The republic of uzbekistan nukus state pedagogical institute foreign language faculty

1.1 British and American english are differently
In this chapter we will introduce the history of the English language and its development in Britain since the first Anglo-Saxon raids and settlers. We will describe the formation of Old English, its shift to Middle English in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and finally characterize the period when Modern English was formed.We will also give a brief description of the formation of American English as a distinct dialect of English in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when the first permanent settlements were founded in the United States. We will also point out that the language is a dynamic entityĽ always changing and adapting to the speakers’ needs, which is obvious from the example of the rich history and many dramatic changes found over time in the English language. We believe it is important to describe the different development of the two dialects as a basis for all differences which can now be found between British and American English.The fact that this vast number of English speakers is spread all over the world results in a large number of varieties of English language. Each of these varieties has its specific characteristics – some of them are easy to recognize by a specific intonation, some by a specific set of vocabulary, and others by an unusual usage of particular grammatical phenomena.The motivation for this thesis was our own experience with different varieties of English.Time spent in the United States, United Kingdom and Northern Ireland was eye-opening when it came to the knowledge of the specifics of different dialects.We decided to focus on the British (RP) and American (GA) dialects, as they are the most commonly spoken dialects.This thesis aims to focus on differences between British and American English. It aspires to describe the origins of the English language and the history of English in the USA and compare selected differences between the two dialects and demonstrate them with examples.There are many “manuals” written for British English speakers travelling to the United States, or Americans travelling to Europe where they may encounter British English,telling them how not to embarrass themselves or cause confusion. We have not been able to find a comparative linguistic study focusing on all aspects of the language.The core of this bachelor thesis is centered on selected differences in grammar,pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary. The work is divided into five main chapters.The first chapter answers the question, Why are British and American English different?by providing insight into the origins of the English language. It describes the development of English language, which shows that English is a dynamic language,always changing. This chapter also describes the history of the English language in the United States and provides a list of the most influential European languages in the development of the American dialect.The following chapter focuses on selected grammatical differences in the two dialects.The topics covered in this chapter are- the different use of Present Perfect and Past Simple tenses, the use of have and have got, the verb get and its forms, the use of the subjunctive, collective nouns and, in the final section, the differences in compound words, their form and use in British and American English, which is one of the most common grammatical differences between these two dialects.The third chapter deals with the most common differences in pronunciation. We believe that different pronunciation in different varieties of English can cause the most confusion and misunderstanding. This chapter focuses only on selected common differences in the two dialects. Authors like Rohdenburg and Schlüter, Davies, and others give a more detailed account of differences in pronunciation.Chapter four describes the importance of Noah Webster’s work on the standardization of American spelling and explains common differences in British and American spelling which are demonstrated with our own examples.The final chapter concentrates on differences in British and American vocabulary.We demonstrate these differences with examples of British idioms and give their American equivalents, explanations and use them in a sentence. In the first section we focus on those idioms, which are completely different in the two dialects, and the second section focuses on idioms, which are only different in their grammatical form or differ in one word of the phrase.English language is fascinating. Its history, development over hundreds of years, its rich vocabulary and fairly easy grammar system make English one of the most interesting languages.It is no wonder that it became the number one world’s language used by millions of speakers all over the world.We took on the goal, as stated in the introduction, to answer the question: Why are British and American English different? We can conclude that the history of the English language itself, as well as the history of the English language in the United States, is important in answering the stated question. The history and development of British and American English as two major different dialects shows that the different needs of speakers in different geographical locations influence of different languages, different social and cultural conditions all contributed to the one language dividing into two major dialects.The core of this thesis aimed to show selected differences in British and American English in the areas of grammar, spelling, pronunciation and vocabulary. This thesis proves that the differences in these areas are many. It shows that the differences which may cause the most confusion are in the area of pronunciation and vocabulary.We can add that not only are Received Pronunciation and General American very different, but these two standard pronunciations are only a small fraction of dialects found in Britain and the United States. With selected examples of British idioms and their American equivalents we have shown that often when the two dialects use the same words,phrases or idioms, they may be expressing a completely different meaning; and on the other hand, one meaning can be preferred to be expressed by completely different words or phrases.The chapters dealing with grammar and spelling show that we find plenty of differences in these areas as well but they do not play such a big role in the interaction between speakers of British and American English.The English language is a dynamic system which is always changing. We can only speculate whether the two dialects will become more or less alike in the future. The fact is that in present British and American English remain one language but two very different dialects.