English Language: American or British?_英语教学论文,English

English Language: American or British?_英语教学论文由英语作文网整理收集

Being the paternal language of the other native Englishes (Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and South African English), British English and American English today are the two main English languages of the English- eaking world. Although too many has already been said over how the scope, the types, and the po ible effects of the inco istency between the two kinds will be in the future, the quarrel on the i ue has not come to an end at all.The cover of the journal Forum XXVII, No 3, July 1989, recalling the topic and provides a research of evidence of the difference between the two kinds of English over the centuries. Noah We ter (in Di ertatio on the English Language) claimed that a further incompatibility of the American language from the English nece ary and inevitable. He also predicted that “North American English would eventually be as different from British as Dutch, Danish and Swedish are from German or from one another”. Mark Twain (in The Stolen White Elephant) thought American and British English to be different languages and declared that the former, oken “in its utmost purity”, ca ot be understood by an English people at all. This attitude was previously expre ed by Captain Thomas Hamilton (in Men and Ma ers in America). He said that “in another century, the dialect of the America will become utterly unintelligible to an Englishman.”Authors of the twentieth century hold entirely different attitude toward those of the previous centuries, they tend to have a much more distinctive feeling of samene between American and British English. Thus, Mitford M. Mathews (from Begi ings of American English) sees the two kinds to be “so overwhelmingly alike.” For Stephen Leacock (from How to Write), “There is not the faintest chance of there ever being an American language as apart from English.” Randolph Quirk (in The New York Times Magazine), believes that, ”even in matters of pronunciation, it is difficult to find many a olute British and American distinctio ”; Quirk claimed that even Noah We ter, after fruitle years in trying to create a “linguistic gulf”, “came to realize that in all e entials Britai and America oke the same language”. Albert H. Marckwardt and Randolph Quirk lately expre ed their conclusion that they co ider British English and American as the same in their book A Common Language: British and American English. It’s Introduction which is an excerpt from the book reads that “The two varieties of English have never been so different as people have imagined, and the dominant tendency, for several decades now, has been that of convergence and even greater similarities.”The present books argues that this growing view of samene between American and British English give out the risk of neglecting the existence of some significant differences whose impact in certain domai of life should not be overlooked. But before looking into the problems which arise from the differences between the two Englishes, I will give a background showing the development proce of the status of American English in the world, its influence and expa ion and analyze it’s causes of growing.1. The development and popularity of American EnglishLong after its introduction into the New World, American English was still co idered non-standard English. Mr. Kahane pointed out that according to some people of the 1780s American English was the “underdog” or a peasant’s language that a “gentleman” will not eak. Co idered in a bilingual point of view, British English was the dominant language linked to prestige and (linguistic) purism. The belief in the authority or say in the superior of British English, has maintained to the twentieth century, e ecially in the former British Empire or in the fields of British influence. Thus, it is reported that in China, teachers and school textbooks refer to and recommend Received Pronunciation as the model, as well as standard British syntax, elling and lexis. British English is also encouraged and accepted as the criteria of some major official examinatio , for example, College English Test and Test for English Majors which are conducted by government. Similar situatio could be found in other countries, for example, in Africa, the West African Examination Council and Joint Admi ion and Matriculation Board accept the British English as the standard English. Report can also be found that in Cairo, as recently as 1984, some university students received lower grades if they used American ellings i tead of British. Modiano wrote that in Europe, “we find teachers, British people as well as natives of the country in which they work, who follow the British English standard, and scorn the American English”.However the above attitudes are nothing but the last influence of a long-gone period of British supremacy. According to Cam ell and others, the begi ing of a distinct lead of American English can be traced to the decades after World War II. This coincides with the simultaneous rise of the US as a military and technological power and the decline of the British Empire, which drove many to American English. And from then on, American English has continuously sent its influence to every corner of the planet.Britain made English an international language in the nineteenth century with its imperialism power, but America have been the driving force behind its globalization in the twentieth century. A great deal of examples of the influence of American English can be found in a large quantity of current books, magazines, movies. According to Foster, the popularity of Americanism among the young generation in Britain is “the hall-mark of the tough-guy and the he-man”. After reviewing the presence of American English features in the British variety of English itself, Awonusi gives a great deal of examples of Americanized English in phonology and lexis that he has identified co-exiting in his own Nigerian English. Modiano reports that, de ite the influence of expert English teachers from Britain, Europea “are subjected to a ma ive amount of American English”, which many students are much more interested in. Cam ell’s examples of the influence of American English include the fact that young people in Europe, Asia and Ru ia use it in daily conversation, even when many of them have been taught British English. In Brazil, people demand for courses in American style rather than British. This is because American English is infiltrating the territories formerly known to be the territory of British English influence, for example, Nigeria, Egypt, Thailand, and more forcefully penetrating Latin America, Japan, and south Korea. Americanized words like guy, campus, movie which do not exist in British English, are now widely used. Today even the C, which has long used British English eaking a ouncers exclusively, now added American a ouncers in its broadcasts, e ecially in programs that go to countries like South Korea, where American English is favored.According to Cam ell’s estimate, 70% of the roughly 350 million native English eakers eak the American version of English. In fact, the populatio of the two leading mother tongue English countries are even more suggestive: The United States has a population of about 260 million while there is only about 55 million in Britain. This seemingly gives the American English much more advantage. The causes of the u recedented expa ion of American English include, as stated above, the post-World War II military and technological advancement. They are for demographic, political reaso , or have to do with the computer and the internet, the ma media, trade, the Peace Cor , and immigration policies: The last few decades have witne ed an ever-increasing political domination of America on the planet. This status was further reinforced in the late 1980s by the fall of communism, which resulted in the US penetrating and co olidating its position in formerly socialist territories. The lead of the US in the computer and Internet industry has long been established. That Bill Gates and other computer geniuses are America , they create everything by Americanism. As a co equence of the US domination of computer industry, the favored language of this industry is American English, which force people who use American computer hardware and software to accept the American English, either co ciously or unco ciously. American radio and television networks are read all over the world. Cam ell reports that, as recently as 1993, the United States controlled 75% of the world’s television programming, “beaming ‘Sesame Street’ to Lagos, Nigeria, for example”. The Voice of America and C have no competitors all over the world over. Trade with the US has steadily risen in volume over the past few years, even in territories formerly controlled by Britain and co idered by many people to be count of bounds to America. For example, the US is one of Nigeria’s main partners in the crude oil busine . The Peace Cor , founded by President J.F. Ke edy in 1962, has been a major cause of emigration of America to various parts of the Third World. The Peace Cor volunteers have been working in the medical sector, in agriculture, and very significantly in English language teaching, leaving co iderable influence of American English after their returning back. The strict immigration laws of Britain, coupled with the alleged inho itality of the British, have of late diverted to America students and people from various parts of the world seeking a su titute place — the United States. The chain reaction of this factor has resulted in much more migration to the US. For people hold the se e that they tend to find help from friends and relatives living in the States. The recent policy, enacted by the US, of the visa program to “recruit” 50,000 new immigrants to the States each year has added to the attempt to migrant to the US. The long-term reaction of the large migration to the States on the Americanization of English in native countries of the immigrants is obviou the immigrants continue to communicate with their friends and relatives back in their homeland, and many eventually come back and settle. Told above is the story of the baby version of a English language that has grown and is threatening to shake the domination of the mother language. This phenomenon could hardly been seen elsewhere. Neither the case with Canadian, Belgian or Swi French in relation to the French of France, nor with Latin American anish or Portuguese in relation to the anish or Portuguese of ain or Portugal, re ectively. The eaker, and e ecially the learner, of English is now faced with the task of managing the co-existence of the two competing languages. They are, however, not problem-free.The problemsIt is over simplified to say, like M. Mathews in the introduction above, that American English and British English are “so overwhelmingly alike” or, like Quirk equally cited above, that “even in matters of pronunciation, it is difficult to find many British and American a olute distinctio ”. It really depends here on what quantity Quirk co iders to be many. Already, the list of pronunciation differences that he and Marckwardt themselves give affects hundreds of words, which can be co idered to be major, by any standard. Qualitatively, too, the differences are important. Learners all over the world will surely agree with me, for example, that the following differences are quite confusing: British English ant[i], mult[i]; sem[i]; do[sail], fu[tail]; l[e]sure, fer[tail], [lef]tenant, g[o]t, p[o]tter vs American English ant[ai]-, mult[ai], sem[ai]; do[sl], fer[tl]; l[i:]sure, [lu]tenant, g[a:]t, p[a:]tter. And there are many other such contrasts, In lexis and grammer, we can also find many distinct contrasts with an obvious incidence on communication, as will be shown later.Differences between American and British English do not matter when the eaker or writer is familiar with the two codes and can easily find in his/her own variety corre ondences to features from the other variety. But confusion, embarra ment or sheer incomprehe ion will arise in many daily-life situatio when the listener or reader who is not familiar with the other variety. Good illustratio come from your PC in this computer age: where your elling checker, based on American English, identifies clour, centre, dialogue, civilise, towards, defence, enclose, travelled from your text as incorrectly elt, you need to be familiar with the two varieties to know that your elling checker expects American ellings which are color, center, dialog, civilize, toward, defe e, inclose, traveled. (If your text is in British English you will simply click “ignore” and move on.)Knowledge of the two varieties is equally important in the cla room for the students and teachers where a decision often has to be made about what form is correct. If the teacher and students know that fiber and fibre, tra ortation and tra ort, proctor and invigilator, barette and hairslide, faucet and tap, fall and autumn, five years back and five years ago, Monday through Friday and Monday to Friday, a half meter and half a metre are features of American and British English, Re ectively, the teaching and the learning proce can proceed unhampered, if it is agreed that the two varieties are accepted. But it is dramatic, e ecially in a testing situation, when features used from one variety by the student are not known by the teacher/tester, familiar only with the other variety. The student will then be unjustly penalized.He/she will be all the more penalized as some features in one variety may clearly violate the grammar of the other variety. Many American changes of categories o erved in some cases are in outright violation of British English grammar. For example, accommodation becomes countable (e.g. Good accommodatio are rare); some irregular ver become regular (e.g. broadcasted, shined); some regular ver become irregular ( uck out for British English eaked out); some intra itive ver become tra itive (e.g. The plane departed New York; We protested the salary cuts); some tra itive ver become intra itive (e.g. I visited with my friends for British English I visited my friends): some adjectives may be used as adver (e.g. It’s real nice). Other major violatio of British English syntax are seen in usages such as: A is different than B, where than is used without the corre onding –er/more or le required for comparative in Susan wants out, where a whole verb and its preceding particle (to go) are omitted; in like I said where like, i tead of British English as, introduces a clause; in I want for you to go, where there is a major intrusion of a prepositio in He looked out the window, where there is a major deletion of a prepositio in He just left, where, de ite 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 co ider 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 correctne discu ed above, the divergences between American and British English raised problems of intelligibility that ca ot be altogether overlooked.Studies ecifically 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 eaker, 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 eaker (interacting with a Papua Guinean) is 70% understandable to non-native eakers while an American (interacting with an Indonesian is 90% undertandable). The rates of comprehe ibility and interpretability in the same context are 90% and 60%, 10% and 30%, re ectively.Differences between American English and British English would have no major impact on intelligibility if they only concerned, for example, features in phonology like American English rhoticity, darkening of “l” acro the board, the nasal twang, some word stre difference in elling like –ize, -or and –er discu ed 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, le 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 unle the context is very su ortive. And when one bears in mind that proce es 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 liste 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 (cu oard), 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 embarra ment in some cases. Just imagine an American English eaker directing a British English eaker 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 ru er, 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 ru er, the author found that in American English it is an American slang for the word condom and its use in some contexts may cause embarra ment. Modiano go on noticed that the British English use of Ru er rather than eraser is unknown in the US. Concerning public school, Modiano points out the contrast in British English where it mea privately owned i titutio and in American English where it mea “schools owned and operated with public funds”.Efforts to be madeThe 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 of a language or language variety, had hardly been succeeded. The other question is even if this solution were po ible, the harmonization in the direction of American English are demographic, technological, political, commercial, and media-related, as analyzed above; in fact, most predictio , including that of David Crystal, are that English in future will be American-dominated. Arguments for harmonization in the direction of British English include the fact that the majority of dictionaries and English Language Teaching materials outside the US are British English–dominated. The other argument is of an emotional and symbolic feeling and mixed with the se e that British English is after all the mother variety.Modiano’s solution to the exposure to, and mixing of, American English and British English is that Mid-Atlantic, oken in increasing numbers by Europea . Should replace British English as the educational standard in Europe. According to the author of “The Americanization of Euro-English”, Mid-Atlantic is “a variety that encourages neutral pronunciation and a vocabulary based on the interlocutor’s frame of reference’. The only problem in Modiano’s argument is that he carefully explai the reaso for Mid-Atlantic English to be used, and what does not co titute Mid-Atlantic, but fails to discu in concrete terms some detailed characteristics of this variety.For lacking in a guaranteed solution to the problem, I suggested that courses in contrastive analysis of American English and British English should be widely included in English Le o to wipe out the confusion of those who learn English as a second language.English Language: American or British?_英语教学论文由英语作文网整理收集

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