Classification of pronunciation variants in English. British English

Dialectology is inseparably connected with sociolinguistics, the latter deals with language variation caused by social difference and differing social needs; it studies the ways language interacts with social reality.

Every national variant of English falls into territorial and regional varieties (dialects). A dialect is a variant of the language that includes differences in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Thus a dialect includes an accent, i.e. a unified entity of pronunciation patterns used for communicative interaction by the members of the same speech community.

Nowadays two main types of English are spoken in the English-speaking world: British English and American English (see Picture 5).

According to British dialectologists (P. Trudgill, J. Hannah, A. Hughes and others), the following variants of English are referred to the English-based group: English English, Welsh English, Australian English, New Zealand English; to the American-based group: United States English, Canadian English. Scottish English and Ireland English fall somewhere between the two, being somewhat by themselves.

According to M. Sokolova and others, English English, Welsh English, Scottish English and Northern Irish English should be better combined into the British English subgroup, on the ground of political, geographical, cultural unity which brought more similarities than differences for those variants of pronunciation.

Picture 5

Дата добавления: 2014-12-17