The -ing variable

Shnukal’s (1988) study of the -ing variable has shown that the common substitution of [n] for [ŋ] is also prevalent in AusE but not with the high frequencies that have been found for British and American varieties of English. In general most studies of AusE have found that [n] is substituted in only about a quarter of the potential occurrences. It will not be surprising either to learn that men use the [n] substitution more often than women or that speakers at the Broad AusE end of the spectrum are more likely to use the variant and Cultivated AusE speakers almost never use it.