A Brief Analysis on Differences between American English and British English 浅析英式英语与美式英语

浅析英式英语与美式英语的差异一、课题(论文)提纲

二、内容摘要

三、参考文献

A Brief Analysis on Differences between American English

and British English

Abstract

In today’s global integration, English, as the common language in the world, plays a quite important role both in civilian communication and official communication in our daily life. Owing to the US is the overlord in this world, so American English is getting more popular. American English and British English have become the two relative important languages in English phylum. And American English has already been accepted by British people who are toplofty all the time. At the same time, the British also begin to learn and use this simplified language. Although, American English is almost the same as British English, they still have some differences. There are many different localisms of their own among many English countries and such localisms are always emerging endlessly. Sometimes, of course, misunderstanding

between them is unavoidable. Meanwhile, the time is a treasure for people in the modern life. And the traditional British English is comparatively complicated while American English is convenient and practical, because American English seems more in accordance with the tide of history. The scholars of many big English-speaking countries such as Britain, America and Canada have been on to the trend. They have also summed up the differences between the two languages from the grammar, vocabulary and using etc.

Key Words: British English; American English

0. Introduction

For the 21st century today, the world is becoming smaller and smaller as to the development of high-tech. The world transformed countries one by one into a global village from the navigation century to the high speed conveyance at present. In this huge village, there are many people with different complexion; different agnate and different tongue lived. After lengthy years, English became the primary language in this big family. And the differentiation appeared in the evolvement of English itself, it divided into British English and American English. The following article will analyze the differences of the two English phyla. 1. The history and evolvements of British English and American English

It’s good to comprehend nowadays for study foretime, but the deeply

knowledge of nowadays is also the precondition of compute foretime exactly. This article will try to cast back the context of British English and American English. And in nowadays, the American English is taking the leading place of British English.

1.1. The history of British English

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic invaders from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to be dominated. The original Old English language was then influenced by two further waves of invasion: the first by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic language family, who conquered and colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the second by the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman. These two invasions caused English to become “mixed” to some degree.

Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance

languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a “borrowing”language of great flexibility, resulting in an enormous and varied vocabulary.

1.2. The history of American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States.

English is the most common language in the United States. Though the U.S. federal government has no official language, English is considered the de facto, “in practice but not necessarily ordained by law”, language of the United States because of its widespread use. English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments.

The use of English in the United States was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. During that time, there were also speakers in North America of Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, Russian (Alaska) and numerous Native American languages.

1.3. The impact of American English on British English

While British English and American English belong to the same phylum, but during the three hundred years after the first group of Europe

immigrant, the two languages were going their own way. American English has developed a new method of talk, partly is due to the differences of condition of living and the other part absorbed the language of other immigrant. The chief differences between British English and American English are the intonation of talk and rhythm. And there are also many differences in vocabulary. For example, politician has a derogatory sense in American English but not in British English. In American English solicitor means salesman or beggar but it means lawyer in British English. Near the few ten years, because the development of trade, military affairs and technology has made America become more and more strong and important in the world. As to the American film is very popular, the slang in America penetrate to the Spoken English. Nowadays, people who accept the American English most quickly are the younger in British, and the tendency is improving. Obviously, the origin of American English development is the American film, TV program, media and music and so on. For example the RAP music, many young people like that and it is very popular. American English has also influenced the hidebound British English in trope. American English is more acceptable by neoteric.

2. The specific differences between British English and American English

The variety of English that was spoken in the USA is called

American English. American English grew out of British English of the 17th century. With the further growth of the United States, American English has evolved from a “colonial branch” to a variant or national standard of English. The characteristics of American English are marked by apparent contradictions: creativeness in enriching the language versus conservativeness in preserving a number of archaic features; the use of short and poignant expressions, including slang, versus fondness of big words; homogeneity manifested by heavy borrowings from other tongues versus relative uniformity which is, in a sense, close to homogeneity; and the use of verbose style in official papers versus plain language in popular writing. These properties combine to make American English a distinctive variety of the English language.

2.1. Differences in pronunciation

On a whole, the similarities between the two kinds of pronunciation are greater than the other differences. The nature of the differences in pronunciation between General American and Standard British English has been discussed by many authorities, there are many chief differences in vowel、diphthongs such as fast: |fa:st| (British English) |fest| (American English) ;want |w?nt|(British English) |want| (American English) and so on. As to consonants, in British English the letter “r”is not pronounced before a consonant; at the end of a word, r is pronounced if the next word begins with a vowel such as: farm |fa:m|, door |d ?:|. The digraph “wh” is

pronounced |w| in British English, but |hw| in American English. For example, when which in British English, |wen|; American English, |hwen|. Further, different phonemes may be used in the same word. This is found only with individual words. For examples: ate |et| (British English)-|eit| (American English).Identical systems of stress and rhythm are used by British and American English. There are, however, a few words that have their stress on a different syllable. For some examples: ad'dress(British English-′address(Am erican English), advertisement (British English)-adver′tisement (Am erican English).

Finally, intonation differences, As for the major differences in intonation between British English and American English, some observers report that, to their ears, Englishmen cover a wider range of tone in speaking and carry it higher than Americans, while Americans pitch their voices within a very narrow range and they are in the habit of speaking drawlingly and clearly, that is, Americans speak flatter, slower, and clearer than Englishmen. Statistics tell us that the rate of utterance for average Englishmen is 220 syllables per minute, while that for ordinary Americans is 150-175 syllables. That’s why, to most people, spoken American English seems easier to understand than spoken British English.

2.2. Differences in V ocabulary

The differences between British and American English in vocabulary

can be grouped into the following three types:

1). Words without counterparts:

When the English colonists settled in America, they made and borrowed a lot of words and expressions to name the plants, animals, features of landscape and life new to them. These words together with those coming into existence later, esp. since independence, constitute a part of the vocabulary of American English which has no counterpart in British English. Some typical examples are: foothill, gap, bayou, canyon, hickory, logroll, electoral, college, lynch, New Deal, wetback, drive-in, rock-and-roll, etc.

2). A same word has different meanings:

For the sake of convenience of expressions, the early settlers in America often gave an existing word a new meaning. Further, some meanings of words have become obsolete in Britain, but survived in America. Moreover, a group of words simply changed their meanings in the USA. All these combined to account for the fact that quite a number of same words have different meanings on both sides of the Atlantic. The following examples may be used to illustrate the point: The word “lumber”, which originally meant “disused goods” in Britain, was given the new sense of “timber”; the word“mad”was used in the sense of “angry”in Shakespeare time, later this sense became obsolete and acquired the meaning of “insane” in Britain, but Americans continue to

use the word in the old sense; the numeral “billion” means “a million millions” in British English, but Americans have changed it to mean “a thousand million” in the United States. The Americans have also changed the meaning of “bill, enjoin, guy, pressman, veteran, table,” so these words have different meanings in the two countries.

3).The same ideas or objects expressed by different words. The most noticeable difference in vocabulary is that the British and Americans use different words to express the same idea or object. This difference covers a very wide range of vocabulary. Here are only some examples: The British English words, “trousers, biscuit, flat, cupboard” are respectively equal to the American English words: “pants, cracker, apartment, closet”.

2.3. Differences in spelling

Generally speaking, the differences in spelling between American and British English were brought about by two factors:

1). The English which the colonists brought to the new continent allowed great variation in spelling, sometimes the variant which became standardized in America was different from that used in England;

2). Noah Webster and eminent persons like Benjamin Franklin proposed numerous reforms on spelling among which some were generally accepted and became the forms peculiar to American English. The American and British systems are essentially the same, except that, as the following differences show, the American variant is simpler than its

English counterpart: our-or, colour-color; ou-o, mould-mold; re-er centre-center; gue-g, dialogue-dialog and so on. There are also some special cases such as cheque-check, cigarette-cigarette and storey-story.

All in all, the British and American spelling systems are essentially the same except that the American spelling has some simplified way. Nowadays hundreds of American spellings have won acceptance in British English.

2.4. Differences in grammar

On the whole, American and British English use the same grammar system. There are few differences in number and trifling in nature. The following are some main divergences:

(1).On the verb phrase，American English prefers to “have got” for possession (Do you have the time? Vs Have you got the time?); answers also tend to vary (I don’t Vs I haven’t); Am erican English prefers such forms and there are some special past tense forms; American English also sometimes uses a simple past tense while British English use a present perfect (I just ate Vs I’ve just eaten).

(2) In the noun phrase there are some differences in word order (e.g. Hudson River Vs River Thames, a half hour Vs half an hour) and the use of article “the” (in the future Vs in future, in the hospital Vs in hospital); American English prefers collective nouns in the singular (the government is), whereas British English allows plural also (the

government are).

(3).Clausal patterns sometimes differ, as in American English (come take a look Vs come and take); American English also makes more use of the subjective, as in (I asked that he go Vs I asked him to go) and prefers were to was in such sentences as I wish she were here.

(4).Several differences are existed in prepositions and adverbs for example, American English (It’s twenty of four Vs it’s twenty to four). 3. There are also some differences between American English and British English in practical application.

3.1. Differences in letter

There are some differences in letter communication between the two languages. It is a comma after the form of address and underwrote yours faithfully in British English, but it is a semicolon and ended by truly yours in American English.

3.2. Divergence in intercommunion

The difference of intercommunion is usually found in the international travel. The traveler and businessmen always make many mistakes and jokes because of the differences of vocabulary and usage. In addition, there is also little difference when people make phones.

3.3. Differences in lingo

Every vocation has a different universal term for communication such as the type of equipment, and people must abide by the bylaw,

method, terms. It will make lots of mistakes if people don’t know about the differences.

4. The status and future of the English language

English language is one of the most widespread languages in the world. The count of English speaker is just less than the Chinese mandarin speaker. In 1970s, there were 280,000,000 person used English as the native language. In addition, there were 120,000,000 person used English as the second language. Nowadays the count is getting to exceed the actual count. The count of people use English as a foreign language is increasing day by day, so we still have no statistic. People regard English as a second language means English is an official language for the government deal with daily civil service. At the same time it is also a language for studying and teaching every day. People regard English as a foreign language in order to communicate well in politics interlocution, commerce, economic cooperation and culture communication people regard English as a foreign language. And regard English as foreign language to deal with scientific research, trade, tour, enjoy literature and invention and so on. At the same time, owing to the state of America is getting stronger and stronger than Great Britain in the world, and together with the American English use conveniently and the grammar is easy to understand. For the popular trend at the present, American English has the possibility to replace the British English. For example, Germany,

France, Switzerland, Japan and other countries use English as a foreign language. Teaching in schools mainly use American English, but in China, in order to achieve socialist modernization and to accelerate the integration of the advanced western countries, China also regard English as a foreign language to use and learn. We Chinese still use British English in school, but in the wave of study abroad as well as the e-commerce development, American English has a noticeable development situation in China. Meanwhile, there are Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand etc. regard English as the first language, most of these countries (except UK) started to learn and use the simpler American English. According to the statistics, there are 1/2 of newspapers, 3/4 of mails and 3/5 of newscasts that take use of English. In which part of the e-mail messages of mails, the usage of American English increased gradually and it possesses the dominant position. It shows that the uselessness value of American English is constantly increasing.

5. Conclusion

From above mentioned we know the differences between British and American English are noticeable in regard to pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling, grammar and so on. But we can not take the differences too far, as to the two varieties of English share the basic structure, the basic word stock, grammar and phonetic system. For a non-native learner, it is better

to be receptive to both varieties, know the differences, and be able to communicate with either American or the British. It is good for us to know and command the points and rules of British and American English differences. It will help us to study English and communicate well in English.

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