Lars-Benja Braasch

The German Influence on Australian and American English Lars-Benja Braasch

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: 2,0, University of Constance, 8 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: [...] The aim of this work will be, on the one hand, to describe the history of German settlement on both continents, and more importantly of the influence of German on American English as well as on Australian English. On the other hand, a direct comparison between the German influences will be made, and hopefully it will prove that even though half the globe separates both continents from each other, there are similarities to be found. It is to be expected though, that if there are analogies, they will be regionally restricted, since both in the United States and in Australia, contact situations seem to be restricted to those areas where Germans settled from the earliest days on. Beside the clarification of some general definitions, which will prove necessary for an understandable analysis, the difficulties in researching this topic will be made evident. One thing that will not be considered in this examination is the influence of Yiddish- German on American English since, one the one hand, it proves hard to differentiate exactly between the German and the Yiddish aspects and on the other hand because the Jewish impact on Australian English is marginal. Therefore Yiddish-German is rather unimportant in the comparison of both varieties. [...]