The Lexical Differences Between American English and British English美國英語與英國英語在詞匯上的差異

1、 美國英語與英國英語在詞匯上的差異the lexical betweenamerican english and british englishcontentsabstractikey wordsi摘要關(guān)鍵詞introduction1.the history of british and american english2a.the history of british english2 1. the period of old english2 2. the period of middle english3 3. the period of modern english3b. the de

2、velopment of american english on the basis of british english4.reasons for the development of american english5a. being in different regions5b. borrowing words from other countries6c. revolting politics and ideology in north america8.the different meaning in american english9a. creation of american

3、lexicon9b. different meanings between american and british english10 c. same objects expressed in different vocabularies10d. the simplification in american english lexicology11 e. other forms of american english different from british english12. the developing tendency of american english and britis

4、h english13a. the influence of american english13b. the leading position of american english13conclusion16acknowledgements17bibliography18abstractwith the development of the two countriesamerica and the u.k., the differences in some fields are clear and are also reflected in their languages. even th

5、ough there are many similarities in both variants, there are many differences in lexicology because of different regions, social backgrounds, the ways of peoples thinking, etc. this paper discusses the differences in lexicology between british english and american english and their tendency through

6、the historical development of the two variants.key wordsamerican english; british english; the lexical difference摘要美國是一個(gè)移民國家,美國英語主要是十七世紀(jì)英國英語在美國的進(jìn)一步發(fā)展。美國英語和英國英語雖然有很多相同之處,但是由于歷史文化和社會背景及人們的思維方式導(dǎo)致了很多的不同。隨著社會的發(fā)展,美國英語與英國英語的差別越來越顯著。本文通過回顧分析英國英語和美國英語的歷史演變和發(fā)展過程,論述了美國英語和英國英語在詞匯方面存在的主要差異，通過了解兩種英語在詞匯方面存在的差異,使英語

7、學(xué)習(xí)者比較容易地掌握某一種英語以及正確地表達(dá)英語包含的豐富的知識。本文同時(shí)還指出了美國英語以其獨(dú)有的特點(diǎn)和語言藝術(shù)魅力越來越受到人們的關(guān)注,從而探討英語的發(fā)展趨勢。關(guān)鍵詞美國英語；英國英語；詞匯差異introductionamong the thousands of different languages in the world there is only one that can claim to be a more or less universal languageenglish. it is estimated that there are over 300 million nati

8、ve speakers, of whom some 200 million live in the united states and some 50 million in the united kingdom. in addition to native speakers there are about 500 to 700 million people using english, which makes the total number of speakers nearly one-forth of the worlds population. today, american engli

9、sh is particularly influential; 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. among the different variants of english the two best known are a

10、merican english and british english. there do exist differences between the two, just as many differences in the varieties within themselves. to be consistent in the use of english, and more importantly, to be understood, the nonnative speaker needs to know which words have distinct meanings and pro

11、nunciations depending on whether they are used by an englishman or an american. this is necessary not only for sake of communication, but also to avoid embarrassment. this paper will focus on how american english came to be different from british english in lexicology. historical background of briti

12、sh and american englisha. the history of british englishthe history of the english language can be dated from the arrival of three germanic tribes to the britain during the 5th century ad. angles, saxons and jutes crossed the north sea from what is the present day denmark and northern germany to bri

13、tain. the inhabitants of britain previously spoke a celtic language. however, it was quickly displaced by the language brought with the invaders. most of the celtic speakers were pushed into wales, cornwall and scotland. one group migrated to the brittany coast of france where their descendants stil

14、l speak the celtic language of breton today. the angles were named from engle, their land of origin. after experiencing constant development, immigrates language had changed into the current english. up to now, it has more than one thousand five hundred years, which some scholars divided into severa

15、l stages in order to illustrate the history of english. however, they did not divide it in the same way. “here quotes the way of american professor kennedy who divided historical process of period into such three stages” (guo boyu 5).1. the period of old english the period from 450 to 1100 is known

16、as the old english. the earliest period begins with the immigration of certain germanic tribes from the continent to britain in the fifth century a. d., though no records of their language survive from before the seventh century, and it continues to the end of the eleventh century or maybe a bit lat

17、er. as having been seen that english language did not simply spring into existence; it was brought from the continent by germanic tribes who had no form of writing and hence left no records. philologists know that they must have spoken a dialect of a language that can be called west germanic. by tha

18、t time latin, old norse (the language of the viking invaders), and especially the anglo-norman french of the dominant class after the norman conquest in 1066 had begun to have a substantial impact on the lexicon. the following brief sample of old english prose illustrates several of the significant

19、ways in which english has transformed. a few of these words will be recognized as identical in spelling with their modern equivalents - he, of, him, for, and, on etc., and some of words are familiar to modern words, which can be easily guessed, such as wre to were, ws to was, of which only these who

20、 have made special study of old english can understand what their meanings are.2. the period of middle englishthe period of middle english extends roughly from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. this period was marked by important and significant changes in the english language, especially in the

21、 vocabulary. the norman conquest was the cause of these changes. the change of this period had a great effect on vocabulary. in this period many old english words were lost, but thousands of words borrowed from french and latin appeared in the english vocabulary. because the normans who conquered th

22、e britain were government administrators or lords, meat was their most main dishes. such words as beef, mutton, veal, and calf, etc. came into english vocabulary. that is to say, the influence of french upon the english lexicon continued throughout this period. “english had also strong influence fro

23、m latin (mostly through the church and scholars) and the norman invasion of england brought about significant changes in the language” (guo boyu 6).3. the period of modern englishmodern english period extends from fifteenth century to the present day. modern english developed by the efforts of liter

24、ary and political writings. from 1500 to 1700 is the early modern english. during this time, the chief influence of this time was great humanistic movement of the renaissance. since the 16th century, because of the contact that the british had with many peoples from around the world, and the renaiss

25、ance of classical learning, many words have entered the language either directly or indirectly. new words were created at an increasing rate. shakespeare coined over 1600 words. the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are a period of rapid expansion for the english vocabulary in the history of the en

26、glish language. other important developments at this period include the stabilizing effect on spelling of the printing press and the beginning of the direct influence of latin, greek on the lexicon. later, as english came into contact with other cultures around the world and distinctive dialects of

27、english developed in the many areas which britain had colonized, other numerous languages made small but interesting contributions to the language vocabulary. lexical improvement in this process has grown rapidly. therefore, the vocabulary of english is the largest of any language. the historical as

28、pect of english really encompasses more than three stages of development above mentioned. english has what might be called a prehistory as well. english is just one relatively young member of an ancient family of languages whose descendants cover a fair portion of the globe. during the english devel

29、opment, there are numerous words borrowed from abroad. borrowed words include names of animals, clothing, food, scientific and mathematical terms, drinks, religious terms, sports, vehicles, music and art, weapons, political and military terms, and astronomical names.languages that have contributed w

30、ords to english include “l(fā)atin, greek, french, german, arabic, hindi (from india), italian, malay, dutch, farsi (from iran and afghanistan), sanskrit (from ancient india), portuguese, spanish, and ewe (from africa)” (quark 4). even with all these borrowings the core of the language remains the anglo

31、-saxon of old english. only about 5000 words from this period have remained unchanged but they include the basic building blocks of the language: household words, parts of the body, common animals, natural elements, most pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs.b. the development of

32、american english on the basis of british english the history of american english can be divided into the colonial (1607-1776), the national (1776-1898), and the international (1898-present) periods. during nearly four hundred years of use in north america, the english language changed.american engli

33、sh began in the seventeenth century. at the beginning of the 17th century the english language was brought to north american by colonists from england. they used the language spoken in england. “george p. krapp, a professor in columbia university of american, indicated in his book that the british p

34、eople had brought the shakespeare and miltons english into american. that is, elizabethan english, the language used by shakespeare, milton and banyan” (guo boyu 61). at first the language stayed the same as the language used in britain, but slowly the language began to change. sometimes, the englis

35、h spoken in american changed but sometimes the language spoken in the place stayed the same, while the language in england changed. the development of the english language in america can be separated into three periods: the first period extends from the settlement of jamestown in 1607 to the end of

36、colonial times. in this period the population in america numbered about four million people, 90 percent of them came from britain. the second period covers the expansion of the original thirteen colonies. this period may be said to close with the civil war, about 1860. this period was marked by the

37、arrival of the new immigrants from ireland and germany. the third period, since the civil war, is marked by an important change in the source from which the european immigrants came. they came from northern and southern europe in large numbers.following american independence, famous persons like tho

38、mas jefferson, john adams, and webster began to consider that the country should have a language of its own. english in america has developed a character of its own, reflecting the life and the physical and social environment of the american people. as time went on, the english language gradually ch

39、anged on both sides of the atlantic. the americans adopted many words from foreign languages and invented large number of new words to meet their various needs.reasons for the development of american englisha. being in different regionsbritish english changed after the emigrants left their homeland

40、while american english formed after the colonists settled on the continent. the origin of american english was in the colonial period in the 17th century when the english language first came to america with the colonists. after arriving in the new continent-north america, the early settlers were not

41、 with just the only english language; there undoubtedly were several different dialects and they obviously had to cope with a general lack of uniformity of speech. it is also obvious that the changes producing the two variants of english happened on both sides of the ocean. in those days it was very

42、 difficult for an immigrant in america to be in contact with people left behind in the old country and therefore the changes in language on either side did not transfer to the other. life in america, in a totally new environment, was different from the life of the settlers; therefore language had to

43、 evolve because of the necessity of talking about new things, qualities, operations, concepts and ideas. there were features of colonial and frontier life that did not have an expression in the british english language; they encountered new plants, domesticated fish and animals. later they found the

44、mselves living among tribes of indigenous peoples who spoke strange languages, wore strange clothing, prepared strange foods and maintained tribal customs quite different from anything they had previously encountered. even landscapes were different from the english countryside. all of these unfamili

45、ar things needed to be named in order to lead their new life in the continent without obstacles. therefore, they have created new words for new things they had seen.b. borrowing words from other countriesborrowing words from the indians, french, spanish, dutch, germans and africans is another way to

46、 make american english vocabulary different from those of british english. actually, british english had also borrowed words from some of these countries, but compared with britain, the words borrowed in american english were greatly and diversely different at such a certain time. one simple way of

47、creating new names was borrowing them often from the native indian languages. many of the original indian words contained sounds and had linguistic features that did not occur in english; therefore the words often changed considerably both in form and meaning in the borrowing process. “for instance,

48、 such words as hickory, pecan, chipmunk, squaw and raccoon are american indian borrowings” (guo boyu 65).the spheres of life represented by these borrowings show that the largest number of indian loan words is connected with the indian institutions and civilization. in these cases, as for these stra

49、nge things they had previously met, it was also obviously easier to borrow the indian term than to create a new one out of english elements. it was equally obvious that these terms were not transferred to british english, since these vocabularies were not present in britain.from the early days of co

50、lonization, america became the melting pot of different nationalities and cultures. as these cultures came in contact with one another, they also influenced the language. besides the indian language, sources for loaned words of american english were all the other languages that were present in the i

51、mmigration. in the westward expansion of their territory, the english-speaking emigrants soon came into contact with the french words.american english also borrowed words from spanish. in the period of moving south toward the gulf of mexico and moving west toward the rockies, the anglo-saxon settler

52、s encountered permanent and substantial spanish colonies. it is obvious that the largest groups of borrowings from the spanish reflects the hacienda culture, which typified the spanish colonial occupation and the ranching and mining economy which developed out of it.contacts with the dutch coloniali

53、sts were established in the 17th century. however, dutch sailors had been in contact with the colonialists long before that. some of the words borrowed from dutch are wholly or in part translations rather than direct appropriations. the germane migrations to america started also in the late 17th cen

54、tury. the contacts between the german and english-speaking immigrants have been to a large extent cultural, since a large portion of the borrowings from german concentrates on food terms and pleasant but commonplace social contact.one must not forget another big group of different kind of immigrants

55、 that influenced the american english the black people who were transported from africa as slaves. such words as gumbo, jazz, voodoo, okra and chigger are africans. therefore african words are also widely used in american english. these are just a few examples of loan words; there are also many more

56、 languages, representing smaller groups of immigrants, which have also made contributions to the american english vocabulary. all have done their part to make american english what it is today.c. revolting politics and ideology in north americanorthern american people fight against the autocratic ru

57、les of britain in order to get their own freedom and rights. this kind of offensive attitude towards to britain plays a very important role in the process of american english development. the people in north america dislike and hate british arts and literature that are related to british english. th

58、ey want a language with american feature which is different from british english. more and more scholars and authors think that they should use their own language to write books and to create without depending on british english. noah webster was one of them who made a great contribution to developi

59、ng american english vocabulary.webster is a dictionary publisher. thanks to him, the american and british versions of the english language became separate, unique languages. in 1807, he began to write an expanded dictionary, “an american dictionary of the english language,” which would reform the language again, drawing it