Ethnolinguistic peculiarities of Australian slang (based on Internet resources)

The article studies one of the main variants of the English language, Australian English. The main variants of English differ from each other on phonetic and lexical linguistic levels. The grammatical structure is the same in all variants, that is why the focus of the study was the lexical level of Australian English. The word-stock of Australian English includes slang as a certain layer of the vocabulary. It started to be formed under a strong influence of the first settlers from Great Britain. These settlers were mostly involved in farming which was spread in rural areas of the Australian continent. The greatest challenge was the unusual environment which caused linguistic peculiarities of Australian variant. It was also influenced by lexical peculiarities of aboriginal dialects, later these were dialects and languages of settlers from other countries which arrived there during the period of Gold rush. Local farmers tended to use some newly coined words and expressions in their everyday speech. Thus, Australian slang came in use and as the analysis demonstrates it was closely connected with London Cockney dialect, which was used by the first settlers from Great Britain. Cockney dialect is remarkable for its rhyming slang, which has been registered in the present research as an essential part of the Australian slang. In the course of analysis both common and proper nouns were singled out that served as the basis for rhyme in Australian slang. Studying the Australian slang vocabulary allowed to identify some most productive types of word formation, such as affixation and abbreviation. The research demonstrates a strong bond between extralinguistic and linguistic peculiarities of how the Australian English slang was formed.

main variants of the English language, Australian variant of English, ethnolinguisic peculiarities, slang, rhyming slang, cockney dialect