English language Paragraphs ESSAY

AEC (Double Speak)

• The AEC’s description of the 1800 liberal lost votes as “a transposition omission between one count and the next” employs nominalisation which obscures the agency and presents the error as a technical inevitability rather than an accountable action.

• The use of bureaucratic jargon creates an impression of neutrality, thereby downplaying the potential seriousness of electoral error.

• Similarly, the passive construction of the declarative “it was fixed up” distances the AEC from responsibility while simultaneously foregrounding the resolution.

• The colloquial verb phrase “fixed up” trivialises the issue, softening its severity to reassure the public and maintain confidence in democratic processes.

• Together, these linguistic strategies work cohesively to minimise blame and protect institutional credibility, reflecting the broader political function of language in shaping public trust.

Deep seek (double speak)

• After the rise of AI technologies such as Chinas Deepseek, the Australian government announced it had taken “swift and decisive action to protect the national interests of Australia”.

• The abstract noun phrase “swift and decisive action” functions as doublespeak, projecting governmental authority while concealing the precise measures undertaken.

• This vagueness enables the government to manage competing audience expectations: for Australian voters, it signals strength and protection, while for China, the lack of explicit details avoids inflaming tensions with a major trading partner.

• This linguistic balancing act illustrates how abstract constructions allow politicians to mask inconvenient truths, preserving both international diplomacy and local credibility

Caruso’s

• In an advertisement for Caruso’s vaginal care probiotics, the product is described as supporting your “vaginal microbiome keeping you feeling fresh and balanced” and they “containing two clinically trialled lactobacillus strains”.

• The euphemistic verb phrase “to keep you feeling fresh” conceals natural bodily functions, implying that they are undesirable and must be corrected.

• This euphemism presupposes that “freshness” can be lost, constructing a sense of deficiency that manipulates women into believing the product is essential.

• Such language exploits cultural taboos surrounding female hygiene and reinforces the expectation that women must constantly regulate their bodies.

• The inclusion of medical jargon such as “vaginal microbiome” and “clinically trialled lactobacillus strains” elevates the register, lending biomedical authority that masks the commercial intent and deters scepticism.

• Together, these linguistic strategies reveal how commercial discourse shapes social values and exploits insecurity through seemingly empowering language.

Crisafulli

• In an article, Premier David Crisafulli defends the governments commitment to expanding the shark netting program with the declarative “the life of one child […] is worth everything to me”.

• The emotionally charged noun phrase “the life of one child” performs a euphemistic function by concealing the taboo of environmental harm behind a moral appeal to human safety.

• By foregrounding the innocence of a single child, Crisafulli’s language marginalises the suffering of non-human life, positioning ecological damage as unspeakable or irrelevant within the moral frame.

• The hyperbolic clause “worth everything to me” reinforces this absolutism, implying that disagreement equates to indifference to human life.

• This rhetorical strategy reflects a wider Australian political tendency to employ euphemistic framing to navigate moral taboos and justify contentious policies.

Liberal TikTok

• In a Liberal Party TikTok, Albanese was described with the phrase “bro has been dropping the ball for the last 3 years”. The vocative “bro”, drawn from Gen z vernacular, carries a satirical tone that immediately diminishes Albanese’s authority whole constructing relatability for a youth audience.

• By employing this informal register, the Liberals create a peer-to-peer tenor that positions politics as a shared in-joke, fostering a sense of cultural solidarity with Gen Z viewers.

• This effect is reinforced by the interplay between the metaphor “dropping the ball”, paired with the accompanying visual of Albanese failing to catch, which trivialises political leadership into the accessible framework of spot and positions him as incompetent.

• Through this interplay of the informal lexis and metaphor, the Liberals strategically appeal to young voters by signalling cultural fluency, reframing political critique as entertaining and socially inclusive.

Qantas

• In an article responding to the removal of in-flight entertainment, Qantas ecouraged Australian consumers “to embrace the raw dogging trend” integrating internet driven slang into mainstream advertising to reposition corporate messaging.

• The adjectival neologism “raw dogging” has undergone a semantic shift, moving from explicit sexual connotations to a humourous description of flying without comfort.

• By appropriating this rapidly evolving Gen Z slang, Qantas acquires covert prestige, signalling cultural fluency and aligning its brand with youthful irreverence.

• The adjective simultaneously invokes connotations of humour, ruggedness and a casual resilience, traits often associated with stereotypical Australianness.

• In doing so, Qantas transforms a potentially negative experience into a marker of cultural identity.

Amber Anthony

• On the homepage of neurodivergence activist Amber Anthony’s website, her organisation is introduced as the “neurospicy collective”.

• The neologism “neurospicy” blends the clinical adjective “neurodivergent” with the playful adjective “spicy”, reframing neurological difference as a distinctive and celebrated identity rather than a deficit.

• This linguistic creativity fosters an inclusive discourse community surrounding neurodiversity, aligning with contemporary Australian values of inclusivity and acceptance.

• Similarly, the metaphor “when a flower doesn’t bloom, fix the environment not the flower” symbolises the neurodivergent individuals, with the noun “flower” connoting beauty and uniqueness.

• By shifting responsibility for inclusion onto systems rather than individuals, the metaphor constructs a worldview in which adaptability is prioritised over conformity.

• Together, these linguistic strategies illustrate how activist discourse challenges stigma and redefines social norms, positioning denurodivesity as a source of collective pride and resilience.

Style Guide

• In the 2025 Australian style guide, the Australian government asserts that “disability does not define people” and urges that Australians should “use inclusive language that respects inclusivity”.

• These declaratives embody egalitarian values central to the Australian national identity while positioning the government as an authoritative avocate for respectful discourse.

• By prioritising citizens’ positive face needs, the guide rejects reductionist labels in favour of non-discriminatory lexis.

• Accordingly, when institutions like the NDIS adopt noun phrases like “Australians with disability”, “people with disability” and “children with developmental delays”, they linguistically affirms individual identity while resisting stigmatising categorisation.

• Through embedding the condition within the prepositional phrase “with […]”, these person-first constructions foreground personhood, reflecting SAE’s descriptivist shift towards inclusive, respectful, and socially cohesive language practices

Garma Festival

• the Garma 2025 Festival Program Guide employed AAE to foreground cultural heritage embedded in its discourse.

• The personification of the local Yolngu noun “Gadayka” in the claim that “the Gadayka move in their stillness […] and appear to dance and communicate” aligns with the AAE semantic tradition of animating country, positioning the environment as a living participant in social and spiritual life.

• This lexical choice indexes moiety systems that situate the “gadayka” within Yolngu kinship taxonomy, thereby preserving indigenous knowledge systems while shares the Yolngu worldview with the wider Australian public.

• Pragmatically, such linguistic choices foster reconciliation by validating First Nations frameworks within public discourse, while also challenging the dominance of SAE by elevating AAE as a vehicle for cultural expression and national identity.

Birthing centre

• In an article on the new birthing centre in NSW for Aboriginal women, The Guardian employs AAE to foreground cultural ties between indigenous traditions and institutional practice.

• The kinship nouns “mums”, “elders”, “aunties” and “mobs” extend beyond biological relations, drawing on inclusive semantics to encode indigenous models of family and resist Western familial hierarchies.

• Similarly, the prepositional phrase “on country” elides the determiner, semantically elevating “country” as sacred and animate, reframing birth as an act of ancestral continuity.

• By embedding such kinship and cultural lexis within mainstream reportage, the text pragmatically validates indigenous epistemologies, while also positioning AAE as a counter-discourse to institutional language.

• In doing so, it demonstrates how linguistic choices both affirm cultural identity and contribute to broader efforts towards reconciliation.

Salvation Army

• In an article on National Give an Australian a Hug Day, the Salvation Army employs colloquial Australian English as a solidarity-building discourse strategy to construct an inclusive identity.

• The colloquial nouns “footy”, “barbie”, “dunny” and the noun phrase “meat pie” act as cultural artefacts, semantically indexing everyday practices associated with traditional Australianness.

• Similarly, the noun “yarn”, the elided interrogative “whaddya know” and the declarative “you little ripper” simulates friendly banter, pragmatically reducing social distance and attending to positive face needs.

• Collectively, these vernacular expressions reinforce a stereotypical identity of Australians as humourous, casual and egalitarian - reflecting the broader cultural values of informality, mateship.

• However, by relying on such linguistic tropes, the text also reproduces reductive cultural stereotypes, highlighting the tension between affirming solidarity and oversimplifying national identity.

Bonds

• In the global advertisement, Bonds strategically selected the noun “undies” to construct and export a recognisable Australian identity.

• The noun functions as a hypocorism, a morphological pattern distinctive of Australian English that semantically convert informality and cultural irreverence.

• Such morphological choices reinforce stereotypical conceptions of Australiannness for an international audience, constructing a national identity rooted in humour and casualness.

• To finish their advertisement, Bonds employs the pun “made for down under”, exploiting lexical ambiguity between the antipodes and an anatomical euphemism, generating humour and memorability.

• While such colloquialisms effectively market Australianness abroad, they also risk reducing national identity to a set of clichés, reflecting the tension between solidarity and stereotype in global branding.

Roblox

• On r/robloxhackers, a Redditor’ comment “Gng idgaf they have got hacked into my shi” illustrates how online discourse constructs subcultural identity.

• The acronymic slang “idgaf” and the elided noun “gang” index covert norms, pragmatically conferring covert prestige by signalling in-group membership and emotional stance within gaming communities.

• Orthographic creativity is evident in the elision of the /t/ phoneme in the expletive “shi[t]”, allows the author to preserve meaning while avoiding which preserves semantic meaning while circumventing automatic moderation.

• These non-standard syntactic and orthographic choices construct a digitally fluent identity that balances solidarity with community expectations against the need to resist algorithmic policing.

• Such linguistic innovation exemplifies how online users adapt language to negotiate both subcultural belonging and platform constraints.

Meme TIktok

• In an Australian TikTok, the caption “when the teacher makes the corniest joke but it’s Friday so u just fw it 💔🥀” illustrates how digital vernacular constructs youth identity.

• The acronymic slang “fw” and the informal orthography “u” typify online language practices that attend to positive face needs by fostering solidarity within peer networks.

• These linguistic innovations confer covert prestige, signalling in-group membership in digital youth culture.

• Similarly, the emojis “broken heart” and “wilted rose” undergo semantic shift and recontextualisation, moving from traditional grief to ironic expression reflect platform-specific norms where meaning is fluid and context-dependent.

• Collectively, these features demonstrate how online discourse enables young Australians to perform identities rooted in playfulness, solidarity and digital fluency