Multiple Chapters on "Comparative Analysis of British and American English"

Multiple Chapters 24 pages (6793 words) Sources: 3

[EXCERPT] . . . .

British and American English

Comparative Analysis of British and American English

Benefits of a comparative, polyimide approach

Conscious identification of differences

Traditional Standard English (SE)

Other standardized Wes

Unity within English

Zero-marking of 3rd person singular verbs

Modal Past in English

Modal Auxiliaries

Modal Past in Hypothetical Conditionals

Cross-Linguistic Findings

Comparative Analysis of British and American English

In a world where globalization is the trend -- a global economy, a global internet, global warming, global businesses -- it should not be surprising to learn that there is now also an undisputed global language, namely English. Because English today is used in a plethora of contexts around the world, as the native language of millions, the official language of numerous nations, and a lingua franca in a multitude of international dealings, more users of English than ever before either feel some ownership in the language through their national dialect or some resentment towards the Western cultural norms that tend to come embedded with the language. These citizens of English as an international language feel that changes need to be made: in how the language is viewed in general, in attitudes towards varieties of English, in the construct of English proficiency tests, and in methods of teaching English.

The current paper is a comparative analysis of the British English and American English. The author has focused and discussed various aspects of language, including accent, vocabulary, writings, words, spells, etc. while comparing these aspects in British and American English

Benefits of a comparative, polyimide approach

The overwhelming majority of scholars, whether considering a traditional EFL context, an ELF context, an EIL context, or an SESD context, advocate the benefits of an approach in which the students are exposed to more than one variety of English, affirming the legitimacy of each variety while becoming aware of the differences between them. This has been called a poly model approach, versus the mono model approach where one variety is learned in isolation, and also a comparative approach, due to the comparison of one variety to another, as in dialect awareness. In this way, students learn to see accuracy in light of contexts of usage, not as deficiencies of a "worse" variety as compared to a "better" variety, and to consider successful communication a more important outcome of learning English. One benefit of this approach is that it promotes students sense of self-worth as members of specific socio-cultural groups in that it validates the language with which they identify. Another benefit is that it promotes the use of culturally appropriate content and pedagogical methods. Furthermore, it helps students see that there are many more NNSs than NSs of English and, for that reason users of English do not need to produce English like NSs to be considered proficient in the language. Finally, for most contexts in which English is used internationally, communication which is appropriate is the goal over communication which is accurate; thus, the goal of ELT for students heading into the world of international relations should focus less on form and more on communication.

Conscious identification of differences

According to the results of Yiakoumetti's study (2005, 2006, 2007), a comparative approach is indeed important to produce striking improvements in the ability to use the standard dialect when the non-standard dialect is juxtaposed with it in the language classroom, especially when compared with control groups which are only exposed to the standard dialect in language class. Rather than causing greater interference from the D1, encouraging the students to consciously identify differences between the D1 and D2 resulted in less grammatical, lexical and phonological interference of the D1 on the D2 by the students in the experimental group than those in the control group as well as a greater awareness as to when certain features are appropriate and when they are not. From this result, it could be predicted that learning SAE in comparison to a WE would help students recognize and keep straight which features belong to WE contexts and which are appropriate for SAE contexts.

It is important to note, however, that the non-standard variety used for comparison to the standard variety in the Cypriot situation was the students' own mother tongue, whereas in most ESL/EFL classrooms, the non-standard variety would be the students' world English, in almost all cases an L2 at the very least, if not an L3 or L4. Could the results of the Cypriot study have similar implications for a situation in which the students are likely to lack the same intimate familiarity with the non-standard variety as they would with their mother tongue? Just as Brandon et al. (2009) assert that in the area of bilingualism and bidialectism new knowledge is built on current knowledge, it would seem reasonable to assume that even an L2- or L3-level of familiarity with one variety of English should provide some current knowledge on which to base a comparison with a standard English, and that greater improvement in target language proficiency would occur. Furthermore, there would still be the benefit of an increase in learning gained through the technique of consciously noticing differences between varieties. Thus, while the benefits of a comparative, poly model approach may not be as striking in the WE to SAE context as they were in the Cyprus study's MT to D2 context, it seems rational to expect that some improvement over a strictly monomodel approach would be observed.

Traditional Standard English (SE)

For many years, the only standard for properly spoken and written English was Standard British English (SBE), also known as Received Pronunciation (RP) in the 19th century. Today, Standard American English (SAE) enjoys similar prestige on the world stage thanks to the growth of the United States' prominence as a global power and, with the advent of the computer age, the fact that word processing software has nudged standards towards SAE conventions (McArthur, 2001, p. 6). However, increasingly the question is being asked: who really has the right to decide what is "standard" for a language with hundreds of millions of users around the world (McArthur, 2001, p. 1)? At this time standard English (SE), seen as a dual standard of U.S. And U.K. conventions, still seems to be the goal of language learning programs around the world, especially when the high-stakes international tests of English proficiency are normed to one of those two standards.

Other standardized Wes

In the case of world Englishness, several other varieties besides SBE and SAE are also considered standard. Standardization can be defined both by the existence of dictionaries and grammar books for a particular variety or by the production of publications in that variety. In this way, Australian English (AusE), Canadian English (CanE), New Zealand English (NSE), Philippine English (PhlE), White South African English (WSAE), Indian English (IndE), Irish English (IrE) and Singaporean English (SgE), among others, are also considered standard varieties (McArthur, 2002, pp. 443-444; Kortmann et al., 2004, pp. xv-xvii).

Unity within English

While great diversity exists in English, scholars also acknowledge the commonalities that unite the language. For communication to occur across cultures through the use of English, speakers of diverse varieties of English must draw upon the features of English they have in common in order to make themselves understood. As Widdowson (1997) points out, "Even if we allow diversification for local communities, we must surely deny it in the interests of global communication" (p. 143). The following terms reflect the unifying forces at work within the dynamics of global English.

English as an international language (EIL)

The term international English is often used interchangeably with the term English as an international language (EIL); however Seidlhofer (2004) makes a slight distinction between the two. Whereas IE refers to one "clearly distinguishable, codified, and unitary variety," EIL refers to the situations of English usage internationally, whether in Expanding Circle, Outer Circle or Inner Circle contexts (p. 210). In this way, EIL can be seen as relating to ELF in that both refer to the context in which the language is used as well as to the actual code itself.

Zero-marking of 3rd person singular verbs

In terms of present tense verb inflections, SE is an anomaly among languages as there is very little marking of present tense verbs, except in the irregular verbs be and have, and the 3rd person singular inflection of regular verbs. Making this 3rd person singular marking even more unusual is the fact that it is a redundant feature; because SE is a non-pro-drop language, the marking of the verb as 3rd person singular through the addition of an -s is unnecessary. Thus, it stands to reason that ELLs would find this feature of standard English troublesome, if not downright illogical. Breiteneder (2009) cites the online version of Kortmann and Schneider's Varieties of English Multimedia Reference Tool which shows that out of 46 varieties they pooled, 26 of them exhibited this feature (p. 257) [e.g., So he show up and say. He don't like me.]. Among NSs, the 3rd person singular -s has… READ MORE

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