We language educators know that words are much more than just words. Words are windows into a society’s “cultural universe”. Aussie words and idioms then provide a great entry point into Australian culture and values.
Some might fear that by teaching Aussie slang, we reinforce old fashioned, even racist or sexist, perspectives. However, celebrating Australian words doesn’t mean unquestionably accepting nationalistic narratives of Australian identity. Rather, as I show below, Australia’s words are great jumping off points for understanding how Australia is a work-in-progress.
Teaching Australia’s words invites a student-centric approach to address key aspects of the EAL (English as an Additional Language) framework (e.g. “contemporary Australian society”, “examples of Australian culture”). It also provides scope for engaging with aspects of the Australian Citizenship test (e.g. “freedom of speech”, “gender equality”).
But most of all, teaching Aussie slang and idioms is fun - so let’s start with that.
Fair dinkum fun in the classroom
Aussies and their English can confuse newcomers. What’s a “drop bear”? It’s a deadly, tree-dwelling marsupial, of course. Why do Aussies say “bloody” and “bastard” so much? Some say sweary “b-words” are important to our national ethos.
All this bloody joking and swearing can make socialising “hard yakka” (hard work). As a Japanese English learner in one study mused, “I don’t know when I’m polite in Australia, when I am not”.
Australia’s tongue-in-cheek etiquette books aren’t much help. John O’Grady, in his book “Aussie Etiket”, suggests an Aussie faced with the British greeting “How do you do?”, might be inclined to answer “How do I do what, mate?”.
As for swearing, Colin Bowles gives a nuanced if wry breakdown of “bastard” in G’day! Teach Yourself Australian in 20 Easy Lessons!, saying “every Australian is some sort of bastard”. Smart Australians are “clever bastards”; not-so-smart Australians are “dozey bastards”. If you like a person, they’re “not a bad bastard”; if you despise them, they’re a “mongrel bastard”. Bowles’s list goes on.
This sort of humour is important to Australian identity. But there are better resources for unpacking the meaning of Australian words.
Let’s start with our students!
Student-centred teaching of Australian slang
Every newcomer to Australia has their stories of the first time they encountered “arvo”, “barbie”, “brekkie” or “grouse” or that time they showed up to a function with an empty plate because they were told to “bring a plate”.
Research shows that learners have much to say about their own experiences of Australian English. Learners often take a journey from confusion to curiosity to competence. Classroom activities provide a great space to explore these experiences.
Australia’s many shortenings - four percent of Australian words by some accounts - loom large in many students’ experiences. For instance, the “barbie” is an essential summertime ritual in Australia. But at least one Indonesian newcomer, first encountering the word, wondered, “What? Barbie, like the doll?”
Student experiences can be unpacked in many ways. Students might be asked, individually or in groups, to list as many shortenings as they can in 10 minutes. This was exactly the methodology used in one Australian study of shortenings. In this study, 115 Australians together came up with more than 1500 unique shortenings! How will your students do?
Of course, it is not just shortenings that confound learners! Phrases like “bring a plate” have been misinterpreted by many newcomers, so much so that SBS made a 6-part video series inspired by it.
Students might be encouraged to keep a journal of Aussie phrases they have encountered. They can look up the meanings of these words in places like the Australian National Dictionary (or its abbreviated online resource), the Macquarie Dictionary or Green’s Dictionary of Slang.
This activity might even be made more purposeful. You could ask students to conduct a linguistic landscaping activity on Australian slang. Or, for the lower level learners, you might just get them playing some “Aussie Lingo Bingo”. See who can find the most words between classes!
You might also ask them to construct a small personal dictionary of their Australian words or classroom dictionary to account for the collective experiences of the students.
How do words reflect cultural values?
But some of the most valuable exercises - especially for higher level learners - come from chasing down the histories and cultural values embedded within Australian words.
For instance, research has shown how words and phrases like “no worries” often convey subtle differences between Aussies and US and British English speakers. “No worries” has been called “the national motto”. It speaks to our national ethos of informality - especially in relation to formal, deferential language, like the British “don’t mention it”.
Further, where US “you’re welcome” speaks to solidarity and a focus on the hearer, Aussie “no worries” hints at another Australian quality - mateship. I, the speaker, want you to know that you have not imposed on me.
The words “mate” and the concept of “mateship” make for a deeper dive into Australian values. While the word “mate” is used in Britain, it takes on a special resonance in Australia.
Higher level students might be asked to research what makes the Australian sense of “mate” (and corresponding “mateship”) such an important (and contentious) value. On the one hand, “mateship” is valorised in history - its origin often linked to travelling swaggies who would help one another out. It was also highly valued among WWI diggers - living and fighting far from home.
However, “mateship” is also a contentious concept. Many have argued that it is a masculine concept that is exclusionary of women - but research also shows this might be changing. Further, some have criticised the role of “mateship” in over-simplistic and assimilationist narratives presented to migrants.
In these narratives, migrants could simply become Aussie by working hard, “shouting” beers and standing up for their mates. Lastly, some have argued that the Indigenous influence on the Australian legend - including “mateship” - has been largely ignored. Discussions of “mateship” would likely make for lively classroom debates on identity, gender and history.
Students might be asked to research a single word like “mate”, “mateship”, “dinkum” and so on. They might also be asked to investigate a single word at different points in Australian history and to reflect on any changes in that word.
Watch our video series
Aussie slang: the art of friendly insults | Ep 1
Is “chunder” an Australian word?
The word “chunder” is one with a particularly interesting history across Australian history and in pop culture texts. Chunder was originally Aussie rhyming slang, derived from “Chunder Loo” - a cartoon character (note: the character is somewhat offensive by today’s standards). “Loo” rhymes with “spew”. (as an aside, another activity might see students try to guess the meanings and origins of rhyming slang!)
Chunder might have fallen out of usage had not Barry Humphries revived it for his Bazza McKenzie character. Students can easily find videos of McKenzie online, where he performs Australian slang in interactions with Brits.
Notably, for “chunder”, the Bazza McKenzie character popularised an incorrect - if more fun - etymology: that it came from migrants to Australia vomiting over the sides of ships and yelling “watch under!”
Humphries’s influence on Australian English is discussed in this article. His influence can be traced through pop culture. The famed Men at Work song “Down Under” includes slang like “chunder” as an homage to Humphries. This article examines links between Humphries, Bluey and Australian English. Some argue this pop culture influence on Australian slang stretches back to bush poets like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, and through to satirical websites like the “Betoota Advocate”.
There is plenty of fun, fodder for classroom activities in exploring Australian slang, and how Australia’s words speak to its values, traditions and its evolution as a nation! And, most importantly, celebrating Australia’s wonderful words also means discussing and debating what it means to be Australian today!
Aussie slang is not dying, it’s changing
In closing, it is worth noting that some might say these words are fading away. Indeed, many Aussies fear the loss of their beloved lexicon as articles like this one and this one speak to. However, as these articles argue, the unique Aussie way of talking is not dying - it is changing. The Australian lexicon is a living, breathing part of the Australian experience. And our newest “new chums” - EAL students - may be changing it through their own Australian stories.
Further resources
Weird and Wonderful Aussie English has been informed by decades of research by scholars like GA Wilkes, Sidney J. Baker, Susan Butler, Bruce Moore, Amanda Laugesen, Pam Peters, Graham Seal and Anna Wierzbicka.
It has also been informed by my colleagues - the “Aussie Slang Gang” at Monash University supported by an Australian Research Council Grant SR200200350).
- short blogs and articles at the Monash University Lens website
- academic articles like this special issue of the Australian Journal of Linguistics
Books on Australian English:
- Sidney J. Baker’s The Australian Language
- Susan Butler’s The Dinkum Dictionary
- Nancy Keesing’s Lily on the Dustbin: Slang of Australian Women and Families
- Amanda Laugesen’s Australia in 100 Words
- Bruce Moore’s Speaking our Language: The Story of Australian English
- Bruce Moore’s What’s their Story?: A History of Australian Words
- Kel Richards’s The Story of Australian English
- Graham Seal’s The Lingo: Listening to Australian English
- G.A. Wilkes’s Exploring Australian English
- and many, many more
Resources for looking up Australian words:
- Australian National Dictionary
- Green’s Dictionary of Slang
- Macquarie Dictionary
- Oxford English Dictionary
Online articles about Australian words:
- The Australian National Dictionary Centre
- The Conversation
- The Macquarie Dictionary Blog
- The Oz Words Newsletter (with a few dead links)
Online resources for original texts (e.g. books, films, newspapers), which may be used to study Australian words:
- The Bulletin includes many debates about Australian words and identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries)
- Australia’s online Trove resource has large collections of Australian texts
- Australia’s Language Data Commons of Australia contains texts from corpora and research projects for more than 100 years. It can take some time to learn to use it, but once you do, it’s an invaluable resource
- The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) includes many films, tv shows and clips and other moving images of Australian culture. Their educational resources are geared toward younger learners but may be useful in an EAL classroom
- The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) is a Melbourne-based museum dedicated to the moving image in films, tv, art and gaming with educational resources
- Project Gutenberg Australia includes many earlier works of Australian fiction and non-fiction
Dr Howie Manns: Language is a work in progress!