Eng Lang examples

April ABC interview with Anthony Albenese

“Young people feel like they’re not getting a fair crack, and fair enough”

Australian values and identity. Colloquialism. Presenting as an informal regular Australian and appealing to the younger generation. Attempting to validate his governments spending by supporting the younger generation.

International Women’s day 2025

‘Accelerate Action’

Adjective phrase. Declarative sentence. Inclusive language. Lexical emphasis through alliteration.

Delulu with no solulu

A YouTube short captures two young Australian women joking about dating and mental health, using the phrase “delulu with no solulu” in a casual street interview format.

Rhyming of the [ʊ] sound. Neologistic phrase. Self deprecation.

Anthony Albanese used the adjectival phrase in February 2025. 

The Conversation on how American English is influencing Australian English.

Opinion piece by Howard Manns. “The suffix -ize is increasingly accpeted in words like ‘organize’, despite -ise being the historically preffered British-Australian form”

March 2025 National Breakfast TV show with Shadow Housing Minister.

Michael Sukkar “affordable housing bond aggregator” and “returns from the stock market”.

Obfuscation. Financial jargon. Establishes financial authority and policy expertise. 

Sukkars jargon could be a result of subtle gender dynamics reflecting a defensive response to being challenged by a female host in a high-stakes, public context.

April 2025 Labor party post

Initialisms “OMFG”. Profanity. Context specific graphemes - emojis. Diminutive and reduplicated adjective pair “snippy snippy” to depict Dutton’s political plans.

Mcquarie dictionary

Added doomscrolling, delulu and tradwife.

Greek-Australian ethnolect

The /0/ (thing) and /d/ (this) phonemes are often pronounced as't' and'd', respectively, due to the influence of Modern Greek which lacks a voiced and voiceless 'th'. Consequently, 'this' might be pronounced as 'dis', and 'thing' as 'ting'.

ABC production ‘That Blackfella Show’

Hosted to a live audience to celebrate NAIDOC week 2025.

The 2025 theme, "The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy,”

“That Blackfella show”
“Uncle Earnie Dingo”

Michael Adams on swearing

“People who engage in risky behaviour together form a bond” “Swearing can be that risky behaviour”

Asutralian values. Laidback. Swearing as a part of the Australian identity and forming close in-groups

2025 Sportsbet ad

‘Proud Supporters of Having a Crack’

“Have a crack” is a colloquial Australian term. Appealing to Australian laid back values and egalitarianism of everyone getting a chance to ‘have a crack’.

Australian Bureau of Statistics Charizard post

“Check out our top post from February! Did you know the average Aussie (168cm) is about the same height as the average Charizard at 170cm? Are you taller than Charizard?”

Pop-culture reference. Appealing to an in-group.

Kate Burridge on teenspeak

"teenspeak" as a "masonic mortar to stick members of a group together" that also "erect[s] barriers between them and the outside."

Diana Eades on Aboriginal English 

‘In many subtle ways Aboriginal English is a powerful vehicle for the expression of Aboriginal identity.'  

Identity

Dave Crystal on the consequences of technology on language. Printing

“Ever since the arrival of printing—thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds—people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language.”

Dave Crystal on the consequences of technology on language. Texting

“Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.”

“New technologies don’t destroy language; they provide new ways for people to use it.”

Dave Crystal on the consequences of technology on language. Emojis and social change

“Emoticons and abbreviations are creative forms of expression, showing how language adapts to new communicative needs.”

“Language change has always been driven by social factors, and technology is just another social factor influencing this change.”

The Brisbane times 2025 on Australian slang and subgroups

“There are blueys and bludgers, chardonnay socialists, cleanskins and cashed-up bogans”

Colloquialisms.

Kate Burridge on identity in langauge

"We wear aspects of accent, vocabulary, grammar like we do emblems on a T-shirt — they define the gang."

Sociolects, idiolects and in-groups

Online groups nominalisation

Particularly in online spaces, derogatory terms aimed towards fictional races have begun to emerge, leading to certain groups using insults to reflect a particular community that they are a part of, such as fans of the “Star Wars” using terms like “Clanker” or “Blackblood” (referring to oil)

Specsavers Billboard at Brisbane

reads “Welcome to Darwin”

Australian humour and identity. Playing jokes on non-Australians. Values.

Formal language at a Melbourne school

The principle of the school used the word “moratorium” to mean “ban” in order to tighten school rules around mobile phones.

Use of an elevated lexeme linking to latin routes.

Euphemistic language in order to soften the harsh truth that students will face.

Agentless passive “a moratorium will be placed” to remove accountability from the person that has actioned this rule, and to maintain professionalism.

Obfuscating and negotiating the negative face act of banning mobile phones.

WA police regarding e-scooter injuries

Nominalisation of “targeted enforcement operations” - the objective quality of the nouns present the idea as a concrete plan.

Increases credibility of the presented idea and gives the audience a sense of trust that the issue is being handled seriously.

WA police are in a position of power to be holding authority to plan and roll out such operations given their serious nature.

April 2025 The Guardian on Rednote

The Guardian reports that the app “Rednote” was used to circulate disinformation targeting Chinese-Australian communities, falsely claiming that a Labor government policy would revoke dual citizenship rights.

“Labor’s ‘WICKED’ policy will destroy your right to remain a citizen in your own country.”

Nominalisation. Declarative sentence. Political register. Covert manipulation. Non-standard capitalised adjective.

Addressing the reader with the personal pronoun “your own” to provoke fear and alienation among a specific cultural group.

ABC on Chris Dawson

“Chris Dawson loses appeal over unlawful sexual activity with student conviction”

The use of the adjective ‘unlawful’ as well as the noun ‘activity’ upholds the ambiguity of the sexual act. Euphemistic.

Protects Dawsons reputation by avoiding strongly connoted words such as ‘rape’ or ‘assault’ while maintaining ambiguity as all details have not been released.

New.com.au Six-Seven

Became popular after a Skrilla Tik-Tok song and and interview with Taylen Kinney, a 17-year-old basketball player from Atlanta.

Now it has become as ingrained in Gen Alpha language as “LOL” and “YOLO” were to millennials back in the day.

Has spread verbally and developed hand signs.

Neologism and semantic broadening