Two sides of English: American versus British variety

Keywords: language variety, British English, American English, phonological features, orthographic features, lexical-semantic features.

Abstract

The article analyzes the differences between American and British varieties of English. The focus is on the lower levels of language hierarchy with the main emphasis on the lexical and semantic levels. The author has given an insight into the history of language and the way it assimilated in America, to
study multiple transformations that English underwent in its systems: phonetics, vocabulary, syntax, grammar, and spelling. It is proved that in course of time, American English has become more dominant thanks to the state’s influence around the world, especially since the XX century with the rapid development of science and technology.

It is emphasized that understanding American English can be a problem for non-natives due to the phenomena of synonymy and homonymy in these
varieties. Taking into consideration the lack of attention to teaching any varieties of Standard English, those who study it as a foreign language are not shown the differences and face the problems during the real communicative process. Besides, there is also a slight change in writing and saying numbers, and certain peculiarities in saying the time in the varieties. The difference in spelling doesn’t make any obstacle for the overall comprehension. One of the objects of research is the phonological difference as it causes lots of misunderstanding during the interaction. Thus, British and American English are national varieties of English which should be researched and learnt to facilitate communication for non-native English speakers.

Author Biography

Olha Krichker, Cherkasy Institute of Fire Safety named after Chornobyl Heroes of National University of Civil Defense of Ukraine

Candidate of Historical Sciences,
lecturer

References

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Published
2020-04-24
How to Cite
Krichker, O. (2020). Two sides of English: American versus British variety. Theoretical and Didactic Philology, (32), 60-66. Retrieved from https://tdp-journal.com/index.php/journal/article/view/185