The British and American English

Post, Telephone, Telegraph

Text 7

Retell the text in detail.

Discuss the contents of the text.

5. Make up a dialogue on the basis of the text.

1. Read and translate the text.

Br post Br pillar box Br trunk call

Am mail Am mail box Am & Br long-distance call

Br post code Br parcel Br personal call

Am zip code Am package Am person-to-person call

Br to reverse the charges Br telegraph

Am to call collect Am wire

MOTORING

Br roundabout

Am traffic circle

Br traffic lights

Am traffic signals

Br dual carriage away

Am divided highway

Br lay-by

Am pull-off

Br diversion

Am detour

Br pavement

Am sidewalk

Br motorway

Am freeway (super highway)

Br filling station

Am gas station

Br level crossing

Am grade crossing

Br cul-de-sac

Am dead end

Br car park

Am parking lot

The early English colonists of the new world were speaking Elizabethan English, the language of Shakespeare and Marlow, when they came to America. This is important and neces­sary for our understanding of some of the features which Ameri­can English, was to develop later on.

There are very few pure languages. English has been known as a word borrower. In the formation of the American English the English-speaking colonists were brought into contact with the different peoples who spoke different languages. Many words derived from these languages, were added to the seventeenth-century form of English. First in importance come the words derived from the speech of various Indian tribes. This was caused by the necessity of talking about new things, qualities, operations, concepts, and ideas. The movement of a people to a new and different environment not only creates a problem of communication but makes it urgent.

The first colonists saw plants and animals which were new to them. Some of the fish they caught in the coastal waters were unlike anything they had seen before. The land by tribes who spoke strange languages, wore strange clothing, prepared strange foods. Even the landscape was greatly different from the neatly tailored English countryside. Names had to be given to all these aspects of their new life. So, from the many geographical names of objects (plants, animals), as well as implements and food preparation of a new kind, such as canoe, moccasin, wigwam, toboggan, tomahawk, totem, igloo, hammock, etc.

Besides the various Indian influences, American English reflects the other non-English cultures which the colonists met in their conquest of the continent. In the westward expansion of their territory, the English-speaking colonists soon came into contact with the casual French settlements in the Middle West. From the French a considerable number of words were derived, e.g. rapids, prairies, etc. more substantial borrowings were made from the Spanish colonization and culture as the English-speaking settlers moved southward and westward toward the Pacific Ocean. Spanish words were adopted at two different periods. In the early colonial days, American English received creole, mullato. Then, after the Mexican war (1846–48) contact with the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of Texas and the Spanish West resulted in borrowing of such words as canyon, ranch, sombrero. The Dutch settlers of New York contributed to American English the following words: boss, cookie, Santa Clause.

The increasing influence of the mass media has caused a steady infiltration of American words and expressions into British English. The word “okay”, for example, once exclusively American, is today normal British usage. And the word “computer”, meaning a person who travels to and from his work daily with a season ticket, is rapidly passing into British English. It is shorter and easier than the British equivalent, “season ticket holder”.

Americans are constantly inventing new words, many of which have found a permanent place first in American and then British usage. In this category we have formations like “to televise” from “television”, and compound words like “cablegram” from “cable” and “telegram” and “sportcast” from “sport” and “broadcast”. The use of nouns as verbs and vice versa has also given rise to new words. Thus we have “to park”, which now means “to put in a safe place until needed”, and today we park not only cars but also children, dogs and even chewing gum. A cheap article of good quality is a “good buy”, things to eat are “eats”, and a technical designer who produces a perfect “lay-out” (design) has “know-how”.

Foreign students with a knowledge of English often experience considerable difficulty in their first contacts with American speakers. The problem here, however, usually has more to do with pronunciation than with the language itself. Apart from the typically nasal quality of American speech, there are a number of basic differences between British and American pronunciation:

a) Words ending in -ary and -ory have a stress on the next to last syllable in American: secretary, laboratory;

b) Americans often pronounce in position where it is not pronounced in British English: car, here;

c) In such words as bath, news the American pronunciation will be…

d) Other words which are pronounced differently: tomato, address.

In American English there is an increasing tendency to employ a simplified spelling. The commonest feature of this simplified spelling is the use of -or in all words that in English contain – our: thus Americans write labour, honor, honorable, also many Americans write thru for through, Marlboro for Marlborough.

There are, however, a number of cases in which British and American people continue to use different words to mean the same thing. These words are still in constant use and have retained their national character. Here are a few examples illustrating certain variations in the two languages.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-02