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Cate was born and raised in Melbourne. Then again, I don't see much difference in how she speaks as compared to Hugh Jackman who would be considered as having a general accent. Cultivated Australian English is closer to how Malcolm Fraser or Alexander Downer sounds. They could easily be mistaken as being from Britain, even by an Australian. I guess the US equivalent would be mid-Atlantic, eg Kelsey Grammar.
Funny, to my ears Downer's accent sounds closer to Hugh Jackman than Cate Blanchett's!
And Bronwyn is born and raised in Sydney. Educated at the University of Sydney. She probably went to a private school in Sydney.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mornnb
Cultivated Australian sounds more like British, but is still quite distinctly Australian. I think it's quite an attractive accent and it's a shame private schools no longer teach it.
Well, both of those examples are Sydneysiders! Cate Blanchette lives in Hunters Hill, and Bronwyn Bishop is MP for Mackellar, which is the electorate for the northern beaches, Palm Beach etc.
Actually that's true, that's the technical definition of a 'Cultivated accent.' Margaret's is just a posher version of a General Australian accent.
In that case few people speak that way anymore. Alexander Downer is sometimes cited as an example, but it's still Australian. Former PM Malcolm Fraser has features of the cultivated accent, as did Bob Menzies, a country boy.
I can't think of any prominent Australian political, business-person, celebrity with that accent. Cate's accent seems more a result of her spending a lot of time in the UK rather than being cultivated.
Speaking of politicians, does anyone think Julia Gillard's accent is slightly affected/almost exaggerated? The way she emphasizes OZstralia just sounds peculiar. Born in Wales, her family immigrated here when she was 6, so I'm guessing she had the Welsh accent as a child. In my experience, anyone who comes to Australia after age 6 or 7 seems to retain slight traces of their native accent, even if it is lost in childhood. I actually had a different accent when I was 6, but by age 9 all traces of it were gone. I can vouch for this by listening to old home videos. I came to Australia when I was a year old, though, so I think my old accent was already being eroded away. My sister, 5 years younger than me and born in Australia, never had the accents of our parents (Malaysian/Singaporean, even though we always spoke English). In fact her accent sounds pretty broad haha.
ah yes, the questioning intonation thing? my Mum noticed I'd picked that up when I got back! i'm afraid I don't really like Julia Gillard's accent - I remember she was talking just before the Perth telethon and she said "there's some people I'd like you to meet!" but my friend and I couldn't help dissolving into fits of giggles as it sounded like she said some people I'd like you to mate! *giggles* Oh dear, I hope I'll be forgiven for saying that about the Australian PM?
our PM doesn't have any particularly noticeable accent.
Yes, I think it'd be great if Julia Gillard dropped some wenglish into her speeches! that'd be very amusing. Well, I have a friend who moved to Perth from the wirral area of UK - and he's in his forties and doesn't have any trace of the wirral accent at all.
I think everyone is different when it comes to accents. Some pick it up easily, others not or never. The Aussie accent can come across as a poor facsimile of Cockney when some people try to emulate it. You can easily tell when outside of Oz, and they've hired someone to do an Aussie accent on a commercial - it sounds totally off.
My husband, a Canadian, has never been able to mimic the Australian accent, despite living there 12 years. My Canadian-born son speaks with a blended accent, like me - confusing people as to where he's from. My daughter is like my husband, sounds totally Canadian after living in Oz for 12 years. My kids moved to Oz young (10 & 12). Me, I'm like a sponge. If I hang around Scots or American Southerners for more than a few minutes, I start sounding like them!
As far as Julia, her accent is bizarre. I've known people from Adelaide who've said her accent is phony, that she puts it on to try to connect with awwdinerry Awwwstraylians.
Sydneysiders tend to have a stronger accent than Melburnians (maybe listen to how Kerry Packer used to speak). The cultivated Sydney accent tends to almost sound slightly rural, whereas the Melburnian is more like what Mornb posted.
Although I have not spent much time in Melbourne, having listened to many TV shows emanating out of Melbourne, I would say the accent is much broader than Sydney's.
Of course, I am not including bogan shows like Kath and Kim, or the uncultured accent of the Minogue sisters.
As far as Julia, her accent is bizarre. I've known people from Adelaide who've said her accent is phony, that she puts it on to try to connect with awwdinerry Awwwstraylians.
I can't believe anyone would try to sound like her on purpose!
It's probably a mix of welsh and Australian, that's she's picked up due to how her parents talk.
I can't believe anyone would try to sound like her on purpose!
It's probably a mix of welsh and Australian, that's she's picked up due to how her parents talk.
I can imitate a British accent to some extent. I find it very hard to imitate the Australian and Irish accents.
When I moved from LA to Atlanta, I never picked up the Southern accent. Maybe I spoke with a more relaxed tone. Still, people would ask "you're from 'the North'." I'd say "No, I'm from the West, we didn't fight you in the Civil War."
That said, I think that, after a certain age, you don't pick up the accent of another country. Look at all the immigrants who came over here (the US) in their 30s. People can still peg what country they came from in a heartbeat.
Listen to Margaret Pomeranz, co-host of 'At the Movies' for an example of a cultivated Sydney accent. It's still Australian, but quite posh. Sydney can definitely as cultivated as Melbourne, although these days the difference isn't so great. Even in the 70s you had elocution at private schools, and very rich people often sounded British. Now they at least sound Australian, thank God.
Still, the accents of some young people are a bit of a worry. Some are barely recogniseable as dinky-di Aussie. This is especially prevalent in parts of Sydney and Melbourne.
Accents in young people have changed in the past 30years, depending on where they live and go to school, Northern and Western suburbs of Melbourne the young have been influenced by ethnic migrants. American TV programmes and movies.
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