Abstract
A language is an important carrier as well as a part of a country’s national cultures, and its evolution can reflect the growth and development of the nation. American English is a national and regional variation of the English language on the scale of a country that is chiefly spoken in the United States. American English shows many influences from the different cultures and languages of the peoples who ttled in North America. The nature of the influences depends on the connection between different cultures in different historical periods. This paper will give a systematic description and make a through analysis of the characteristics of American English and the differences between American English and British English. The main contents include: language characteristics caud by special natural, regional environments, history, culture and special social realities, language characteristics on the planes of phonology, morphology, lexicon and so on. A comparison of the differences between the two languages will also be made. I believe that the descriptions and analys will be of great help for improving the ability of cross-cultural communication for tho who mother tongue is not the American English language.
Keywords: American English, British English, culture, differences, characteristics
摘要
语言是文化的重要载体也是一个国家民族文化的一部分，其演变可以反映一个民族的成长与发展。美式英语是英语语言的一种国家级的民族与地域变体，主要在美国使用。美式英语受到了定居在北美不同民族文化和语言的影响。这些影响的性质取决于不同历史时期不同文化之间的联系。本文将对美式英语的特点以及美式英语和英式英语的差异进行系统的描述和深入的分析，主要内容包括：美式英语的地域自然环境, 特定历史文化和社会现象产生的语言特征，语言学中音系学, 形态学，词汇学等层面的特征，并对美式英语和英式英语之间的差异进行分析比较。相信这些描述与分析对提高母语为非美式英语的语言交际者的跨文化交际能力会大有益处。
霞与洛
关键词：美式英语, 英式英语，文化, 差异, 特征
Contentso常用工具
Chapter 1 Introduction (1)
1.1 The historical background of American English (1)
1.2 Differences between British English and American English (2)
1.3 The important status of American English (4)
Chapter 2 Characteristics of American English (6)
Formed in Different Fields (6)
炒螃蟹的做法2.1 Language characteristics formed from natural and regional environments (6)
2.2 Language characteristics formed from history and culture (7)
2.3 Language characteristics formed from special social realities (8)
2.4 Language characteristics formed by combination of multinational ethnic groups (9)
2.5 Some general characteristics of American English (11)
Chapter3 Linguistic Characteristics of American English on Different Planes (12)
3.1 On the plane of phonology (13)
谭璇3.2 On the plane of lexicon (13)
3.3 On the plane of syntax and grammar (14)
Chapter 4 Conclusion (18)
立木取信
References (20)
Acknowledgements (21)
Chapter 1 Introduction
提出英语
1.1 The historical background of American English
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A language is an important carrier as well as a part of a country’s national cultures and its evolution can reflect the growth of the nation.
English ever since the beginning of the 20th century has become a world wide ud language. Especially after the Second World War, it has been ud by billions of people all over the world in various ways on different occasions, and thus becoming a common language as well as an efficient communication tool between people in different countries and regions.
In the year of 1607, the first British colonists arrived in North America; American English (AmE) has been started since then. At the beginning of venteenth century, Britain began to carry out colonial activities in North America. The capitalist economy of Britain had well developed at that time. The bourgeoisie and new aristocracies required overas plunder. Some of the ambitious British busines
smen and wealthy landlords had organized “London Company” and “the Plymouth Company” in 1606. They received a “charter” from the British King, and got privileges for establishing colonies in North America. In 1607, “London Company” nt a colonial team and established the first town in the East Coast of North America—Jamestown, which later became the major city in Virginia colony, and Britain was relying on it as a foothold in the American continent.
Over 120 years from 1606 to 1732, British colonists had established 13 colonies in eastern North America. In the following periods, the immigrants, the Governors and officials nt by the King and the army entered North America. The people ud the venteenth century British English (BrE). The book American English shows that the English that the first British colonists spoke was Elizabethan English ud by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Greene and other great masters of the English language that had not much difference from the English language that Dryden, Defoe and Bunyan had ud. Then, in the process of colony expanding, the British people together with other European continental rivals have been transplanting their native languages to the new
world, and during their language contacts and communication, they found more relevant points of the multi-ethnic languages in this new world. After World War II, with the National prosperity and rapid development of science and technology, AmE became the major language, all over the world.
The Victory of American War of Independence marked the end of the colonial era. With political independence, American people also required language independence. When discussing a commercial agreement with Netherlands in 1783, the American Congress found that there were veral English translations of the treaty but none of them was clear enough. So they entrusted the U.S. envoy in Netherlands John Adams to rewrite the agreement in AmE when they got the permission from the Netherlands party. In 1812, John Adams cleared his view in a letter to a friend that Americans should have their own American dictionary. In 1780, for the first time the United States ud the word American to allege their language, and in 1806, Noah Webster first ud the word American English. He once wrote:
As an independent country, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain, who children we are, and who language we speak, should no longer be our standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline. But if it were not so, she is too great a distance to be our model, and to instruct us in the principles of our tongue.”
(Webster 41)
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Therefore, we can draw a conclusion that the formation and development of AmE was along with reference and absorption of other languages, that is, AmE was formed and developed in the mixture of them. The process has always been accompanied by the American history, and it is still continuing now. Of cour, the process is very long and complicated becau it has involved all the activities of the immigrants and changes of social realities.
1.2 Differences between British English and American English
