英式英语与美式英语的区别_英文版

Analysis of the Differences between American English and British English

Acknowledgements

My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my teacher Zhao Na, my supervisor, for her constant encouragement and guidance. She has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. Without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form.

Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the teachers in the School of International Studies of University of Science and Technology, Liaoning, who have instructed and helped me a lot in the past four years.

Last, my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and greatconfidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis

Contents

Abstract (English) (i)

Abstract (Chinese) ......................................................................... i ii Introduction (1)

I. Differences between British English and American English.... . (1)

A.Written English (1)

1.Spelling (2)

2.Meaning (3)

B.Spoken English (3)

1. Vowel (3)

2. Consonant (5)

II. Causes (6)

A. Social causes (6)

B. Internalcauses (8)

III. Reasonable suggestions (10)

A. Suggestions to government (10)

B. Suggestions to media company (12)

Conclusion (15)

Bibliography (16)

Abstract

Britain and America bothare the most powerful countries in the world,not only in economy, but also in military and other aspects. These two countries have a lot of

similarities in many aspects. But the most obvious difference is the using in language. Although they all speak English, there are still many differences between them. Nowadays, English has become the most widely used communicative languagein the world, and it has 400 billion speakers. Butonly British and American use it as their native language and most of English users come from these two places. English was originally used by Britain, andwith the development of American continent in the 17th century, English is also widely used by American people. Moreover, combined their own society and living customs, culture and other characteristicswith the basis of British English, Americans innovated a new form of English which is called American English. So there are some unavoidable differences between American English and British English. Language is complex, including grammar, structure, contents, pronunciation and other elements. The process of communication is using the knowledge of language, the knowledge of society and the knowledge of culture to transfer information, so acquiring a language and understanding a language are heavily involved in the cultural background. As a consequence, the differences between the Britain and America lead to the differences between British English and American English.

So this thesis puts its emphasis on the differences between British English and American English in spoken English and written English, including spelling, meaning, vowel and consonant. At the same time, this thesis analyses the causes for the language's differences from two aspects which are social causes and internal causes. Meanwhile, it points out some reasonable suggestions to the government and Media Company.

Learning differences between these two forms of English can help us get deeper understanding about English. In addition, understanding English cultural background can help us distinguish them better and know how to avoid the unnecessary conflicts,

misunderstanding and embarrassment which are caused by cultural differences. Key words:American English British English differences

摘要

英国和美国作为现今世界的强国，不仅在经济上体现了这一点，而且在军事及其他方面也有所体现。这两个国家在许多方面有着极其相似的地方。如此相似的两个国家，却也有许多明显不同，在这些不同当中，属语言的使用最为明显。尽管他们用着相同的语言英语，但两者之间仍有许多不同。如今，英语作为世界上使用最广泛的交际语言，它拥有四亿使用者，但是作为第一语言，英国和美国是使用最广泛的两个国家，并且大多数的英语使用者也来自这两个国家。英语最早起源于并且使用于英国，但随着十七世纪美洲大陆的发展，英语也广泛使用于美洲人民，并且基于英式英语，美国人结合自身社会，生活风俗，文化等特征，他们创新了一种新式英语，那就是美式英语。所以在英式英语与美式英语之间有着不可避免的区分。

语言是个复合体，其中包括语法，结构，内容，发音和其他方面。交际的过程是人们使用语言知识和社会文化知识传递信息的过程，因此学习语言和了解语言与文化背景是分不开的，所以由于美国和英国的不同导致了美式英语与英式英语的不同。

本文主要强调美式英语与英式英语在口语与书面语两方面的不同其中包括了拼写，含义，元音和辅音。同时，本文还从两个方面分析了引起英式英语与美式英语不同的原因，一个是社会原因，另一个是内部原因，不仅如此本文也指出了一些合理化建议给政府和有关的媒体公司。

学习好这两个不同形式的英语有助于我们更加深刻的学习英语。理解英语文化背景还可以帮助我们更好地区分二者的不同，并且了解如何避免那些由于文化不同而引起的冲突，误会和尴尬。

关键词:美式英语英式英语差异

Analysis of the Differences between American English and

British English

Introduction

As we all know that English as the most widely used communicative languagein the world, it has 400 million speakers. But as the native language, it most widely used by Britain and United States. Although same language they use, there still many differences between them. As two important branches of English, American English and British English have their own features. But because of many English learners have a hazy understanding of them, so they easy to cross use them which make many jokes. So this thesis will focus on the two aspects of differences which are written English and spoken English, meanwhile this thesis will analysis why and what cause these differences happened. Through my interviews, I find that there are many English majors do not know the exactly differences between American and British English, and they are interested in learning something about the differences. So my thesis will compare American with British English. I will cover the eight major differences; they are grammar differences, vocabulary differences, spelling differences, pronunciation differences, the differences of formatting monetary amounts, the differences of formatting of dates, the differences of formatting time, the differences of reading telephone and door number. I think thesis could help English majors learn more about information with least time

I.Differences between British English and American English

These two varieties of English are very similar that most American and British speakers can understand each other without great difficulty. There are, however, a few differences of grammar, vocabulary and spelling. The following guide is meant to point out the principal differences between American English and British English.

A.Written English

One of the most important differences between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) is the written English. These two countries have too many same words but different spellings and too many same meaning but different words.

1.Spelling

Americans focus on the words' practical applicability, so they simplify many words, some because of silent letters such as kilogramme in BrE but kilogram in AmE, program in AmE but programme in BrE, Americans delete the extra silent letters -me. Same situation like this also in catalog in AmE but catalogue in BrE, dialog in AmE but dialogue in BrE, prologue in BrE but prolog in AmE and even every BrE words which have the suffix -our, Americans delete the voiceless letter -u, so the words change from ardour become to ardor, from behaviour become to behavior, from colour become to color, from favourite become to favorite, from flavour to flavor, from honour to honor.

Some because of the repeated words such as the words in BrE have double L but in AmE they become to single L, councillor in BrE but councilor in AmE, jeweller in BrE but jeweler in AmE, marvellous in BE but marvelous in AmE, travelling in BrE but traveling in AmE.

Another spelling difference which can help you identify it is BE or AmE quickly is the suffix -ise or -ize and -xion or -ction. for Americans, because of use the -ize or -ction is easy to read, so they change the BrE words. For example, criticise in BrE but cirticise in AE, standardise in BrE but standardize in AmE, reflexion in BrE but reflection in AmE, connexion in BrE but connection in AmE. So as the words in BE with -re, AmE replace it with -er even they pronounce all in same [?:]. for example, center in AmE but centre in BE, fiber in AmE but fibre in BrE, meter in AmE but metre in BrE, theater in AmE but theatre in BrE. And also Americans replace the words ends with -ence to -ense such as defence and defense, offence and offense, licence and license, pretence and pretense.

2.Meaning

English originated from the U.K., widely applied in the U.S. Based on the similar culture, America and Britain have a lot of same activities but they don't use same words to express them, so that lead to many words which have different meanings but used with same words and different meanings but used with same words. England as the birthplace of the modern football, they always attach importance to it, but in America , football means American football, and for the British one it spells soccer. Same situation in the word pants, for Americans, pants means outwear pants but for the British, it means underwear pants. And the word trainers, for Americans, it means coach but for the British, it means training shoes. First floor in AmE means first floor but in BrE it means second floor. Fringe and bangs both means hair in forehead but fringe is AmE, bangs is BrE. Torch and flashlight both means electric torch but torch is BrE flashlight is AmE. And same meaning words also use different words to express such as fall and autumn, baggage and luggage, cookie and biscuit, gallery and museum.

B.Spoken English

First of all, the mainly differences between AmE and BrE lie in the mouth shapes and the place of articulation. The British focus on decent articulation and theirs mouth shapes are tight but AmE are casual and Americans’ mouth shapes are open and relax. Second, the different pronunciations of vowel and consonant also impact the spoken English between AmE and BrE.

1.Vowel

As students we are, we always use British English as the common one, and we always think that we use the native British pronunciation in speaking English in our daily communication. But, I want to say that, as American English and British English have

many similarities and also have many fine distinctions, we always can?t distinguish them exactly. So, we can see some examples that students say both American English and British English in a sentence but they don't realize. The mixture of American pronunciation and British pronunciation is commonly seen in our daily communication and that makes the pronunciation not be native. So in my opinion, distinguish the differences on pronunciation of common words between American and British English clearly is very important. Through recognize their own characters of pronunciation, we can know them better and use them better and more exactly.

Now, let us start to make a distinction between their different pronunciations. As for the phoneme, there are two questions between American English and British English's pronunciations. One is that the same phoneme has differences in allophonic transcription between American English and British English; the other is that American English and British English use different phoneme in the same word, i.e. the differences on pronunciation.

In the United States’ development of language, spelling have occurred in a similar movement of our simplified characters (The simplified Spelling Movement), delete the word spelling in some of the letters are not pronounced. ) The letter a, the International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation is [a:] so as the British read, but Americans pronounce it in [?] and this kind words such like ask, half, dance, can’t, path etc all pronounce in [?], read like[?sk] [h?f] [d?ns] [k?nt] [p??], the different treatment with the schwa is what make pronunciations different.

Another letter o, the British pronounce it in [?] but Americans pronounce it in [/\], this kind of words such like box, crop, hot, ironic, polish, spot etc. In BrE, they read as[b?ks][kr?p][h?t][ai'r?nik][p?liJ][sp?t]but in AmE, they read as [b/\ks][kr/\p][h/\t][ai'r/\nik][p/\liJ][sp/\t].

Not only that, Americans always accentuate more vowel words than the British, and they also nasalize the double vowel such like go in BrE is [g??] but in AmE is