Appunto 3 british english vs american english

BRITISH ENGLISH VS AMERICAN ENGLISH

The English language was first introduced to the Americas by British colonizers but over the past

500 years the form of the language used in the USA, the UK and the British Isles have diverged

leading to the varieties now referred to as American English and British English. In the USA the

spoken language is mostly the same around the land while in the UK it is really different in the

different regions: scholars on American English have often commented it as a consequence of the

greater mobility of Americans.

As regards the pronunciation we can say that American English is slower and more linear, while

British English uses more different tones. American English intonation doesn’t rise or falls as

suddenly as that of British English, but has a higher pitch. The tempo of American English is rather

slower than that of the British English speech, for this reason English tend to speak of the

American drawl and Americans often speak of the obsession with clippings of the British.

So we can say that in American English there is:

- A tendency for the preservation of the –a in “secretary”

- A tendency to follow the spelling more closely than does British English

- Fewer silent consonants

- The loss of –d in “kindness”

There are also differences between dictionaries published in Britain (tend to give full and accurate

information concerning Ame/Bre variations) and those published in the USA (that are less reliable

sources).

There are also different words used:

Bre film  Ame movie

Queue line

Homely blame

Vest undershirt

Waistcoat vest

Pushchair stroller

Theater theatre

The early settlers in America borrowed many words from Native American languages: cannibal,

chocolate, cocoa etc. Typical American words are: hickory, sequoia, moose, opossum, and

raccoon. Terrapin.

Lexical relations between British English and American English have been analyzed according to 3

different approaches:

-developmental approach

-causal approach