«POPULARITY AND VARITIES OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
AMERICAN VARIANT OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE»
Pupil: Polovinkina Marina,
Class 10,
Teacher: Medvedeva E. N.
Rossosh
2018
Contents
page
Introduction ……………………………………………………….. 3
I. General characteristic of the English language ………………….. 4
The roots of the English language
1.2. Historic events influenced the development of
the English language
II. Geographical spreading of the English language across the world 6
The expansion of English in different historic periods
Modern “English-speaking world”
Popularity of the English language
III. American variety of the English language ……………………… 8
3.1. The distinctive features of American and British varieties
of the English language
3.2. Conservatism of American variety of English
Conclusion ………………………………………………………… 13
List of literature ……………………………………………………. 14
Introduction
Having started to learn a new theme about popularity of the English language at our English lesson, we of course knew that in a lot of countries peoples speak English, study it; that this language is considered to be international and is called “Latin of the 21st century”. But we did not realize how wide English is spread and how many varieties of it exist. These varieties may be national and regional. But British English and American English, for definite historical reasons, are the two most influential dialects.
The theme of popularity and variations of the English language, extent to which English has spread drew our attention with its actuality. It became interesting for us to gain an understanding of differences between American English and British English; to analyze and try to ground these differences. It has become the aim of our work. The object of the research is spreading of English and the existence of its variations. The subject is American variant of the English language. We have possibility to compare it with British variant as we study precisely this “classic” variety at school.
The aim supposed the following objectives:
To consider geographical spreading of the English language across the
world. To understand the reason why so many countries use this language.
To analyze information in which areas there are more differences between British and American varieties of English.
To determine which of the two variants is more conservative.
In our work we used the following methods and ways: work with reference, scientific and popular literature, and work with dictionaries; collecting and analysis of information; choosing and systematization of illustrative examples.
This activity was new and absorbing for us. We tried to do a kind of scientific research in such a complicated branch as linguistic. The most difficult thing for us was to work with literature in English and unilingual dictionaries as our knowledge of this language is not on the sufficient level yet.
Our project work had a very definite practical meaning – we presented some stages of it at our English lessons in a form of short reports and excited the curiosity in our classmates as we had found out and told them about such things they had never head before.
I. General characteristic of the English language
The roots of the English language
The English Language rose from the Anglo-Saxon language (or Old English). This language was brought to Britain by Germanic tribes – the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes in the second half of the 5-th century when they crossed the channel and invaded Great Britain [6]. These tribes gave England its name, which meant “The Land of Angles”, and they also made the base for the English Language and its vocabulary. By that time the Romans, who had invaded Great Britain several centuries before, had to leave it. The island remained a Roman colony for more than 3 centuries and during that period the Romans built many roads and towns.
The population of these towns used Latin alongside of their own native Celtic speech, but they did not use written speech a lot, that was why not very many Latin words remained at that time [2]. In 410 the Roman legions were with drawn from Great Britain, for the Goths were at the gates of Rome and the Romans rushed to defend their Empire. Anglo-Saxon invaders met stubborn resistance and succeeded in establishing themselves only after much fighting. That is why their advance was very slow and gradual – it took them nearly 4 centuries after the beginning of the invasion and it ended only at the beginning of the 9-th century. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes had little contacts with their motherland, they communicated with each other and with native population.
Historic events influenced the development of the English
language
At the end of the 6-th – at the beginning of the 7-th centuries monks from Rome came to Great Britain. Their aim was the introduction of Christianity. The population accepted not only this religion, but also the Latin alphabet, which substituted the Germanic alphabet – Runic. As a result, a lot of Latin words connected mainly with religion and science were adopted [6].
At the end of the 8-th century the Anglo-Saxons began to suffer from the attacks of the Scandinavian tribes. In the 9-th – 10-th centuries these attacks turned into invasion. They occupied a vast territory of England. The Scandinavians lived side by side with the Anglo-Saxons and constant process of assimilation was going on for centuries, which influenced both languages.
Most of all Scandinavian dialects influenced the vocabulary; several hundred words were borrowed during this period. They were common words naming things, objects and phenomena around people; words connecting with weather and nature. Great was the influence on English pronunciation as well.
A very important role in the development of the English language played the Norman conquest of 1066. In that year a considerable army headed by William, duke of Normandy, crossed the Channel and defeated the English army. William, later known as William the Conqueror, became king of England. The greater part of the English nobility was either killed or fled from the country and their places were filled by William’s French followers. All the important positions in the government, army and church were occupied by the French. Thus the French language became the official language of the country and remained so for about three centuries. The English population, naturally, spoke English, but gradually many of them learned and practiced French. The two languages influenced each other, and when in the 14- th century English won in its fight with French, it was extremely greatly influenced by the latter. It was especially felt in the vocabulary of English and in its spelling [2].
There were several dialects of the English language at that time. But because of the fact that London had been the official capital of the country since William the Conqueror, that London became the political, cultural and economic centre of England; after that London dialect to become a national language.
In modern English it is possible to express one and the same idea with the help of several different words. And these words are not simply synonyms. The fact is that during a long period of time English has borrowed and adopted words from different languages.
II. Geographical spreading of the English language across the world
2.1. The expansion of English in different historic periods
The beginning of the British Empire was in1583 when Queen Elisabeth I sent English ships to explore and join new lands. These expeditions were always successful.
In the 18-th century England occupied Canada, India and Australia. More and more lands on different continents became the part of the Empire. People said that the sun never set on the British Empire – so large it was. Its territories were on all continents, and its isles were in all oceans [3].
Towards the beginning of the 20-th century the British Empire had the population of about 500 million people. And everywhere English was implanted after gaining new territories and national languages and cultures were suppressed.
The other historical reason for the expansion and popularity of the English language (this time its American variant) is the growing economic and cultural influence of the United States of America and its status as a global super power state since the end of World War II [7].
2.2. Modern “English-speaking world”
English is spoken as a first language by about 400 million people living in 12 countries. For more than 500 million people it is used as a second language. English is the main language not only in such countries as the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but it is also the main language in many countries of Africa and the Caribbean, on the islands of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans [9].
Other countries in which English is an official language are: Botswana, Cameroon, Dominica, the Federal states of Micronesia, Liberia, Madagascar, Malta, Sri Lanka, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, the Solomon Islands, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, South and West Africa [1].
Popularity of the English language
The popularity of English is constantly growing.
English is the most taught foreign language in the world.
300 million Chinese pupils study English at schools. In France pupils have to learn one foreign language. They may choose between English and German. Nowadays most of them, at least 85% choose English. Even more, France is very close to accept it as a second official language. In Russian schools most pupils study English. In Norway, Dane and Sweden learning English is obligatory.
Nowadays the English language is the language of international communication; it is the language of up-to-date global economy; it is the language of the advanced science and high technologies. English is the universal language of communications – from the international language of aviation and tourism to the language of e-mail, the Internet and computer language [5].
III. American variety of the English language
Why people who know English, when they arrive to the United States, have got so many difficulties in communication with citizens of this country?
To understand better the peculiarities of American variant of the English language it seems worth while to compare these two variants, as British variant is considered to be a standard of the national English language [2].
The distinctive peculiarities of American and British varieties of the English language
These peculiarities and differences are especially seen in the following areas: semantics, pronunciation, spelling and grammar [6].
SEMANTICS
There are two important types of differences in the meanings of words in the two variants:
The same object may have a completely different name.
The same word is used in both varieties, but it may have a completely different meaning.
TYPE I: same objects, different names
Some of the biggest differences are in the words used for basic everyday things, such as common foods, household equipment, the parts of a car, numerals etc [4].
For example:
BE AE
mobile phone cellphone
petrol gas
cooker stove
sweets candy
holiday vacation
ticket agent booking clerk
billion trillion
milliard billion
etc.
TYPE II: same word, different meanings
WORD BE AЕ
football a game played all over the world a game played in the US
with a round ball (it’s kicked, not with an egg-shaped ball
thrown). Americans call this game (can be both kicked and
soccer thrown). The English call
it American football
chips long thin pieces of potato, fried thin flat pieces of potato,
and eaten hot. Americans call fried and eaten cold. The
these fries or French fries English call these crisps
etc.
Differences of this type are very confusing. They are called American/English “false friends” [8].
SPELLING
There are many spelling differences between the two variants. Some of these affect individual words, so they simply have to be learned.
We analyzed some common words and chose these ones:
BE AE
-our -or
colour, favourite, labour color, favorite, labor
-tre -tor
centre, theatre, center, theater,
-l- -ll-
skillful, appal skillfull, appall
GRAMMAR
In general, differences in grammar between the two variants are relatively slight. There are, however, a few noticeable differences in tense formation, subject-verb agreement, and the use of the present perfect [6].
Subject-verb agreement
In British English collective nouns (referring to groups of people) are often followed by a plural verb. This does not use in American English.
BE: The football team are rather weak this year.
AE: The football team is rather weak this year [2].
Use of the present perfect
American speakers use the present perfect less than British speakers, often using the simple past instead, especially in sentences with words like just, yet, already.
BE: Has Sam just left? Sam has left already.
AE: Did Sam just leave? Sam left already.
PRONUNCIATION
In pronunciation especially we can see the difference, between American variant and British variant. Having analyzed some words it is possible to conclude: there are differences in pronunciation of certain vowels, different pronunciation of the sound / r / after vowels, differences in pronunciation of individual words, different patterns of intonation and different patterns of word-stress [5].
Vowel a
BE AE
/a:/ - /э/
after, ask, past, path, last, bath
/o/ - /a/
not, possible, stop
etc.
The sounds /ju:/ and /u:/
In some words, British speakers say /ju:/ and Americans speakers say /u:/ when after them follow /d/, /t/, /p/, /l/, or /n/:
word BE AE
stupid /stju:pid/ /stu:pid/
tulip /tju:lip/ /tu:lip/
duty /dju:ti/ /du:ti/
etc.
Vowels followed by /r/
Vowels with an /r/ following them are called r-coloured. These are pronounced without /r/ by British speakers, but most American speakers pronounce /r/:
word BE AE
bird /b3:d/ /b3:rd/
dark /da:k/ /da:rk/
However, if the /r/ appears in front of a vowel in the next word, it is pronounced by both British and American speakers:
…star is … /sta:r iz/.
There are also numerous differences in the pronunciation of individual words: clerk, either, nephew, schedule, suggest, tomato, etc [7].
STRESS
British and American variants have different stress patterns in words with two or more syllables.
word BE AE
debris /`debri:/ /de`bri:/
In words with several syllables like secretary American speakers emphasize the ending more than British speakers, so that the word has an extra syllable [4]:
word BE AE
secretary /`secretri/ /`secre,teri/
territory /`teretri/ /`tere,tori/
Intonation
American English differ from British English as it has less “rich” patterns of intonation. American speech is “flatter”. Rise – fall tunes with its specific variations are smoothed [6].
In the vocabulary of American English there are words which do not exist in New English and are not used now. They are considered to be out-of-date.
3.2. Conservatism of American variety of English
We asked our friends and classmates which of the two variants on their opinion is more archaic and conservative, as we wanted to find out the opinion of “ordinary” people. Most people believe that British variant is more conservative and it is less exposed to changes. Probably they think so because they try to connect the language and their notion of English people: they are calm, pedantic, not very emotional; they do not want “great” changes in their lives, customs and traditions [2]. We also thought so.
Differences in semantics, vocabulary, spelling, grammar and especially in pronunciation, as well as the existence of a great number of idiomatic expressions – these all are the reasons why people who know English, when they arrive in the United States of America, have sometimes considerable difficulties in communication with its citizens. Only after spending here some time they begin to feel more or less, so to say, “in their plate”, i.e. they reach understanding [7].
Conclusion
The object of the research work is spreading of English and the existence of its variations. The subject is American variant of the English language.
The main result of this project work is the understanding of the reasons why so many countries use this language. I have analyzed all found information in which areas there are more differences between British and American varieties of English and have systematized this information. I have concluded that American English is more archaic, conservative and is behind British English in its development.
So, I carried out the aim –I have gained an understanding of differences between American English and British English.
In this work we used the following methods and ways : work with reference, scientific and popular literature, and work with dictionaries; collecting and analysis
of information, choosing and systematization of illustrative examples.
And the main thing: we realized how important it is to learn English. Global English is gradually, and very fast, becoming the most spreading language in the world.
The work on the project was rather hard, but very interesting and creative. We felt to be real linguists. This activity is quite new and has a great practical meaning – we have learned to work with dictionaries of different types, with scientific and popular literature in English though has been difficult.
It is necessary to say that this project turned out to be a kind of distinctive work on professional orientation – I experienced what a job of a linguist is.
List of Literature
M. Benson, E. Benson, R. Ilson. The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English. – M.: The Russian Language, 1990.
M. Goldenkov. Cool English. – Minsk: Galaxias, 1996.
A. S. Hornby. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. – Oxford.: OUP, 1995.
A. Kunin. English – Russian Phraseological Dictionary. M.: State Publishing House of Foreign and National Dictionaries, 1956.
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. – Oxford: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2006.
A. I. Smirnitsky. Lectures on the History of English. – M.: “Dobrosvet”,
2006.
7. http://miresperanto.narod.ru
8. https://ru.wikipedia.org/
9. http://www.native-english.ru/articles/history
10. http://www.lingvo-online.ru/ru
11. http://real-english.ru/articles/difference-british-american-english.htm
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