25. Standard English variants, dialects (cockney)

Standard english – the official language of great britain taught at school and universities, used by press, radio, television, spoken by educated people. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms. Local dialects are varieties of the english language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. In GB there are two variants, Scotish english and Irish english, and 5 main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western, Southern. Every group contains several dialects. One of the best known southern dialects is Cockney, the regional dialect in London. According to E.Partridge and H.Wylde, this dialect exists on 2 levels. As spoken by the educated lower middle classes it is a regional dialect marked by some deviations (отклонения) in pronunciation but few in vocabulary and syntax. As spoken by the uneducated, Cockney differs from Standard english not only in pronunciation but also in vocabulary, morphology and syntax. “Encyclopaedia Britannica” treats Cockney as an accent, not acknowledging (признавать) it the status of dialect. Cockney has attracted much literary attention and so we can judge of its past and present on the evidence of literature. According to Ch.Dickens over a century ago, consonants [w] and [v]: wery – for very; vell – for well; fing – for thing, farver – for father; interchange of the aspirated and non-aspirated initial vowels: hart – for art, ‘eart – for heart; [ai] for [ei]: day, rain – [dai], [rain]. Cockney is lively and witty and its vocabulary imaginative and colourful. Its specific feature not occuring anywhere else is the so-called rhyming slang, in which some words are substituted by other words rhyming them. (head – loaf of bread; wife – trouble and strife). It has set expressions of its own. The dialect vocabulary is remarkable forits conservatism: many words that have become obsolete (устарели) in standard english are still kept in dialects (to and – to envy; bysen – blind).

The scotish tongue and the Irish english have a special linguistic status as compared with dialects because of the literature composed in them.

26. American English

The insistence on a certain difference of the language used in the USA to the language spoken in England is emphasized quite seriously. Viewed linguistically, the problem may be put in this way: do the English and the Americans speak the same language or two different languages? Do the USA possess their own language? The hypothesis of the so-called “American language” has had several champions and supporters, especially in the USA(Menchen). Yes, there are also other points of view. There are scholars who regard American English as one of the doalects of the English language. This theory can hardly be accepted because a dialect is usually opposed to the literary variety of the language whereas American English possesses a literary variety of its own. Other scholars label Am. Eng. “a regional variety” of the English language. Before accepting tis point of view, it is necessary to find out whether or not Am. Eng. in its modern stage of development, possesses those characteristics which would support its status as an independent language. A language is supposed to possess a vocabulary and a grammar system of its own.

Vocabulaty of Am. Eng. The vocabulary used by American speakers, has distinctive features of its own. More than that: there are whole groups of words which belong to American vocabulary exclusively and comstitute its specific feature. These words are called Americanisms. 1)Historical americanisms. At the beginning of the 17^th century the first english migrants began arriving in America in search of new and better living conditions. It was then that English was first spoken on American soil, and it is but natural that it was spoken in its 17^th century form.(Ex: fall meant “autumn”). In American usage these words still retain their old meanings whereas in British english their meanings have changed.2)words which one is not likely to discover in british vocabulary. They are specially American, and we shall therefore call them proper Americanisms. The oldest of these were formed by the first megrants to the American continent and reflected, to a great extent, their attempts to cope with their new environment. (backwoods – wooded, uninhabited districts; blue-grass – a sort of grass in north america). Later proper americanisms are represented by names of objects which are called differently in the US and England. (Eng. drug store – Amer. druggist’s). American vocabulary is rich in borrowings. The principal froups of borrowed words are the same as were pointed out for english vocabulary.3)American shortenings. It’s especially charactericstic for American word-building. (mo – moment, movie).

The grammar system of american english. Here we are likely to find even fewer divergencies than in the vocabulary system. 1)The use of the auxiliary verb “will” in the 1^st person singular and plural of the future indefinite tense, in contrast to the british normative “shall”. 2)tendency to substitute the past indefinite tense for the present perfect tense, especially in oral communication. An American is likely to say “I saw this movie” where an Englishman will probably say “I’ve seen this film”.

All this brings us to the conclusion that the language spoken spoken in the US is in all essential features identical with that spoken in GB. The grammar systems are fully identical. The American vocabulary is marked by certain pecularities which are not sufficiently numerous or pronounced to justify the claims that there exists an independent American language. The language spoken in the USA can be regarded as a regional variety of English