebanon English speakers who adopt Australian colloquialisms but retain their ethnic accent. They also often insert an interjectory such as ‘reh’ into everyday discourse as a way of promoting solidarity with others within the ethnic society.

The Australian value of anti-authoritarianism is largely reflected through the lexical choices of individuals. This value is derived from the Australian notion of egalitarianism. Australians have a far greater tendency to use expletives than those from other English speaking countries. The relaxed manner in which the Australian society perceives language use is indicative of their disregard for social hierarchies and authority figures.

The ease with which comedic remarks can be made about influential figures and politicians in the Australian media, indicates this very idea. The SBS series, The Feed recently released a facebook video “How Politicians Speak” mocking politicians by imitating political language in everyday conversations, using excessive hedging and obfuscation and a highly formal register. This Facebook video can be further explained using the subsystem of semantics. The meaning of the video is greater than the literal words being spoken by the actors. There is cultural context required to understand the humorous intent of the video. Through this cultural context, the video is able to reach out to its audience and express this anti- authoritarian way of thinking.

The tendency to ridicule politicians and authoritative figures can be explained by a phenomenon known as ‘tall-poppy syndrome’ which describes the tendency to degrade, attack or cut down individuals because they have risen in the social hierarchy. As a country which deeply values humility and embodies the ‘battler’ persona, Australians automatically become critical when those around them climb the social ladder. Snide comments and banter are tools used to remind those rising through the ranks that they are not better than anyone else. Furthermore, the tall-poppy syndrome is an explanation for why Australians consistently ridicule and mock their politicians. Comedian, Tim Minchin recently gave a speech to a graduating class at the University of Western Australia. In this speech, he used crude language and blunt remarks to give advice to the students while simultaneously deflating their sense of self with phrases such as, ‘opinions are like assholes, in that everyone has one’. Embossed within this simile is the concept of humility and egalitarianism that depict the tall-poppy syndrome.

Most examples of Australian language will ultimately tie back to these values. This includes the general Australian accent, Australian colloquialisms, phonological features of Australian English such as assimilation and the use of high rising terminal. The features of this language are linked to the values this language is used to express.

This link is particularly evident in political speeches, debates and comedic material. In relation to essay writing, there are a few steps to be conscious of when showing these links. Try to understand your examples using subsystems and which subsystems are relevant for the given example. Is the language-use significant on a phonological level, morphological level, lexical level, syntactic level or semantic level?

Throughout the year, you will be required to research and collect such contemporary examples which reflect Australian values. In your essay, you are required to demonstrate the significance of your example, use metalanguage to explain the example and then link this example to the values it reflects in Australian society and finally explain what this means for the essay prompt. Following this sequence of steps will ensure that you are able to discuss Australian Identity and Language in a holistic manner.

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Link to “How Politicians Speak” Facebook video:

Link To clippings of Nazeem Hussain’s SBS show “Legally Brown” which turns Political Incorrectness on its head:

Link to Kate Burridge interview on Studio 10 explaining the trend towards the General Australian Accent: