British English and American English: Phonetic differences

 

British English and American English: Phonetic differences

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

Introduction………………………………………………………………………...3

Some basic differences between British English and American English ..………..5

1. Pronunciation Differences between British English and American English …...5

1.1. American pronunciation ………………………………………………………5

1.2. British pronunciation ………………………………………………………….5

2. Classification of main differences between British English and American English ……………………………………………………………………………..6

2.1. Differences in vowel pronunciation …………………………………………..6

2.1.1. The vowels of English ……………………………………………………....7

2.1.2. Change of diphthong [əʊ] to [oʊ] …………………………………………..8

2.1.3. Change of vowel [ɒ] ………………………………………………………...8

2.1.4. Change from [ju:] to [u:] …………………………………………………..10

2.1.5. Change of [æ] ……………………………………………………………...11

2.1.6. Minor changes ……………………………………………………………..12

2.1.6.1 Change of [I] and [aI] …………………………………………………….12

2.1.6.2 Changes of [i:] and [e] ……………………………………………………13

2.2. Differences in consonant pronunciation ……………………………………..13

2.2.1. Classifying the consonants sounds of English according to the manner and place of articulation ………………………………………………………………13

2.2.2. Pronunciation of letter t ……………………………………………………15

2.3. Rhotic accent ………………………………………………………………...16

2.4. Stress …………………………………………………………………………18

2.4.1. Change of stress ……………………………………………………………18

2.4.2. French loanwords ………………………………………………………….18

2.4.3. Ending –ate ………………………………………………………………...19

2.4.4. Suffixes -ary, -ory, -berry, and –mony …………………………………….20

2.5. Differences in articulation …………………………………………………...20

2.6. Intonation …………………………………………………………………….21

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………..22

Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………...24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

The famous Irish linguist and playwright George Bernard Shaw said: “England and America are two countries separated by a common language”. This quote still rings true today and various differences between British and American English remain. Native speakers of both varieties have relatively few problems understanding one another, but there are several points at which British and American diverge.

 

The English language is spoken in Great Britain, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand and the greater part of Canada. It is native to many who live in India, Israel, Malta and Ceylon. That’s why instead of «English» there are many «Englishes» — variations of the language. The two mostly commonly used versions of English are British and American English.

 

In the early part of the seventeenth century English settlers began to bring their language to America, and another series of changes began to take place. The settlers borrowed words from Indian languages for unknown trees and unfamiliar animals. Later they borrowed other words from settlers from other countries: French Dutch, etc. They made new combinations of English words, gave old English words entirely new meanings. Some of the new terms were needed, because there were new and un-English things to talk about. Others can be explained only on the general theory that languages are always changing, and American English is no exception.

 

Aside from the new vocabulary, differences in pronunciation, in grammatical construction, and especially in intonation developed. If the colonization had taken place a few centuries earlier, American might have become as different from English as French is from Italian. But the settlement occurred after the invention of printing, and continued through a period when the idea of educating everybody was making rapid progress. For a long time most of the books read in America came from England, and a surprising number of Americans read those books, in or out of school. Moreover, most of the colonists seem to have felt strong ties with England. In this they were unlike their Anglo-Saxon ancestors, who apparently made a clean break with their continental homes.

 

Prior to the Revolutionary War and American independence from the British in 1776, American and British accents were similar. Both were rhotic i.e. speakers pronounced the letter R in hard. Since 1776, the accents diverged but English accent in America has changed less drastically than accents in Britain.

 

Towards the end of the 18th century, non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper class; this "prestige" non-rhotic speech was standardized, and has been spreading in Britain ever since.

 

Most American accents, however, remained rhotic.

 

There are a few fascinating exceptions: New York and New England accents became non-rhotic, perhaps because of the region's British connections. Irish and Scottish accents, however, remained rhotic.

 

To be fair, both American and British English have several types of accents and there is no one true American or British accent.

 

American language is now essentially different from English. It is often very difficult to decide whether a book was written by an American or an English man. Even in speech it would be hard to prove that national differences are greater than some local differences in either country. On the whole, it now seems probable that the language habits of the two countries will grow more, rather than less, alike, although some differences will undoubtedly remain and others may develop. It also seems probable that there will be narrow-minded and snobbish people in both countries for some time to come. But generally speaking, anybody who learns to speak and write the standard English of his own country, and to regard that of the other country as a legitimate variety with certain interesting differences, will have little trouble wherever he goes.

 

There are several areas in which British and American spelling are different. The differences often come about because British English has tended to keep the spelling of words it has absorbed from other languages (e.g. French), while American English has adapted the spelling to reflect the way that the words actually sound when they're spoken.

 

The aim of the theme is to study deeply the differences of American and British English. There are thousands of differences in detail between British and American English, and occasionally they crowd together enough to make some difficulty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some basic differences between British English and American English

 

1. Pronunciation differences between British English and American English

One of the main difficulties a foreigner student may face when learning English pronunciation is the remarkable variety of accents. Like many other languages spoken in such a vast territory and by so many people, spoken English presents wide variation in pronunciation.

We use the term ‘accents’ to refer to differences in pronunciations. Pronunciation can vary with cultures, regions and speakers, but there are two major standard varieties in English pronunciation: British English and American English.

Within British English and American English there are also a variety of accents. Some of them have received more attention than others from phoneticians and phonologists. These are Received pronunciation (RP) and General American(GA).

 

1. American pronunciation

 

In the context of language learning, American pronunciation means General American (GA) pronunciation. This is the pronunciation used by educated Americans, on television and on radio. It is described in dictionaries of American English, such as the Merriam-Webster and Random House dictionaries.

Most Americans and Canadians speak something similar to General American. Whether you’re in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle or Toronto, you will generally hear the same accent. There are some regional differences, but they are usually very small. The only major exception is the South of the US (especially outside of big cities), which has its own distinct accent.

General American pronunciation is rhotic, which means that the letter r is always pronounced.

 

2. British pronunciation

 

When people talk about learning British pronunciation, they usually think of Received Pronunciation (RP). RP is the pronunciation of the British upper class; it is sometimes called the Queen’s English. This is the pronunciation that you will learn at a British language school; it is also the model taught in coursebooks and dictionaries from publishers like Oxford and Longman.

In the UK, only a small percentage of people speak something similar to RP — these are upper-class people, academics, actors, TV personalities, politicians and English teachers. Outside of these groups, RP-like pronunciation is used in the southeast of England — in the area near Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton and London.

 

“Normal” Britons usually speak with their local accents, which are often quite different from RP, and can be very hard to understand to untrained ears. 

RP is non-rhotic, which means that the letter r is usually “silent”, unless it is followed by a vowel.

 

 

2. Classification of main differences between British English and American English

 

Returning to the main differences between British English and American English, they can be summarized as follows.

 

1. Differences in vowel pronunciation. The most relevant ones are change of diphthong [əʊ], change of [ɒ], change of [æ], and change of [ju:].

 

2. Differences in consonant pronunciation. This mainly involves the different pronunciations of letter t.

 

3. The presence of rhotic accent.

 

4. Change of stress. This comprises the change of stress in French loanwords, and certain suffixes such as -ate and -atory.

 

5. Differences in articulation. American English has a clear tendency to pronounce unstressed syllables where British English does not show such a disposition.

 

 

 

2.1. Differences in vowel pronunciation

 

 

2.1.1. The vowels of English

 

Most of the differences between British and American English are

to do with the quality and length of the vowels. The most significant differences are explained in the footnotes.

 

Table 1. The Vowels of English

 

Front vowels  (tongue body is pushed forward)	Central vowels  (tongue body is neutral)	Back vowels  (tongue body is pulled back)
High/close vowels  (tongue body is raised)	/i:/ see  /I/ sit		/u:/ boot  /ʊ/ book
Mid vowels  (tongue body is intermediate)	/e/ bait*  /ε/ bet	/ə/ sofa**, /3:/ bird	/o/ boat*  /ɔ:/ bought***
Low/open vowels  (tongue body is lowered)	/æ/ bat	/Λ/ under**	/ɑ:/ father, /ɒ/ sock(BrE)

 

*In some American accents (especially Californian English), vowel sounds in words such as bait, gate, pane and boat, coat, note are not consider diphthongs. American phonologists often class them as tense monophthongs (/e/ and /o/).

 
**/ə/ is used in unstressed syllables, while /Λ/ is in stressed syllables. The vowel /Λ/ used to be a back vowel, and the symbol was chosen for this reason. This is no longer a back vowel, but a central one.

 
***A considerable amount of Americans don't have the deep /ɔ:/ in their vocabulary, they pronouce bought, ball, law with the deep /ɑ:/ sound.

According to the position of the lips:

• English front and central vowels are always unrounded.
• English back vowels /u:/, /ʊ/, /o/, /ɔ:/ are rounded (/ɑ:/ vowel is unrounded).

Vowel Tenseness:

• Tense vowels (produced with a great amount of muscular tension): / i:/, /ɔ:/, /u:/, /3:/, /ɑ:/. Tense vowels are variable in length, and often longer than lax vowels.
• Lax vowels (produced with very little muscular tension): /I/, /ε/, /æ/, /ʊ/, /ɒ/, /Λ/, /ə/. Lax vowels are always short.

 

 

2.1.2. Change of diphthong [əʊ] to [oʊ]

 

The shift from the British diphthong [əʊ] to [oʊ] is also very distinguishing. The shift consisted in the change of the mid central unrounded vowel [ə] to the close-mid back rounded vowel [o] in the first vowel of the diphthong. This shift is considered to be systematic.

 

Table 2. Change of Diphthong [əʊ] to [oʊ]

 

Word                       RP                              GA

                                                   

Go                         [gəʊ]                             [goʊ]

No                         [nəʊ]                             [noʊ]

Crow                     [krəʊ]                            [kroʊ]

Cocoa                   [ˈkəʊkəʊ]                    [ˈkoʊkoʊ]

Component           [kəmˈpəʊnənt]            [kəmˈpoʊnənt]

Promotion            [prəˈməʊSn]                [prəˈmʊSn]

Romantic               [rəʊˈmæntIk]               [roʊˈmæntIk]

 

 

2.1.3. Change of vowel [ɒ]

 

Letter o is pronounced in many different ways in English. Here we have a few illustrative examples of such diversity: Hot [ht] ɒ in RP, but [h t] in GA;

love [lΛv]; corn [kɔ:n] in RP, but [kɔ:rn] in GA; continue [kənˈtInju:]; moon [mu:n]; coast [kəʊst] in RP, but [koʊt] in GA; house [haʊs]. The so-called “short o”, which often appears in a stressed syllable with one letter o such as in dog or model, underwent a change in American English. In British English that sound is pronounced as an open back rounded short sound [ɒ], as in hot [hɒt], or possible [ˈpɒsəbl]. In American English it is pronounced either as an open back unrounded long sound [ɒ:], as in hot [hɒ:t], or as an open-mid back rounded long vowel [ɔ:], as in dog [dɔ:g]. Note that British English prefers a short sound as opposed to American English, which prefers a long sound in all cases. Table 3 shows several words in both pronunciations.

 

Table 3. Change of vowel [ɒ] to [ɒ:] and [ɔ:].

 

Word                           British English                       American English

 

Box                             [bɒks]                                    [bɒ:ks]

Chocolate                    [ˈʧɒklət]                              [ˈʧ ɒ:kl t] or [ˈʧɔ:klət]

Clock                           [klɒk]                                     [klɒ:kl]

Cost                             [kɒst]                                       [kɔ:st]

Dog                              [dɒg]                                       [dɔ:g]

Gone                            [gɒn]                                       [gɔ:n]

Got                               [gɒt]                                         [gɒ:t]

Hot                               [hɒt]                                         [hɒ:t]

Job                                [ʤɒb]                                     [ʤɒ:b]

Lot                                [lɒt]                                          [lɒ:t]

Not                                [nɒt]                                         [nɒ:t]

Off                                 [ɒf]                                         [ɒ:f] or [ɔ:f]

Possible                         [ˈpɒsəbl]                                 [ˈpɒ:səbl]

Sorry                             [ˈsɒri]                                      [ˈsɒ:ri] or [ˈsɔ:ri]

Stop                               [stɒp]                                      [stɒ:p]

Want                              [wɒnt]                                      [wɒ:nt] or [wɔ:nt]

Wasn’t                           [wɒznt]                                     [wΛznt]

What                              [wɒt]                                         [wɒ:t] or [wΛt]

 

 

According to John C. Wells, in the areas of Eastern New England, such as the Boston accent, and New York City this change did not take place. This is coherent with the same theory explaining why speakers of those areas are non-rhotic.

 

This change is framed in the context of the many vowel transformations that occurred during the 17th and 18th centuries. The change of vowel [ɒ] to [ɒ:] and [ɔ:] took place because of two phonological phenomena, namely, the father-bother merger and the lot-cloth split. A split is when a once identical sound happens to have a different pronunciation in some instances; usually both sounds coexist. A

merger is the opposite, two sound that had formerly been contrastive become pronounced alike so they are no longer considered different. A split can be viewed as the appearance of a new sound and a merger as the disappearance of an existing sound.

 

1. The father-bother merger. This merger is responsible for the transformation of [ɒ] into [ɑ:]. Vowel [ɒ] underwent two main changes: first, it was lengthened to [ɒ:], and later it lost its roundedness becoming finally [ɑ:]. Roundedness is perhaps the most distinctive difference between [ɒ] and [ɑ:] in daily speech rather than vowel length. This change took off in all varieties of American English, except for the areas of Eastern New England. The merger was quite generalized and by the end of 19th century was completely consolidated. Examples illustrating this merger are bother [bɑ:ðər], doss [d ɑ:s], top [tɑ:p], lot [lɑ:t], model [mɑ:dl], problem [prɑ:blɑ:m], rock [rɑ:k], slot [slɑ:t].

 

2. The lot-cloth split. This split came about at the end of 17th century. The sound [ɒ] was first lengthened to [ɒ:] and later raised to [ɔ:]. In principle, the split took place before voiceless fricatives [f], [θ], [s], but later it was extended to velars like [k], [g], and [ŋ]. Thus, in GA we find loft [lɔ:ft], Cloth [klɔ:θ],Lost [lɔ:st], chocolate [ʧɔ:klət], dog [dɔ:g], and long [lɔ:ŋ] are pronounced as [ɔ:], whereas in RP they are systematically pronounced as [ɒ].

 

There is a certain degree of overlap between both phenomena. For example, it is possible to find words with two pronunciations such as loft ([lɔ:ft] and [lɑ:ft]), chocolate ([ʧɔ:klət] and [ʧɔ:klət]), or long ([lɔ:ŋ] and [lɔ:ŋ]). However, the father-bother merger acted upon a larger number of words than the lot-cloth split did.

 

3. Changes to [oʊ] and [Λ]

 

The most frequent changes are from [ɒ] to [ɑ:] and [ɔ:]. However, in a very few cases vowel [ɒ] is changed to [oʊ] and [Λ]. Here we have a list with the main examples.

 

• Change to [oʊ]: in RP compost is [ˈkɒmpɒst], but in GA it is [ˈkɑ:mpoʊst]. Other words are: impost, pogrom (in the second syllable), produce (as noun), provost, riposte, scone, shalom.

 

• Change to [Λ]: hovel, hover, therefrom, wasn’t.