AMERICAN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION STANDARD CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLINGUISTIC SITUATION IN

AMERICAN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION STANDARD CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLINGUISTIC SITUATION IN THE USA Kate Frunt 4 -B

Sociolinguistic situation in the USA is complicated by a variety of linguistic, cultural, historic, demographic, and other factors. Generally speaking, the situation in the US may be identified as exoglossic, i. e. having several languages in the same territory with the balance in favour of American English.

The starting point of the American English was the English language of the 17 th century. In the course of time American English became different from British English. Yet linguists don’t consider them to be different languages (see Supplement C).

American English (AE) is treated as the national variant of English in the USA. AE displays a lesser degree of dialect than British English due to some historical factors: Ø the existence of already shaped Standard English when first English settlers came to America; Ø the high degree of mobility of population; Ø internal migrations of various communities, etc.

Traditionally three educated accents of AE are recognized: 1) the Eastern type, 2) the Southern type, 3) the Western type or General American.

Geographically the Eastern type of AE pronunciation includes New England east of the Connecticut River.

The Southern type includes Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and parts of Maryland, West Virginia and Oklahoma.

General American (Gen. Am / GA) type of pronunciation includes the rest of the USA – through Ohio to the Middle West and to the Pacific Coast. GA is used in social communication, scientific and business discourse. Also in two most important business centers – New York and St. Louis – GA is the prevailing form of pronunciation, though New York is situated within a territory where Eastern American is spoken.

GA is the most spread type and, like RP in Great Britain, the least regional in character. GA is treated as the pronunciation standard of AE. Southern and Eastern American are regional types of AE.

Eastern American accent is characterized as the r-less accent. In words like bird, winter Eastern Americans use /ə/ instead of GA /ər/.

In Southern speech there is diphthongization or even triphongization of monophthongs and vice versa, e. g. that /ðæІt/, yes /jeІəs/, high /hα: /, fine /fα: n/.