A Brief Analysis on Differences between American English and British English 浅析英式英语与美式英语的差异.doc

浅析英式英语与美式英语的差异一、 课题(论文)提纲0.引言1.英式英语与美式英语的历史与演变1.1英式英语的历史1.2美式英语的历史1.3美式英语对英式英语的影响2.剖析英式英语与美式英语的不同2.1发音差异2.2词汇差异2.3拼写差异2.4语法差异3.英式英语与美式英语在实际应用中的差异3.1信件习惯上的不同3.2在人家交流中产生的歧异3.3行话差异4.英语的现状与未来5.结论二、内容摘要全球一体化的今天，英语作为世界通用语言，在人们的日常生活中，不论是民间交往或官方交流中扮演着极其重要的角色。由于美国已经处于国际上较高的地位，美式英语逐渐流行起来，美式英语与英式英语成为了英语语系中比较重要的两种。并且也已被一向高傲的英国人承认，而且英国人开始学习使用比较简单化的美式英语。虽然美式英语同英式英语一样都是英语，但是其不同之处甚多。英语在众多的英语国家中都有各自的方言，俗语层出不穷，当然误解意思的事情也经常发生。同时在现代的生活中，时间是每个现代人宝贵的财富，传统的英式英语相对复杂，而美式英语便捷实用，符合历史的潮流。英国，美国，加拿大等英语大国的学者也已经意识到这种趋势，并且从语法，词汇，使用等方面总结出两种语言的差异。关键词：英式英语；美式英语三、 参考文献1Albert C Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language, Routlege, 1993. 2崔更国，英国英语和美国英语语言用法上的不同，石家庄铁路工程职业技术学院，2004.6，第3期。3David S. Jackson, 流行美语，上海：上海世界图书出版公司，2004.4侯宁海，美语、英语分类对照手册，合肥：中国科学技术大学出版社，1997。5李赋宁，英语史，北京：商务印书馆，2004。6林天送，21世纪英美文法，北京：中国国际广播出版社；（台湾）建宏出版社，1999。7刘榕，试论英国英语和美国英语的词汇差异，宁德师专学报，2003，第2期。9俞杰，英语的变易，北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2005。A Brief Analysis on Differences between American English and British English AbstractIn todays 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 EnglishIts 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 EnglishWhile 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 EnglishThe 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 pronunciationOn 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 |wnt|(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(American English), advertisement (British English)-advertisement (American 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. Thats why, to most people, spoken American English seems easier to understand than spoken British English.2.2. Differences in VocabularyThe 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 spellingGenerally 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 grammarOn 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 dont Vs I havent); American 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 Ive 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 (Its twenty