52. American English. Linguistic status of American English.

Vocabulary of American English.

There exist lexical differences between the British and American vocabulary. There are whole groups of words which belong to American vocabulary exclusively and constitute its specific feature. These words are called Americanisms.

1) The first group of such words is historical Americanisms. The English language was brought to the American continent at the beginning of the 17^th century as a result of the expansion of British colonialism. Quite a number of words that were once in current usage in England have survived in America after becoming obsolete at home. Such are the words to loan ‘to lend’, fall as ‘autumn’, guess as ‘think’ or ‘suppose’, homely as ‘ugly, crude’, sick ‘ill, unwell’. These words are used by the Americans and the English in different meanings, but nevertheless they are found both in American and in British vocabulary.

2) The second group of Americanisms includes specifically American words, not found in British vocabulary, they are:

a) proper (early) Americanisms

The migrants were faced with a new world with different landscape, climate, trees, plants, birds and animals. Gradually they formed words to name all these new things. They are: backwoods ‘wooded, uninhabited districts’, cold snap ‘a sudden frost’, blue–grass, ‘grass peculiar to North America’, blue–jack, ‘a small American oak’, egg–plant, sweet potato, redbud ‘the state free of Oklahoma’, red cedar, cat–bird, cat–fish, bull-frog, sun–fish ‘a fish with a round flat golden body’.

These words cannot be found in British English vocabulary but the word-building pattern of composition and the constituents of these compounds are essentially English.

b) later proper Americanisms are represented by names of objects which are called differently in the USA and in England:

Some words though found both in English and American vocabulary have developed meanings characteristic of American usage. The noun date meaning ‘the time of some event’, ‘the day of the week or month’, ‘the year’ both in British and American English developed another meaning in American English only: ‘an appointment for a particular time’. The word corn originally meant ‘grain’ came to denote ‘maize’ in America.

3) American vocabulary is rich in borrowings. Alongside with the principal groups of borrowed words which are the same as in the English vocabulary, there are groups of specifically American borrowings. They were borrowed from the languages with which the American English came into contact, they are Spanish borrowings: canyon, ranch, mustang, sombrero, cinch, etc.; Negro borrowings: banjo, etc.; Indian borrowings: wigwam, squaw, canoe, moccasin, toboggan, caribou, tomahawk, hickory, moose, raccoon, etc. There are also some translation –loans of Indian origin: pale–face, war path, war paint, pipe of peace, fire–water, etc.

4) One more group of Americanisms is represented by American shortenings. This type of word–structure is especially characteristic for American word–building. The following shortenings were produced in America, but are used both in American English and British English: movies, auto, gym, b.f. (boyfriend), g.f. (girlfriend), OK (okay).

5) Less obvious, but no less important are the lexical differences of another kind, the so–called structural variants of the words, i.e. words differing in derivational affixes though identical in lexical meaning:

Acclimate- acclimatize; speciality- specialty

6) There are also some phonetic variants

As to word–formation in the two variants, the word–building means employed are the same and most of them are equally productive. There are some differences in spelling, e.g.: colour- colour; theatre- theater; defence- defense

Modern times are characterized by considerable levelling of the lexical distinctions between the two variants due to the growth of cultural and economic ties between the two nations and development of modern means of communication. A large number of Americanisms have gained currency in British English, some becoming so thoroughly naturalized that the dictionaries in England no longer mark them as aliens, e.g. reliable, lengthy, talented, belittle, etc. The influx of American films, comics and periodicals resulted in the infiltration of American slang, e.g. gimmick ‘deceptive or secret device’, to root ‘to support or encourage a contestant or team by applauding or cheering’.

So, Americanisms penetrate into British speech and vice versa. As a result, the differentiations seem to have a tendency of getting levelled rather than otherwise.

So, the American vocabulary is marked by certain peculiarities. Yet, in its essential features, it is the same vocabulary as that of British English. The basic vocabulary, whose role in communication is utmost importance, is the same in American and British English with very few exceptions.

Many Americanisms belong to colloquialisms and slang. That strata of the vocabulary is shifting, changeable, it does not represent its stable bulk both in British and American English.

Thus, Americanisms are not sufficiently numerous to claim that there exists an independent American language.

53. The English language in the United States is characterised by relative uniformity throughout the country. One can travel three thousand miles without encountering any but the slightest dialect differences. Nevertheless, regional variations in speech undoubtedly exist and they have been observed and recorded by a number of investigators.

The following three major belts of dialects have so far been identified, each with its own characteristic features: Northern, Midland and Southern, Midland being in turn divided into North Midland and South Midland.

The differences in pronunciation between American dialects are most apparent, but they seldom interfere with understanding. Distinctions in grammar are scarce. The differences in vocabulary are rather numerous, but they are easy to pick up. Cf., e.g., Eastern New England sour-milk cheese, Inland Northern Dutch cheese, New York City pot cheese for Standard American cottage cheese (творог).

The American linguist O. F. Emerson maintains that American English had not had time to break up into widely diverse dialects and he believes that in the course of time the American dialects might finally become nearly as distinct as the dialects in Britain. He is certainly greatly mistaken. In modern times „dialect divergence cannot increase. On the contrary, in the United States, as elsewhere, the national language is tending to wipe out the dialect distinctions and to become still more uniform.

Comparison of the dialect differences in the British Isles and in the USA reveals that not only are they less numerous and far less marked in the USA, but that the very nature of the local distinctions is different. What is usually known as American dialects is closer in nature to regional variants of the literary language. The problem of discriminating between literary and dialect speech patterns in the USA is much more

complicated than in Britain. Many American linguists point out that American English differs from British English in having no one locality whose speech patterns have come to be recognised as the model for the rest of the country

54. Lexicography – branch which deals with the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. Essential difference btw L. and lexicology lies in degree of systematization & completeness. Aim of L. – semantically formal and functional description of all individual words. Dictionaries aim at more or less complete description. Term “dictionary” is used to denote book listing words of l-ge with their meanings and usage or origin. There are dictionaries that concentrate attention upon only 1 of these aspects. Types of dictionaries: 1) encyclopaedic 2) linguistic/phylological. These 2 groups of reference books differ essentially in the choice of items included and in the sort of information given in them. The subject matter of 2nd is lexical units and their linguistic properties (prounciation, meaning). 1st give information about extralinguistic world. E.g.: Britannica, Americana. There are reference books that are confined to definite fields of knowledge: Cassel’s (world literature). There are numerous dictionaries presenting information about notable people, often called “Who is who” dictionaries. Cl-on of dictionaries: linguistic dictionaries – books of words in a language usually listed alphabetically with definitions, pronunciation, etymology. Acct to the of the w list: 1) general (contain lex units in ordinary use with this or that property of items from various spheres of life); 2) restricted (include only a certain part of the w stock; phraseological, dialectal, of neologisms, of abbreviations). Acc to inf-ion dict provide: 1) explanatory (dict presenting wide range of data, espec with regard to the sem aspect of voc items); 2) special\-ized (deals with lex units only in relation to some of their ch-er). Acc to the sphere of human activity (technical). Acc to the type of the units themselves (toponyms). Acc to the rel-ions btw the units (synonymy, antonymy). Acc to the l-ge is used (monolingual\bilingual). Acc to the medium used (paper, computerized). Special class - association dictionaries.

Basic problems of Lexicography. Lexicography – branch which deals with the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries 1. selection of lexical units for inclusion (type of dictionaries, its size); 2. arrangement of entrance (the word order – in most dictionaries is alphabetic way); 3. setting of the entry (they differ in structure. The most complicated type of entry is the explanatory dictionaries); 4. selection and arrangement of meanings (most difficult problem is recording word meaning. 3 ways: frequency of usage, their logical order & sequence of their hist dev-ent;5. definitions of words. They can be defined by: paraphrase, synonymous words and cross references.6. illustration examples. Lexicology decide which words may be listed with/ without illustration.