PECULIARITIES OF AMERICAN ENGLISH Amirov I INTRODUCTION

PECULIARITIES OF AMERICAN ENGLISH Amirov I.

INTRODUCTION The differences between the English language as spoken in Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada can be seen in the field of phonetics. However these distinctions are confined to the articulatory – acoustic characteristics of some phonemes, to some differences in the use of others and to the differences in the rhythm and intonation of speech. The few phonemes characteristic of American pronunciation and alien to British literary norms can be observed as a rule in British dialects. In the early part of the seventeenth century English settlers began to bring their language to America and another series of changes began to take place. Thus, the aim of our course paper is to reveal the main peculiarities of American English. To achieve this aim we have to fulfill the following tasks: • to study the sources on the topic • to compare British and American variants of English • to define the main characteristic features of American English Our course paper consist of introduction, theoretical, practical parts and conclusion.

CHAPTER 1. THE GENERAL NOTION OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH Today, American English is particularly influential, due to the USA's dominance of cinema, television, popular music, trade and technology (including the Internet). But there are many other varieties of English around the world, including for example Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English, Indian English and Caribbean English. Basic English is simplified for easy international use. It is used by some aircraft manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals and communicate. Some English schools in the Far East teach it as an initial practical subset of English. Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words. English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language. Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980 s to aid international cooperation and communication in specific areas. European English is a new variant of the English language created to become the common language in Europe. Manually Coded English — a variety of systems have been developed to represent the English language with hand signals, designed primarily for use in deaf education.

DISTRIBUTION OF NATIVEENGLISH SPEAKERS BY COUNTRY CRYSTAL 1997) ( English is the second or third most widely spoken language in the world today. A total of 600– 700 million people use the various dialects of English regularly. About 377 million people use one of the versions of English as their mother tongue, and an equal number of people use them as their second or foreign language. English is used widely in either the public or private sphere in more than 100 countries all over the world. In addition, the language has occupied a primary place in international academic and business communities. The current status of the English language at the start of the new millennium compares with that of Latin in the past. English is also the most widely used language for young backpackers who travel across continents, regardless of whether it is their mother tongue or a secondary language.

English as a global language Because English is so widely spoken, it has been referred to as a "global language". While English is not an official language in many countries, it is the language most often taught as a second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official language for aircraft/airport communication. Its widespread acceptance as a first or second language is the main indication of its worldwide status. There are numerous arguments for and against English as a global language. On one hand, having a global language aids in communication and in pooling information (for example, in the scientific community).

The expansiveness of the British and the Americans has spread English throughout the globe. Because of its global spread, it has bred a variety of English dialects and English-based creoles and pidgins. The major varieties of English in most cases contain several subvarieties, such as Cockney within British English, Newfoundland English within Canadian English, and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") within American English is considered a pluricentric language, with no variety being clearly considered the only standard. Because of English's wide use as a second language, English speakers can have many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native dialect or language. Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English loanwords now appear in a great many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence.

ENGLISH PHONOLOGY Vowels IPA Description word monophthongs i/iː Close front unrounded vowel bead Near-close near-front unrounded vowel bid Open-mid front unrounded vowel bed Near-open front unrounded vowel bad Open back rounded vowel bod 1 Open-mid back rounded vowel pawed 2 Open back unrounded vowel bra ʊ Near-close near-back rounded vowel good u/uː Close back rounded vowel booed ʌ/ɐ Open-mid back unrounded vowel, Near-open central vowel bud ɝ/ɜː Open-mid central unrounded vowel bird 3 ə Schwa Rosa's 4 ɨ Close central unrounded vowel roses 5 diphthongs eɪ Close-mid front unrounded vowel Close front unrounded vowel bayed oʊ/əʊ Close-mid back rounded vowel Near-close near-back rounded vowel bode aɪ Open front unrounded vowel Near-close near-front rounded vowel buy aʊ Open front unrounded vowel Near-close near-back rounded vowel bough ɔɪ Open-mid back rounded vowel Close front unrounded vowel boy

THE DEVELOPMENT OFAMERICAN ENGLISH American English begins its history at the beginning of the 17 th century when first English-speaking settlers began to settle on the Atlantic coast of the American continent. The language which they brought from England was the language spoken in England during the reign of Elizabeth I.

CHAPTER 2 PECULIARITIES OF AMERICAN ENGLISH. LANGUAGE American English (variously abbreviated Am. E, Am. Eng, USEng, en-US, also known as United States English, or U. S. English) is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States. English is the most common language in the United States. American English differs from British English (Br. E) at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, was written by Noah Webster in 1828; Webster intended to show that the United States, which was a relatively new country at the time, spoke a different dialect from that of Britain.

PRONUNCIATION DIFFERENCES INAMERICAN ENGLISH In many ways, compared to English, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast (for example, in Eastern New England New York City), partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when those varieties were undergoing changes. In addition, many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations longer than others. The interior of the United States, however, was settled by people from all regions of the existing United States and, therefore, developed a far more generic linguistic pattern. The red areas are those where non-rhotic pronunciations are found among some white people in the United States.

GRAMMATICAL PECULIARITIES OF AMERICAN ENGLISH American English has always shown a marked tendency to use nouns as verbs. Examples of verbed nouns are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, room, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, belly-ache, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, service (as a car), corner, torch, exit (as in “exit the lobby”), factor (in mathematics), gun (“shoot”), author (and graft (bribery), bad-mouth, vacation, major, backpack, backtrack, intern, ticket (traffic violations), hassle, blacktop, peer-review, and dope.

CONCLUSION Englishmen settlement in America in the 17 th century became one of the main milestones in the appearing of the “new version” of English i. e. American English when first colonists faced the task of giving names to new plants, animals and other unfamiliar things they found in America. So, they have to adopt some local names for the surrounding objects and living beings. Moreover, people from other countries except England became to be interested in new continent so they came to settle there too. People from different countries went further than the first English settlement in Virginia and gave new names for the unfamiliar things around them. In our course paper we defined the following peculiarities of American English in: vocabulary (borrowings and typically American words); grammar (American English has less tense forms); pronunciation (absence of some vowels and consonants). Thus, American form of English has its own history form and structure different from the language spoken in Great Britain nowadays and becomes more and more popular in the modern world as the language of trade, technology and business.