English Language: American or British [5]
论文作者:佚名论文属性:硕士毕业论文 dissertation登出时间:2009-04-15编辑:黄丽樱点击率:12450
论文字数:3511论文编号:org200904151658187464语种:英语 English地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:English LanguageAmericanBritishdifferenceculture
For example, accommodation becomes countable (e.g. Good accommodations are rare); some irregular verbs become regular (e.g. broadcasted, shined); some regular verbs become irregular (snuck out for British English sneaked out); some intransitive verbs become transitive (e.g. The plane departed New York; We protested the salary cuts); some transitive verbs become intransitive (e.g. I visited with my friends for British English I visited my friends): some adjectives may be used as adverbs (e.g. It’s real nice). Other major violations of British English syntax are seen in usages such as: A is different than B, where than is used without the corresponding –er/more or less required for comparatives; in Susan wants out, where a whole verb and its preceding particle (to go) are omitted; in like I said where like, instead of British English as, introduces a clause; in I want for you to go, where there is a major intrusion of a preposition; in He looked out the window, where there is a major deletion of a preposition; in He just left, where, despite the clear fact that a past action has some relevance to the present, the present perfect is not used. And so on.
An informal survey recently carried out among teachers of English who had been working for long, showed that, although they declared that they readily accepted American English, they would consider the above American English usages, and many more as incorrect. All they know of American English is –or for –our (e.g. color), -ize for ise, center for centre and similar minor and common differences.
The problem of multiple standards is aggravated in countries like those of the former British Empire where indigenized varieties of English have already established themselves athoritively as local standards. There, the intrusion of American English adds to the already existing conflict and competition between British English and the local forms. Awonusi (1994) aptly describes this phenomenon in Nigeria. What’s more, other countries, like China, face a similar situation. In China English for example, the most interesting manifestation of this triple scale is when a local English form establishes itself, and differs from both the established British English and American English forms. For example, you relax in a sitting room in Britain, a living room in America and a parlour in China; you fill in form in Britain, fill out a form in the US and fill a form in China. Phonology offers many more of such systematic contrasts.
In addition to problems of correctness discussed above, the divergences between American and British English raised problems of intelligibility that cannot be altogether overlooked.
Studies specifically measuring the intelligibility between American English and British English are not available to me at the moment. But others involving the intelligibility of the two varieties, from the point of view of the non-native speaker, do exist, and show that American English and British English do not have the same degree of intelligibility. For example, in Smith’s (1992) study conducted in America, a British English speaker (interacting with a Papua Guinean) is 70% understandable to non-native speakers while an American (interacting with an Indonesian is 90% undertandable). The rates of comprehensibility and interpretability in the same context are 90% and 60%, 10% and 30%, respectively.
Differences between American English and British English would have no major impact on intelligibi
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