Voice expert reveals why Hollywood can never get the Australian accent right

A voice and speech expert has revealed the subtle idiosyncrasies that make the Aussie accent so unique – and why Hollywood actors and actresses seem to have so much trouble getting it right.

Countless stars have tried and failed to emulate the Australian brogue – from Meryl Streep’s infamous ‘Dingo took my baby!’ moment to Tarantino’s brief cameo as an Australian miner in Django Unchained – with little success.

Kate Winslet, meanwhile, is one of the few thespians who has received unanimous praise for their take on the accent.

So why is it so difficult to imitate? 

 

A voice and speech expert has revealed the subtle idiosyncrasies that make the Aussie accent so unique – and why Hollywood actors and actresses seem to have so much trouble getting it right

Countless stars have tried and failed to emulate the Australian brogue - from Meryl Streep's (left) infamous 'Dingo took my baby!' moment to Tarantino's brief cameo as an Australian miner in Django Unchained - with little success

Countless stars have tried and failed to emulate the Australian brogue – from Meryl Streep’s (left) infamous ‘Dingo took my baby!’ moment to Tarantino’s brief cameo as an Australian miner in Django Unchained – with little success

Leith Macpherson, dialect coach and senior lecturer in Theatre: Voice and Movement at the Victorian College of the Arts, says it’s the accent’s disarming familiarity.

‘It is really challenging, because it’s similar to a lot of different accents, it has components of a lot of different accents, so I think that’s where people get derailed,’ Macpherson told the ABC. 

This sense of familiarity ends up being problematic, Macpherson says, when the brain falls into pre-established patterns: when it detects similar characteristics to a Cockney accent, for example, and so starts imitating that accent in full.

‘Your brain is always looking for patterns,’ she explains. ‘It’s always looking for things that it already knows.’

The problem is that despite some similarity there are also many things that make the Australian accent different to the Cockney accent.

Leith Macpherson (pictured), dialect coach and senior lecturer in Theatre: Voice and Movement at the Victorian College of the Arts, says it's the accent's disarming familiarity that makes it so hard to imitate

Leith Macpherson (pictured), dialect coach and senior lecturer in Theatre: Voice and Movement at the Victorian College of the Arts, says it’s the accent’s disarming familiarity that makes it so hard to imitate

Macpherson breaks the Aussie accent down into three common characteristics: a wide open back of the mouth, a rising inflection at the end of a statement, and a low and wide 'ah'hesitation sound (pictured: Steve Irwin)

Macpherson breaks the Aussie accent down into three common characteristics: a wide open back of the mouth, a rising inflection at the end of a statement, and a low and wide ‘ah’hesitation sound (pictured: Steve Irwin)

Macpherson breaks the Aussie accent down into three common characteristics.

The first is that the back of the speaker’s mouth needs to be wide open – ‘and that’s going to lift your tongue up at the back and give you that warm kind of bright quality that really distinguishes this accent… a level of nasality.’

The second is the rising inflection at the end of a sentence – which most dialects only employ when asking a question. 

Many Australians will still use a rising inflection in their voice even when making a statement. 

The third characteristic is the hesitation sound, which Macpherson says is ‘a really good way of figuring out how someone’s mouth works in a different accent or language.’

Other common traits in the Aussie dialect include lack of enunciation and a particular kind of flow (pictured: Russell Crowe, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Australia)

Other common traits in the Aussie dialect include lack of enunciation and a particular kind of flow (pictured: Russell Crowe, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Australia)

As an example she refers to the Scottish accent, whose hesitation sound – ‘erm’ – is high and forward, because that’s where Scottish speakers’ tongues rest.

An Australian speakers’ tongue, comparatively, is low and to the back, resulting in an ‘ah’ hesitation sound.

Other common traits in the Aussie dialect include lack of enunciation and a particular kind of flow – but Macpherson suggests that that could all be quite different in 100 years’ time.

‘We might have more of an American influence coming in and less of a British influence,’ she speculates. ‘But where that takes us… I don’t know. What an exciting journey!’



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