Do Australians consider their English as a dialect or language?

[Summer123]

Hello everyone,

This is a question for native Australian English speakers. I am doing a thesis about whether or not Australian English is a language or dialect and I was wondering what native Australians consider their speech to be.

Do you think your variety of English is a variety of (British) English or do you think Australian English has developed in such a way that today it can be considered a new language? Or any other ideas?

Thank you for co-operating.

Kind regards,
Summer

 

[Tdol]

I'll leave it to Australian speakers to say what they think, but one issue here is the lack of a clear definition of the difference between a dialect and a language. What is regarded as a language in one part of the world could be a dialect in another- the dialects of Chinese are said to have greater differences than some European languages.

PS As a British English speaker, I wouldn't consider Australian English to be a variety of (British) English, but a variant/variety of English. I don't see the forms of English as part of subsets, so the British, even in brackets, looks add to me.

 

[Raymott]

AusE is a dialect and a language, a variety of English. I agree with Tdol though about definitions.
As far as what the proverbial man in the street would say, No, Australian English is not a dialect, yes of course it's a language, yes it's a variety of English, maybe it's variety of British English (depending on whether this man is a monarchist or a republican), no it's not a new language - it derived from British English originally. Esperanto and Klingon are new languages.