An acoustic description of AusE vowels

The acoustic description of AusE vowels by Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) involved a sample of 119 men and women who had been identified as speakers of Broad, General and Cultivated AusE; the goal was to describe the characteristics of the vowels that differentiate the three varieties. Table 2 shows the phonetic symbol or symbols that, according to Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) best describe the vowel in AusE; however, much of the variability associated with one or the other of the varieties is lost in the choice of a single symbol. The comments on the table indicate the variability associated with each vowel. Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) divide the vowels into four types: tense and lax monophthongs and rising and falling diphthongs.