Phonetic and lexical peculiarities of the American English

YSPU Ushinsky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phonetic and lexical peculiarities of the American English

 

 

 

 

                                                                        Author: Bolshakova N.

                                                       Gruppa: 444

Supervisor: Shlyakhtina E. V.

 

 

 

2012

Table of contents

1. Preface                                                                                               p. 3                                                      
2. Introduction                                                                                       p. 4-5
3. Main part                                                                                           p. 6-14

1 What is American English?                                                                      p. 6-7                                                                                        

2 Phonetic                                                                                                p. 7-10

3 Vocabulary                                                                                           p. 10-12

          3.1 Prepositions                                                                                                 p. 12

3.2 Spelling                                                                                                        p. 12-13

3.3 Use of the Present Perfect                                                               p. 13

3.4 Past Simple/Past Participles                                                                        p. 13

3.5 Possession                                                                                                    p. 13-14

3.6 The Verb Get                                                                                              p. 14

4 Differences between standard British and standard American English. p. 14-16

4.1 Lexical difference                                                                                      p. 14-15

          4.2 Grammatical difference                                                                               p. 15-16

          4.3 Punctuation                                                                                                  p. 16

5 American English is ‘very corrupting’                                                 p. 16-18

Resources                                                                                                p. 19

 

 

 

 

Preface

Every language allows different kinds of variations: geographical or territorial, perhaps the most obvious, stylistic, the difference between the written and the spoken form of the standard national language and others. English is the national language of England proper, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and some provinces of Canada. It is the official language of Wales, Scotland, in Gibraltar and on the island of Malta. Modern linguistics distinguishes territorial variants of a national language and local dialects. Variants of a language are regional varieties of a standard literary language characterized by some minor peculiarities in the sound system, vocabulary and grammar and by their own literary norms.

Standard English – the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms belonging to various local dialects. Local dialects are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema.

The differences between the English language as spoken in Britain. The USA, Australia and Canada are immediately noticeable in the field of phonetics. However these distinctions are confined to the articulatory-acoustic characteristics of some phonemes, to some differences in the use of others and to the differences in the rhythm and intonation of speech. The few phonemes characteristic of American pronunciation and alien to British literary norms can as a rule be observed in British dialects.

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

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 such strange trees as the hickory and persimmon, such unfamiliar animals as raccoons and woodchucks. Later they borrowed other words from settlers from other countries - for instance, chowder and prairie from the French, scow and sleigh from the Dutch. They made new combinations of English words, such as backwoods and bullfrog, or gave old English words entirely new meanings, such as lumber (which in British English means approximately junk) and corn (which in British means any grain, especially wheat). 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. The problem of the theme is that the problem of the theme is that: A good many Englishmen and some Americans used to condemn every difference that did develop, and as recently as a generation ago it was not unusual to hear all “Americanisms” condemned, even in America. It is now generally recognized in this country that we are not bound to the Queen’s English, but have a full right to work out our own habits. Even a good many of the English now concede this, though some of them object strongly to the fact that Americanisms are now having an influence on British usage.

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. If you read that a man, having trouble with his lorry, got out his spanner and lifted the bonnet to see what was the matter, you might not realize that the driver of the truck had taken out his wrench and lifted the hood. It is amusing to play with such differences, but the theory that the American language is now essentially different from English does not hold up. 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 learnsto 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. General American - like the British Received Pronunciation as well as most standard language varieties of many other societies - was never the accent of the entire nation. Rather, it is most closely related to a generalized Midwestern accent and is spoken particularly by many newscasters, in part because the national broadcasters preferred to hire people who exhibited similar speech. Famous news anchor Walter Cronkite is a good example of a broadcaster using this accent. Since Cronkite was born in Missouri, and spent his first dozen years there, some assumed that General American was the regional accent of the state, although Cronkite's teen years were spent in Texas, which is not known for having "accentless" speakers. General American is sometimes promoted as preferable to other regional accents; in the United States, classes promising "accent reduction" generally attempt to teach speech patterns similar to this accent.

The well-known television journalist Linda Ellerbee, who worked hard early in her career to eliminate a Texas accent, stated, "in television you are not supposed to sound like you're from anywhere." Some sources suggest this is less true today than it was formerly. General American is also the accent generally taught to individuals from other countries learning English as a second language in the United States, as well as outside the country to anyone who wishes to learn "American English."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Main part

1 What is American English?

Everyone knows that Americans speak English differently than the British or Australians or even Canadians do, but most of the time we think of these differences in terms of the way we pronounce certain words (i.e., our accents). Most people also know that there are some differences that manifest themselves in written language as well as speech, including well-known lexical variations such as lorry/truck, pavement/sidewalk, tap/faucet, autumn/fall, etc. But beyond calling some things by different names, there are many other peculiarities of American English in its phrasing and syntax that set it apart from other brands of the English language. For example, phrases such as "omit to", "endure to", etc. are common in British usage but rarely occur in American English; and the bare infinitive after "insist", "demand", "require", etc. (e.g., "I insist he be here by noon.") is common in American English but rare in other brands of English. There are also considerable semantic differences between British and American English, for example: "tuition" is not used to cover tuition fees in British English; "surgery" in British English is "doctor's office" in American English; "school" does not include higher education in British English, etc. Usage not only differs but can be misleading, for example, British English uses "sick" for the American "nauseous", whereas "sick" in American English is comparable to "ill" in British English; British "braces" are U.S. "suspenders", while "suspenders" in British English refers to something else entirely.

Of course, even within the U.S. there are considerable variations in not only terminology, but also phrasing and syntax, as you move from region to region across the nation. In fact, the characteristics of different "brands" of American English has been a topic of considerable interest for at least 100 years, and has led to the creation of a Dictionary of American Regional English, a multi-volume work-in-progress that documents regional variations in terminology and pronunciation across the U.S. Very recently, PBS aired a program entitled Do You Speak American?, based on a book by Robert MacNeil and William Cran, which examined in depth variations in American English and the sociological impact of language use in the U.S. What we learn from all of these sources is that American English is a rich English "dialect" of its own, with possibly numerous sub-varieties (including ebonics, chicano, etc.) that manifest their own fascinating characteristics, many of them a result of influences from other languages and cultures that have played - and/or continue to play - a defining role in U.S. history. It also tells us that the language is constantly developing, and that new words and constructs arise every day in (especially) Americans' use of English.

Approximately two-thirds of the world's 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 the common language used by the federal government and is considered the de facto language of the United States because of its widespread use. English has been given official status by 28 of the 50 state governments.

2 Phonetic

Compared with English as spoken in England, North American English is more homogeneous. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast (for example, in eastern New England and New York City) partly because these areas were in close contact with England and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when these were undergoing changes. In addition, many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations for centuries, while the interior of the country was settled by people from all regions of the existing United States and developed a far more generic linguistic pattern.

The red areas are those where non-rhotic pronunciations are found among some Caucasians in the United States. AAVE-influenced non-rhotic pronunciations may be AAVE speakers throughout the country.

Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English, West Country English and Scottish English as well as the fact most regions of England at this time also had rhotic accents. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter r is an alveolar approximant [ɹ] or retroflex [ɻ] rather than a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to the accents of eastern New England, New York City and surrounding areas and the coastal portions of the South, and African American Vernacular English.

In rural tidewater Virginia and eastern New England, 'r' is non-rhotic in accented (such as "bird", "work", "first", "birthday") as well as unaccented syllables, although this is declining among the younger generation of speakers. Dropping of syllable-final r sometimes happens in natively rhotic dialects if r is located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in a consonant. In England, the lost r was often changed into [ə] (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs.[citation needed] Furthermore, the er sound of fur or butter, is realized in AmE as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] as represented in the IPA). This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.

Some other English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:

• The shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called "broad A") before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance.[citation needed] In the United States, only eastern New England speakers took up this modification, although even there it is becoming increasingly rare.
• The realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ] (as in [ˈbɒʔəl] for bottle). This change is not universal for British English and traditionally is not considered a feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North American dialects. Newfoundland English in Canada is a notable exception.

On the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound changes not found in other varieties of English speech:

• The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, making father and bother rhyme. This change is nearly universal in North American English, and has given rise to alternative spellings of common English language names, for example, Byonka (Bianca), both of which sound identical. Another example is Antwon (Antoin). Exceptions are accents in northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, and in New York City.
• The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɔ/. This is the so-called cot–caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones. This change has occurred in eastern New England, in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, and from the Great Plains westward.
• For speakers who do not merge caught and cot: The replacement of the cot vowel with the caught vowel before voiceless fricatives (as in cloth, off [which is found in some old-fashioned varieties of RP]), as well as before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long), usually in gone, often in on, and irregularly before /ɡ/ (log, hog, dog, fog [which is not found in British English at all]).
• The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what and in many utterances of the words everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody; the word because has either /ʌ/ or /ɔ/; want has normally /ɔ/ or /ɑ/, sometimes /ʌ/.
• Vowel merger before intervocalic /ɹ/. Which vowels are affected varies between dialects, but the Mary-marry-merry, nearer-mirror, and hurry–furry mergers are all widespread. Another such change is the laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like [pɛɹ], [pɪɹ] and [pjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure. The resulting sound [ʊɹ] is often further reduced to [ɝ], especially after palatals, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir.
• Dropping of /j/ is more extensive than in RP. In most North American accents, /j/ is dropped after all alveolar and interdental consonant, so that new, duke, Tuesday, resume are pronounced /nu/, /duk/, /ˈtuzdeɪ/, /ɹɪˈzum/.
• æ-tensing in environments that vary widely from accent to accent; for example, for many speakers, /æ/ is approximately realized as [eə] before nasal stops. In some accents, particularly those from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City, [æ] and [eə] contrast sometimes, as in Yes, I can [kæn] vs. tin can [keən].
• The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are pronounced the same. For many speakers, this merger is incomplete and does not occur after /aɪ/; these speakers tend to pronounce writer with [ʌɪ] and rider with [aɪ]. This is a form of Canadian raising but, unlike more extreme forms of that process, does not affect /aʊ/. In some areas and idiolects, a phonemic distinction between what elsewhere become homophones through this process is maintained by vowel lengthening in the vowel preceding the formerly voiced consonant, e.g., [ˈlæːɾɚ] for "ladder" as opposed to [ˈlæɾɚ] for "latter".
• T glottalization is common when /t/ is in the final position of a syllable or word (get, fretful: [ɡɛʔ], [ˈfɹɛʔfəl]), though this is always superseded by the aforementioned rules of flapping.
• Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], making winter and winner homophones. In most areas where /nt/ is reduced to /n/, it is accompanied further by nasalization of simple post-vocalic /n/, so that /Vnt/ and /Vn/ remain phonemically distinct. In such cases, the preceding vowel becomes nasalized, and is followed in cases where the former /nt/ was present, by a distinct /n/. This stop-absorption by the preceding nasal /n/ does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.
• The pin–pen merger, by which [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before nasal stops, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in Southern American English but is now also sometimes found in parts of the Midwest and West as well, especially in people with roots in the mountainous areas of the Southeastern United States.

Some mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include:

• The merger of the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before 'r', making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, etc. homophones.
• The wine–whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where, etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating /ʍ/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. Many older varieties of southern and western American English still keep these distinct, but the merger appears to be spreading.
• The American R is like a vowel because it does not touch anywhere in the mouth. In Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Greek and many other languages, the R is a consonant because it touches behind the teeth. The American R is produced deep in the throat. Like the French R and the German R, the American R is in the throat, but unlike those two consonant sounds, it doesn't touch. Let's contrast two similar sounds: [ä] and [r]. Hold your hand out in front of you, with your palm up, like you are holding a tray on it. Slightly drop your hand down, and say ah, like you want the doctor to see your throat. Now, curl your fingers up slightly, and say [r]. Your tongue should feel in about the same position as your hand.

3 Vocabulary

Probably the major differences between British and American English lies in the choice of vocabulary. Some words mean different things in the two varieties for example:

Mean: (American English - angry, bad humored, British English - not generous, tight fisted)

Rubber: (American English - condom, British English - tool used to erase pencil markings)

There are many more examples. If there is a difference in usage, your dictionary will note the different meanings in its definition of the term. Many vocabulary items are also used in one form and not in the other. One of the best examples of this is the terminology used for automobiles.

American English - hood British English - bonnet

American English - trunk British English - boot

American English - truck British English - lorry

Once again, your dictionary should list whether the term is used in British English or American English. For a more complete list of the vocabulary differences between British and American English use this British vs. American English vocabulary tool.

The existing cases of difference between British English and American English, are con­veniently classified into:

1) Cases where there are no equivalents in British English: drive-in a cinema where you can see the film without getting out of your car' or 'a shop where motorists buy things staying in the car'; dude ranch 'a sham ranch used as a summer residence for holiday-makers from the cities'. The noun dude was originally a contemptuous nickname given by the inhabitants of the Western states to those of the Eastern states. Now there is no contempt intended in the word dude. It simply means 'a person who pays his way on a far ranch or camp'.

2) Cases where different words are used for the same denotatum, such as can, candy, mailbox, movies, suspenders, truck in the USA and tin, sweets, pillar-box (or letter-box), pictures or flicks, braces and lorry in England.

3) Cases where the semantic structure of a partially equivalent word is different. The word pavement, for example, means in the first place 'covering of the street or the floor and the like made of asphalt, stones or some other material'. The derived meaning is in England 'the footway at the side of the road'. The Americans use the noun sidewalk for this, while pavement with them means 'the roadway'.

4) Cases where otherwise equivalent words are different in distribu­tion. The verb ride in Standard English is mostly combined with such nouns as a horse, a bicycle, more seldom they say to ride on a bus. In Amer­ican English combinations like a ride on the train to ride in a boat are quite usual.

5) It sometimes happens that the same word is used in American Eng­lish with some difference in emotional and stylistic colouring. Nasty, for example, is a much milder expression of disapproval in England than in the States, where it was even considered obscene in the 19th century. Politician in England means 'someone in polities', and is derogatory in the USA. Professor Shweitzer, pays special attention to phenomena dif­fering in social norms of usage. E.g. balance in its lexico-semantic vari­ant 'the remainder of anything' is substandard in British English and quite literary in America.