The Difference Between American English and British English?

1. The Difference Between American English and British English? What is the historical reason why American English is different from British English? Group 2,Class 1

2. Introduction--AmE & BrE Background--historical reason Differences -- grammar pronunciation spelling writing Conclusion Structure

3. Introduction

4. Written forms of American and British English as found in newspapers and textbooks vary little in their essential features, with only occasional noticeable differences in comparable media. This kind of formal English, particularly written English, is often called 'standard English '. However, there are still many remarkable differences between the two languages. Since it is of vital importance for us English majors to distinct the two different branches of English, our group focus on two questions: What is the historical reason for American English is different from British English? What is the difference between them? Here, we regard Received Pronunciation (RP) as British English (BrE) and General American (GAm) as American English (AmE).

5. Historical reasons

6. The English language was first introduced to the Americans by British colonization, beginning in the early 17th century. Similarly, the language spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and colonization elsewhere and the spread of the former British Empire, which, by 1921, held sway over a population of about 470–570 million people: approximately a quarter of the world's population at that time.

7. As we all know, Modern English is a very very young language -- no more than 500 years. So it changes very fast at the beginning. After the war (the America won it), there was no connection between U.S. and U.K., so the language changes to two ways -- as the matter of fact the Americans they kept the original as much as possible, but the British they removed the original a lot, they change it very much.

8. Over the past 400 years, the form of the language used in the Americas—especially in the United States—and that used in the United Kingdom have diverged in a few minor ways, leading to the dialects now occasionally referred to as American English and British English.

9. Differences

10. Grammar Pronunciation Spelling Writing

11. In BrE, collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is, respectively, on the body as a whole or on the individual members. For example: A committee was appointed . The committee were unable to agree. In AmE, collective nouns are usually singular in construction: the committee was unable to agree. AmE, however, may use plural pronouns in agreement with collective nouns: the team take their seats, rather than the team takes its seats. The rule of thumb is that a group acting as a unit is considered singular and a group of "individuals acting separately" is considered plural. Nouns

12. The difference occurs for all nouns of multitude. For instance, BrE: The Clash are a well-known band; AmE: The Clash is a well-known band.BrE: Spain are the champions; AmE: Spain is the champion. Proper nouns that are plural in form take a plural verb in both AmE and BrE For example, The Beatles are a well-known band; The Saints are the champions. Nouns

13. Use of tenses • Traditionally, BrE uses the present perfect tense to talk about an event in the recent past and with the words already, just, and yet. In American usage, these meanings can be expressed with the present perfect (to express a fact) or the simple past (to imply an expectation). Recently, the American use of just with simple past has made inroads into BrE, most visibly in advertising slogans and headlines such as "Cable broadband just got faster". • "I've just arrived home." / "I just arrived home." • "I've already eaten." / "I already ate."

14. Use of tenses Similarly, AmE occasionally replaces the past perfect tense with the simple past. In BrE, have got or have can be used for possession and have got to and have to can be used for the modal of necessity. The forms that include ‘‘got’’ are usually used in informal contexts and the forms without got in contexts that are more formal. In American speech the form without got is used more than in the UK, although the form with got is often used for emphasis. Colloquial AmE informally uses got as a verb for these meanings – for example, I got two cars, I got to go.

15. Prepositions and adverbs (1) In the United States, the word through can mean "up to and including" as in Monday through Friday. In the UK Monday to Friday, or Monday to Friday inclusive is used instead; Monday through to Friday is also sometimes used. British sportsmen play in a team; American athletes play on a team. (Both may play for a particular team.)

16. Prepositions and adverbs (2) In AmE, one always speaks of the street on which an address is located, whereas in BrE in can also be used in some contexts. In suggests an address on a city street, so a service station (or a tourist attraction or indeed a village) would always be on a major road, but a department store might be in Oxford Street. Moreover, if a particular place on the street is specified then the preposition used is whichever is idiomatic to the place, thus "at the end of Churchill Road."

17. Prepositions and adverbs (3) BrE favours the preposition at with weekend("at (the) weekend(s)"); the constructions on, over, and during (the) weekend(s) are found in both varieties but are all more common in AmE than BrE. Adding at to the end of a question requesting a location is common in AmE, for example, "where are you at?", but would be considered superfluous in BrE. However, some south-western British dialects use to in the same context; for example "where are you to?” to mean "where are you".

18. Pronunciation Differences in pronunciation between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) can be divided into: 1）differences in accent. 2）differences in the pronunciation of individual words in the lexicon.

26. /a:/--/æ/ glass/iәr/--/i:r/ hero/o/--/Λ/ shop/o/--/o:/ dog/uәr/-/ur/ curious/ Λr/--/ә:r/ hurry/ju:/--/u:/supermarket/æ/--/e/ ration/ai/--/i/ fragile

28. Stress For many loanwords from French where AmE has final-syllable stress, BrE stresses an earlier syllable. Such words include: BrE first-syllable stress: adult, ballet; A few French words have other stress differences: AmE first-syllable, BrE last-syllable: address, cigarette AmE first-syllable, BrE second-syllable: liaison AmE second-syllable, BrE last-syllable: New Orleans

29. Spelling 1 BrE AmE dialogue dialogarchaeology archeologycolour colorfavourite favoritejewellry jewelryprogramme programstorey story

30. Spelling 2 BrE AmE centre centertheatre theatermetre meter

31. Spelling 3 BrE AmE licence licensepractise practiceanalyse analyzeglobalisationglobalization

32. Spelling 4 BrE AmE greygraymanoeuvremaneuver

33. Writing Use of capitalization varies. Sometimes, the words in titles of publications, newspaper headlines, as well as chapter and section headings are capitalized in the same manner as in normal sentences. That is, only the first letter of the first word is capitalized, along with proper nouns, etc.

34. Many British tabloid newspapers (such as The Sun, The Daily Sport, News of the World) use fully capitalized headlines for impact, as opposed to readability (for example, BERLIN WALL FALLS or BIRD FLU PANIC). On the other hand, the broadsheets (such as The Guardian, The Times, and The Independent) usually follow the sentence style of having only the first letter of the first word capitalized. However, publishers sometimes require additional words in titles and headlines to have the initial capital, for added emphasis, as it is often perceived as appearing more professional.

35. In AmE, this is common in titles, but less so in newspaper headlines. The exact rules differ between publishers and are often ambiguous; a typical approach is to capitalize all words other than short articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. This should probably be regarded as a common stylistic difference, rather than a linguistic difference, as neither form would be considered incorrect or unusual in either the UK or the US.

36. Conclusion

37. After our research, we have already known the main differences between AmE and BrE in grammar, pronunciation, spelling and writing briefly, and have had a general idea of why American English is different from British English in terms of history. We hope that our presentation is helpful for you with your English study.

38. Sources: 1,New Concept English 2,Algeo, John (2006). British or American English?. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3,Hargraves, Orin (2003). Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4,McArthur, Tom (2002). The Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5,Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 6,Trudgill, Peter and Jean Hannah. (2002). International English: A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English.

39. Thank you !