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lity if they only concerned, for example, features in phonology like American English rhoticity, darkening of “l” across the board, the nasal twang, some word stress differences; in spelling like –ize, -or and –er discussed above; or in lexis items like vacation, movie, cab, schedule (for British English timetable), etc. But the various levels of analysis offer more serious, and very often, less known divergences. In phonology for example, a learner who is used to British English /dentist, kla:k, le3e/ (dentist, clerk, leisure) may not find (American English) /deni:st, kle:rk, li:3er/ intelligibe unless the context is very supportive. And when one bears in mind that processes yielding there differences affect a multitude of other words, one easily understands the risk of intelligibility failure. Lexis also offers very interesting cases. A user of British English who listens to or reads American English will face problems of intelligibility with words that do not exist in his/her own version like faucet (British English tap), janitor (caretaker), pitcher (jug), mortician (undertaker), realtor (estate agent), closet (cupboard), penitentiary [noun] (prison). He/she will also find words which exist in his/her variety, but have a different meaning. The difference in meaning may be negligible and not cause communication problems, as in American English vacation vs British English holidays, call (by phone) vs ring, schedule vs time; both members of these pairs, in particular, and many others, are now used in Britain, which further reduces the risk of communication failure. But major semantic differences sometimes exist, such as between (American English) first floor, second floor and British English ground floor, first floor, pants and trousers, gas and petrol, (from American English, 12th of February 1998). These extreme cases of divergence may cause communication problems or great embarrassment in some cases. Just imagine an American English speaker directing a British English speaker to the first or second floor, asking him/her for gas, asking him/her to show his/her pants, and you will agree that American English and British English are not “so overwhelmingly alike”, as claimed above. Cases of communication failure (or potential failure) due to such lexico-semantic problems are reported by Modiano. They include American English round trip ticket vs British English return ticket, American English eraser vs British English rubber, and British English public school (vs its American English meaning). Modiano requested a ticket to London but he was asked whether he wanted a return ticket. Interpreting return ticket as meaning a ticket from London to the place from which he was travelling, Modiano replied, “How do you expect me to get there?” As for British English rubber, the author found that in American English it is an American slang for the word condom and its use in some contexts may cause embarrassment. Modiano go on noticed that the British English use of Rubber rather than eraser is unknown in the US. Concerning public school, Modiano points out the contrast in British English where it means privately owned institutions and in American English where it means “schools owned and operated with public funds”. Efforts to be made The best thing to deal with the situation of co-existence, or competition, of American English and British English would be some kind of harmonization. This solution, which suggests changing the natural course本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。