Australia 47

Listen to Australia 47, who is 31 years old and from Kununurra, Western Australia, Australia. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject. 

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 31

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/03/1994

PLACE OF BIRTH: Subiaco, Western Australia (but raised in Kununurra)

GENDER: non-binary

ETHNICITY: Australian/Caucasian

OCCUPATION: student/retail

EDUCATION: high school diploma and bachelor’s degree

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject was born in Subiaco, Western Australia, but immediately moved to Kununurra, where they spent all their formative years. The subject has lived in Perth since graduating high school at age 17.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject has spent most of their time since age 17 at university, surrounded by more general and cultivated accents. In this recording, the subject’s native accent is brought out significantly by the interviewer’s Mount Magnet accent. (See Australia 46).

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Rhea Dowden

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/03/2025

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

[The subject describes catching a sawfish in a crab pot off Wyndham, Western Australia.]: So, we were out on the boat. I don’t know when this was, this – I would’ve been, like, maybe, like, 12, 13, so a while ago. We’re out on the Cambridge Gulf, y’know, on the drive to Wyndham out there. So you, you know what the water’s like out there; it’s fucking opaque. It’s brown. So we put the crab pots out. You know. Milk bottle. It’s floating around. Fuck off for a bit, go do some – go catch, not catch some fish somewhere else. [Interviewer snickers.] Come back. Most of them are fine. But this one crab pot: This milk bottle’s going apeshit, like it’s just going [subject imitates bottle bobbing in water], bobbing around all over the place. So, initially, the thought is, “aw, it’s probably, like, a crocodile or something.” So dad’s got a baseball bat on the boat, right? As you do. Um, so he goes to my brother, like, “Declan, grab the baseball bat.” So Declan’s got the baseball bat. Dad’s pulling in this thing. And, you know, the water’s like, completely opaque. So it’s not until the nose starts coming out of the water that you’re like [subject groans nervously, interviewer laughs]. This is a, um, the – it was the length of the boat, I think the boat [interviewer exclaims] that dad had at the time was like a 4.9? [meters long] It was a big fish! I may be exaggerating, but it was definitely, like, a v-  – it was the size of the boat; I just don’t remember how big the boat was. And, y’know, it’s a sawfish. So like, the saw is, like, a meter long. Huge. And, ’cause, the sawfish, it’s, the, it’s – I guess it’s, like, swum past the crab pot, and it’s gotten the line wrapped around its nose, so it’s, it’s pissed off; it’s not happy, ’cause it’s got something stuck on it, it’s been yanked up to the s- like, surface. We’re not happy ’cause this thing’s, like, shitting itself [interviewer laughs] like, waving everywhere. Like, would’ve preferred it to be a crocodile, honestly, ’cause at least then you can sort of just go “doonk” [i.e., hit it on the head], and it’ll rack off, but not, not so, this fish, I think we had to, like, cut the, we just cut it [the line]. And hope – I think – hopefully it came off.

What’s another anecdote? Aw, y’know how in the NT [Northern Territory] you can buy fireworks? Um, one of my friend’s mates, his brother used to, like, go to Darwin for, like, work. And this was before – ’cause I think they’ve tightened it up a bit now, where you can only buy the fireworks around, like, Territory Day. But you used to be able to buy them, like, whenever. Um, so he would just buy fireworks and bring them back. [Interviewer snickers.] Which – and then give them to us. And this was like, when we were like, year 12, so like, y’know, f- 16, 17-year-olds. Um, miraculously, no one ever got injured with them. But I think one time we had – y’know the ones that you, like, put them on the ground and you light them and they [subject imitates firework taking off]. Uh, one of them fell over. [Interviewer exclaims.] So we were, like, out. Everyone’s sort of standing around watching these fireworks; it falls; everyone’s like, “fuck, run!” [Interviewer laughs.] Everyone, like, books it away from this firework and some – no one – somehow no one got, like, blown up, but they just do any old shit in the Northern Territory.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Rhea Dowden

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 31/03/2025

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject’s diphthongs become noticeably more general throughout the reading of Comma Gets a Cure but return to their natural broader form for the unscripted speech.

Note the subject’s monosyllabic pronunciation of “blown.”

This style of yarn-telling is characteristic of rural Western Australians.

The subject displays predominantly masculine speech patterns and intonation.

The subject twice uses the common exclamatory [ɒː], transcribed in the unscripted speech as “aw”. The sound is certainly not that of THOUGHT, but instead a rare lengthened form of the LOT vowel.

The subject’s raised and fronted NURSE vowel is characteristic of northern Western Australia.

COMMENTARY BY: Rhea Dowden

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 31/03/2025

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.

• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.