The ‘Australian interview tune’ in Australian English interviews: Some HRT myths debunked?

Christoph Haase

doi:10.5817/DI2011-2-5

The ‘Australian interview tune’ in Australian English interviews: Some HRT myths debunked?

Vol.4,No.2(2011)

Christoph Haase

https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2011-2-5

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Abstract

The question of the omnipresence of the HRT in Australian English (AusE) is investigated upon a sample of a mixed AusE-AmE (American English) radio interview. The investigation focuses on the distribution of HRT events in the interview by Australian speakers interspersed with the AmE speech of the interviewee. It tries to answer the question whether a non-HRT speaker triggers a reduction of HRT events on the side of the interviewer. The ﬁ ndings will be interpreted for a new positioning of the HRT as a socio-cultural phenomenon (and thus object of inquiry for sociolinguistics) and/or as an affective cognitive phenomenon (and thus object of inquiry for psycholinguistics).

Keywords:
intonation; high rising tone; HRT events; discourse quotatives; Australian English; conversation; sociolinguistics; psycholinguistics

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