American English is a form of the English language

 

Contents

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….... 2

CHAPTER 1. General characteristics of the American English language……...... 4

1. Lexical and semantic differences between British English and American English………………………………………………………………...……. 4
2. Regional peculiarities of American English…………………………........... 9

CHAPTER 2. Lexical and semantic peculiarities of American English in fiction……………………………………………………………..………...……. 19

2.1. Americanisms as structural component of the novel “Love Story” by Erich Segal…………………………………………………………………….....…….. 19

2.2. The functional role of American English in the novel……………………… 21

CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………...…………………. 24

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………….…. 25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

American English is a form of the English language used in the United States of America. It is the primary language used in the United States.

Everyone knows that Americans speak English differently than the British or Australians or even Canadians do, but most of the time we think of these differences in terms of the way we pronounce certain words (i.e., our accents). Most people also know that there are some differences that manifest themselves in written language as well as speech. But beyond calling some things by different names, there are many other peculiarities of American English in its phrasing and syntax that set it apart from other brands of the English language. There are also considerable semantic differences between British and American English. Usage not only differs but can be misleading.

Of course, even within the U.S. there are considerable variations in not only terminology, but also phrasing and syntax, as you move from region to region across the nation. In fact, the characteristics of different “brands” of American English has been a topic of considerable interest for at least 100 years, and has led to the creation of a “Dictionary of American Regional English”, a multi-volume work-in-progress that documents regional variations in terminology and pronunciation across the U.S. The object of the study is the American English.

The subject of the study is lexical and semantic peculiarities of American English in fiction.

The aim of the study is to study lexical and semantic peculiarities of American English language.

The additional tasks of the study are as follows:

1) generalization of the main peculiarities of American English;

2)the analysis of the regional features of American English used in literature;

 

         3) the study of lexical and semantic peculiarities of American English in fiction.

The theoretical significance of the study is connected with the generalization of the main as well as regional peculiarities of American English.

The practical relevance of the study lies in the use of its results in theoretical courses as well as practical classes (e.g. English Studies).

The structure of the study is predetermined by its aim and additional tasks. So it is as follows: introduction, two chapters, conclusions and bibliography.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1. General characteristics of the American English language

1. Lexical and semantic differences between British English and American English

 

American English shows many influences from the different cultures and languages of the people who settled in North America. The nature of the influence depends on the time and the circumstances of contact between cultures.

Although all Americans do not speak the same way, their speech has enough in common that American English can be recognized as a variety of English distinct from British English, Australian English, and other national varieties. American English has grown up with the country. It began to diverge from British English during its colonial beginnings and acquired regional differences and ethnic flavor during the settlement of the continent. Today it influences other languages and other varieties of English because it is the medium by which the attractions of American culture–its literature, motion pictures, and television programs–are transmitted to the world.

All speakers of English share a common linguistic system and a basic set of words. But American English differs from British English, Australian English, and other national varieties in many of its pronunciations, words, spellings, and grammatical constructions. Words or phrases of American origin, and those used in America but not so much elsewhere, are called Americanisms.

        American English and British English differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, was written by Noah Webster in 1828; Webster intended to show that the United States, which was a relatively new country at the time, spoke a different dialect from that of Britain.

 

 

 

Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and normally do not affect mutual intelligibility; these include: different use of some verbal auxiliaries; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns; different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs (e.g. American English/British English: learned/learnt, burned/burnt, and in sneak, dive, get); different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (e.g. American English in school, British English at school); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (American English to the hospital, British English to hospital; contrast, however, American English actress Elizabeth Taylor, British English the actress Elizabeth Taylor). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable, since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other [2; 67].

Differences in orthography are also trivial. Some of the forms that now serve to distinguish American from British spelling (color for colour, center for centre, traveler for traveller, etc.) were introduced by Noah Webster himself; others are due to spelling tendencies in Britain from the 17^th century until the present day (for instance, -ise for -ize, although the Oxford English Dictionary still prefers the -ize ending) and cases favored by the francophile tastes of 19^th century Victorian England, which had little effect on American English (for instance, programme for program, manoeuvre for maneuver, skilful for skillful, cheque for check, etc.).

American English sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas British English uses clipped forms, such as American English transportation and British English transport or where the British form is a back-formation, such as American English burglarize and British English burgle (from burglar). It should however be noted that these words are not mutually exclusive, being widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems.

Among the earliest and most notable regular “English” additions to the American vocabulary, dating from the early days of colonization through the early 19th century, are terms describing the features of the North American landscape; for instance, run, branch, fork, snag, bluff, gulch, neck (of the woods), barrens, bottomland, notch, knob, riffle, rapids, watergap, cutoff, trail, timberline and divide. Already existing words such as creek, slough, sleet and (in later use) watershed received new meanings that were unknown in England.

The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as the colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Examples of such names are opossum, raccoon, squash and moose (from Algonquian). Other Native American loanwords, such as wigwam or moccasin, describe artificial objects in common use among Native Americans. The languages of the other colonizing nations also added to the American vocabulary; for instance, cookie, cruller, stoop and pit (of a fruit) from Dutch; levee, portage (“carrying of boats or goods”) and (probably) gopher from French; barbecue, stevedore and rodeo from Spanish.

Other noteworthy American toponyms are found among loanwords; for example, prairie, butte (French); bayou (Choctaw via Louisiana French); coulee (Canadian French, but used also in Louisiana with a different meaning); canyon, mesa, arroyo (Spanish); vlei, kill (Dutch, Hudson Valley).

The word corn, used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the plant Zea mays, the most important crop in the U.S., originally named Indian corn by the earliest settlers; wheat, rye, barley, oats, etc. came to be collectively referred to as grain (or breadstuffs). Other notable farm related vocabulary additions were the new meanings assumed by barn (not only a building for hay and grain storage, but also for housing livestock) and team (not just the horses, but also the vehicle along with them), as well as, in various periods, the terms range, (corn) crib, truck, elevator, sharecropping and feedlot.

American English has always shown a marked tendency to use nouns as verbs. Examples of verbed nouns are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, room, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, belly-ache, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, service (as a car), corner, torch, exit (as in “exit the lobby”), factor (in mathematics), gun (shoot), author (which disappeared in English around 1630 and was revived in the U.S. three centuries later) and, out of American material, proposition, graft (bribery), bad-mouth, vacation, major, backpack, backtrack, intern, ticket (traffic violations), hassle, blacktop, peer-review, dope and OD, and, of course verbed as used at the start of this sentence. The saying goes, “In the US of A there is no such thing as a noun that can't be “verbed””.

Compounds coined in the U.S. are for instance foothill, flatlands, badlands, landslide (in all senses), overview (the noun), backdrop, teenager, brainstorm, bandwagon, hitchhike, smalltime, deadbeat, frontman, lowbrow and highbrow, hell-bent, foolproof, nitpick, about-face (later verbed), upfront (in all senses), fixer-upper, no-show; many of these are phrases used as adverbs or (often) hyphenated attributive adjectives: non-profit, for-profit, free-for-all, ready-to-wear, catchall, low-down, down-and-out, down and dirty, in-your-face, nip and tuck; many compound nouns and adjectives are open: happy hour, fall guy, capital gain, road trip, wheat pit, head start, plea bargain; some of these are colorful (empty nester, loan shark, ambulance chaser, buzz saw, ghetto blaster, dust bunny), others are euphemistic (differently abled, human resources, physically challenged, affirmative action, correctional facility).

Many compound nouns have the form verb plus preposition: add-on, stopover, lineup, shakedown, tryout, spin-off, rundown (“summary”), shootout, holdup, hideout, comeback, cookout, kickback, makeover, takeover, rollback (“decrease”), rip-off, come-on, shoo-in, fix-up, tie-in, tie-up (“stoppage”), stand-in. These essentially are nouned phrasal verbs; some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin (spell out, figure out, hold up, brace up, size up, rope in, back up/off/down/out, step down, miss out on, kick around, cash in, rain out, check in and check out (in all senses), fill in (“inform”), kick in (“contribute”), square off, sock in, sock away, factor in/out, come down with, give up on, lay off (from employment), run into and across (“meet”), stop by, pass up, put up (money), set up (“frame”), trade in, pick up on, pick up after, lose out.

Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive. Some verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, itemize, editorialize, customize, notarize, weatherize, winterize, Mirandize; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, evolute, curate, donate, emote, upholster, peeve and enthuse). Among syntactical constructions that arose in the U.S. are as of (with dates and times), outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, convince someone to…, not to be about to and lack for.

Americanisms formed by alteration of existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, pry (as in “pry open,” from prize), putter (verb), buddy, sundae, skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in the U.S. are for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, grounded (of a child), punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in “through train,” or meaning “finished”), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky. American blends include motel, guesstimate, infomercial and televangelist.

A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that always have been in everyday use in the United States dropped out in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots. Terms such as  fall (“autumn”), pavement (to mean “road surface”, where in Britain, as in Philadelphia, it is the equivalent of “sidewalk”), faucet, diaper, candy, skillet, eyeglasses, crib (for a baby), obligate, and raise a child are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16^th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like “fall of the leaf” and “fall of the year”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Regional peculiarities of American English

While written American English is standardized across the country, there are several recognizable variations in the spoken language, both in pronunciation and in vernacular vocabulary. General American is the name given to any American accent that is relatively free of noticeable regional influences.

After the Civil War, the settlement of the western territories by migrants from the Eastern U.S. led to dialect mixing and leveling, so that regional dialects are most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard. The Connecticut River and Long Island Sound is usually regarded as the southern/western extent of New England speech, which has its roots in the speech of the Puritans from East Anglia who settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Potomac River generally divides a group of Northern coastal dialects from the beginning of the Coastal Southern dialect area; in between these two rivers several local variations exist, chief among them the one that prevails in and around New York City and northern New Jersey, which developed on a Dutch substratum after the British conquered New Amsterdam. The main features of Coastal Southern speech can be traced to the speech of the English from the West Country who settled in Virginia after leaving England at the time of the English Civil War [2; 77].

Although no longer region-specific, African American Vernacular English, which remains prevalent among African Americans, has a close relationship to Southern varieties of American English and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans.

A distinctive speech pattern also appears near the border between Canada and the United States, centered on the Great Lakes region (but only on the American side). This is the Inland North Dialect – the “standard Midwestern” speech that was the basis for General American in the mid-20^th Century (although it has been recently modified by the northern cities vowel shift). Those not from this area frequently confuse it with the North Midland dialect treated below, referring to both collectively as “Midwestern” in the mid-Atlantic region or “Northern” in the Southern US. The so-called “Minnesotan” dialect is also prevalent in the cultural Upper Midwest, and is characterized by influences from the German and Scandinavian settlers of the region (yah for yes/ja in German, pronounced the same way).

In the interior, the situation is very different. West of the Appalachian Mountains begins the broad zone of what is generally called “Midland” speech. This is divided into two discrete subdivisions, the North Midland that begins north of the Ohio River valley area, and the South Midland speech; sometimes the former is designated simply “Midland” and the latter is reckoned as “Highland Southern.” The North Midland speech continues to expand westward until it becomes the closely related Western dialect which contains Pacific Northwest English as well as the well-known California English, although in the immediate San Francisco area some older speakers do not possess the cot-caught merger and thus retain the distinction between words such as cot and caught which reflects a historical Mid-Atlantic heritage.

The South Midland or Highland Southern dialect follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters out in West Texas. It is a version of the Midland speech that has assimilated some coastal Southern forms (outsiders often mistakenly believe South Midland speech and coastal South speech to be the same).

Finally, dialect development in the United States has been notably influenced by the distinctive speech of such important cultural centers as Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charleston, New Orleans, New York City, and Detroit, which imposed their marks on the surrounding areas.

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States. The use of English in the United States was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17^th century. During that time, there were also speakers in North America of Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, Russian (Alaska) and numerous Native American languages.

Compared to English as spoken in England, North American English is more homogeneous. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast (for example, in Eastern New England and New York City), partly because these areas were in contact with England and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when those varieties were undergoing changes. In addition, many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations longer than others. The interior of the United States, however, was settled by people from all regions of the existing United States and therefore developed a far more generic linguistic pattern [2; 89].

Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17^th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English, West Country English and Scottish English as well as the fact most regions of England at this time also had rhotic accents. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter r is a retroflex [r] or alveolar approximant [r] rather than a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to the accents of eastern New England, New York City and surrounding areas and the coastal portions of the South, and African American Vernacular English. In rural tidewater Virginia and eastern New England, “r” is non-rhotic in accented (such as bird, work, first, birthday, etc.) as well as unaccented syllables, although this is declining among the younger generation of speakers. Dropping of syllable-final r sometimes happens in natively rhotic dialects if r is located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in a consonant. In England, the lost r was often changed into [ə] (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs. Furthermore, the er sound of fur or butter, is realized in AmE as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] as represented in the IPA). This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.

Some other English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:

1) the shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called “broad A”) before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance. In the United States, only eastern New England speakers took up this modification, although even there it is becoming increasingly rare.

2) the realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ] (as in [bɒʔəl] for bottle). This change is not universal for British English and is not considered a feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North American dialects. Newfoundland English is a notable exception.

On the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound changes not found in the standard varieties of English speech:

1) the merger of /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, making father and bother rhyme. This change is nearly universal in North American English, occurring almost everywhere except for parts of eastern New England, hence the Boston accent;

2) the merger of /ɒ/ and /ɔ/. This is the so-called cot-caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones. This change has occurred in eastern New England, in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, and from the Great Plains westward.

For speakers who do not merge caught and cot: The replacement of the cot vowel with the caught vowel before voiceless fricatives (as in cloth, off [which is found in some old-fashioned varieties of RP]), as well as before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long), usually in gone, often in on, and irregularly before /ɡ/ (log, hog, dog, fog [which is not found in British English at all]).

The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what and in many utterances of the words everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody; the word because has either /ʌ/ or /ɔ/; want has normally /ɔ/ or /ɑ/, sometimes /ʌ/.

Vowel merger before intervocalic /ɹ/. Which vowels are affected varies between dialects, but the Mary-marry-merry, nearer-mirror, and hurry-furry mergers are all widespread. Another such change is the laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like [pɛɹ], [pɪɹ] and [pjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure. The resulting sound [ʊɹ] is often further reduced to [ɝ], especially after palatals, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir.

Dropping of /j/ is more extensive than in RP. In most North American accents, /j/ is dropped after all alveolar and interdental consonant, so that new, duke, Tuesday, resume are pronounced /nu/, /duk/, /tuzdeɪ/, /ɹɪzum/.

æ-tensing in environments that vary widely from accent to accent; for example, for many speakers, /æ/ is approximately realized as [eə] before nasal consonants. In some accents, particularly those from Philadelphia to New York City, [æ] and [eə] can even contrast sometimes, as in Yes, I can [kæn] vs. tin can [keən].

The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are pronounced the same. For many speakers, this merger is incomplete and does not occur after /aɪ/; these speakers tend to pronounce writer with [əɪ] and rider with [aɪ]. This is a form of Canadian raising but, unlike more extreme forms of that process, does not affect /aʊ/. In some areas and idiolects, a phonemic distinction between what elsewhere become homophones through this process is maintained by vowel lengthening in the vowel preceding the formerly voiced consonant, e.g., [læ:·ɾɹ̩] for “ladder” as opposed to [læ·ɾɹ̩] for “latter” [2; 102].

Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], rarely making winter and winner homophones. Most areas in which /nt/ is reduced to /n/, it is accompanied further by nasalization of simple post-vocalic /n/, so that V/nt/ and V/n/ remain phonemically distinct. In such cases, the preceding vowel becomes nasalized, and is followed in cases where the former /nt/ was present, by a distinct /n/. This stop-absorption by the preceding nasal /n/ does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.

The pin-pen merger, by which [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before nasal consonants, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in Southern American English but is now also sometimes found in parts of the Midwest and West as well, especially in people with roots in the mountainous areas of the Southeastern United States.

Some mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include:

1) he merger of the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before “r”, making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, etc. homophones;

2) the wine-whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where, etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating /hw/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. Many older varieties of southern and western AmE still keep these distinct, but the merger appears to be spreading.

Ranch, later applied to a house style, derives from Mexican Spanish; most Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812, with the opening of the West. Among these are, other than toponyms, chaps (from chaparreras), plaza, lasso, bronco, buckaroo, rodeo; examples of “English” additions from the cowboy era are bad man, maverick, chuck (food) and Boot Hill; from the California Gold Rush came such idioms as hit pay dirt or strike it rich. The word blizzard probably originated in the West. A couple of notable late 18^th century additions are the verb belittle and the noun bid, both first used in writing by Thomas Jefferson.

With the new continent developed new forms of dwelling, and hence a large inventory of words designating real estate concepts (land office, lot, outlands, waterfront, the verbs locate and relocate, betterment, addition, subdivision), types of property (log cabin, adobe in the 18^th century; frame house, apartment, tenement house, shack, shanty in the 19^th century; project, condominium, townhouse, split-level, mobile home, multi-family in the 20^th century), and parts there of (driveway, breezeway, backyard, dooryard; clapboard, siding, trim, baseboard; stoop (from Dutch), family room, den; and, in recent years, HVAC, central air, walkout basement.

Ever since the American Revolution, a great number of terms connected with the U.S. political institutions have entered the language; examples are run, gubernatorial, primary election, carpetbagger (after the Civil War), repeater, lame duck and pork barrel. Some of these are internationally used (for instance, caucus, gerrymander, filibuster, exit poll).

The rise of capitalism, the development of industry and material innovations throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries were the source of a massive stock of distinctive new words, phrases and idioms. Typical examples are the vocabulary of railroading and transportation terminology, ranging from names of roads (from dirt roads and back roads to freeways and parkways) to road infrastructure (parking lot, overpass, rest area), and from automotive terminology to public transit (e.g. in the sentence “riding the subway downtown”); such American introductions as commuter (from commutation ticket), concourse, to board (a vehicle), to park, double-park and parallel park (a car), double decker or the noun terminal have long been used in all dialects of English. Trades of various kinds have endowed (American) English with household words describing jobs and occupations (bartender, longshoreman, patrolman, hobo, bouncer, bellhop, roustabout, white collar, blue collar, employee, boss (from Dutch), intern, busboy, mortician, senior citizen), businesses and workplaces (department store, supermarket, thrift store, gift shop, drugstore, motel, main street, gas station, hardware store, savings and loan, hock (also from Dutch)), as well as general concepts and innovations (automated teller machine, smart card, cash register, dishwasher, reservation (as at hotels), pay envelope, movie, mileage, shortage, outage, blood bank) [2; 112].

Already existing English words – such as store, shop, dry goods, haberdashery, lumber – underwent shifts in meaning; some – such as mason, student, clerk, the verbs can (as in “canned goods”), ship, fix, carry, enroll (as in school), run (as in “run a business”), release and haul – were given new significations, while others (such as tradesman) have retained meanings that disappeared in England. From the world of business and finance came breakeven, merger, delisting, downsize, disintermediation, bottom line; from sports terminology came jargon aside, Monday-morning quarterback, cheap shot, etc. A number of Americanisms describing material innovations remained largely confined to North America: elevator, ground, gasoline; many automotive terms fall in this category, although many do not (hatchback, SUV, station wagon, tailgate, motorhome, truck, pickup truck, to exhaust).

In addition to the above-mentioned loans from French, Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Dutch, and Native American languages, other accretions from foreign languages came with 19^th and early 20^th century immigration; notably, from Yiddish (chutzpah, schmooze, tush and such idioms as need something like a hole in the head) and German – hamburger and culinary terms like frankfurter/franks, liverwurst, sauerkraut, wiener, deli(catessen); scram, kindergarten, gesundheit; musical terminology (whole note, half note, etc.); and apparently cookbook, fresh (“impudent”) and what gives? Such constructions as Are you coming with? and I like to dance (for “I like dancing”) may also be the result of German or Yiddish influence.

Finally, a large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7), while others have not (have a nice day, sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey, boost, bulldoze and jazz, originated as American slang. Among the many English idioms of U.S. origin are get the hang of, take for a ride, bark up the wrong tree, keep tabs, run scared, take a backseat, have an edge over, stake a claim, take a shine to, in on the ground floor, bite off more than one can chew, off/on the wagon, stay put, inside track, stiff upper lip, bad hair day, throw a monkey wrench, under the weather, jump bail, come clean, come again?, it ain’t over till it's over, what goes around comes around, etc.

During the 17^th century English immigration to the colonies in North America was at its peak and the new settlers took their language with them. While the term fall gradually became obsolete in Britain, it became the more common term in North America. Gotten (past participle of get) is often considered to be an Americanism, although there are some areas of Britain, such as Lancashire and North-eastern England, that still continue to use it and sometimes also use putten as the past participle for put (which is not done by most speakers of American English).

Other words and meanings, to various extents, were brought back to Britain, especially in the second half of the 20^th century; these include hire (“to employ”), quit (“to stop” which spawned quitter in the U.S.), I guess (famously criticized by H.W. Fowler), baggage, hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently (“currently”). Some of these, for example monkey wrench and wastebasket, originated in 19th-century Britain.

So American English has both spelling and grammatical differences from British English, some of which were made as part of an attempt to rationalize the English spelling used by British English at the time. Unlike many 20^th century language reforms (e.g., Turkey’s alphabet shift, Norway’s spelling reform) the American spelling changes were not driven by government, but by textbook writers and dictionary makers.

The first American dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1828. At the time America was a relatively new country and Webster’s particular contribution was to show that the region spoke a different dialect from Britain, and so he wrote a dictionary with many spellings differing from the standard. Many of these changes were initiated unilaterally by Webster. Webster also argued for many “simplifications” to the idiomatic spelling of the period. Somewhat ironically, many, although not all, of his simplifications fell into common usage alongside the original versions, resulting in a situation even more confused than before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2. Lexical and semantic peculiarities of American English in fiction

2.1. Americanisms as structural component of the novel “Love Story” by Erich Segal

It is necessary to notice that the elements of American variant of English are rather wide-spread in the novel “Love Story” by E. Segal. For instance, the phrase to eye the cheese (its Ukrainian equivalent is “задивлятися на дівчат”) is used as the element of American variant of English in the following fragment:

“…Not to eye the cheese, although I admit that I liked to look” [16; 9].

Besides, the lexical unit Preppie that means the peculiar type of the student that origins from a rich family is used in the following fragment:

“I’m not talking legality, Prepie” [16; 9].

The lexical unit music major that means the student specialized in music is used in the following fragment:

“And a music major”, she added [16; 12].

The lexical unit dorm (its Ukrainian equivalent is “гуртожиток”) is used in  the following fragment:

And as I walked Jenny back to her dorm, I had not despaired of ultimate victory over this snotty Radcliffe bitch [16; 14].

The lexical unit buddy (its Ukrainian equivalent is “дружище, приятель”) is used in the following fragment:

Every afternoon of my college life I walked into that place, greeted my buddies with friendly obscenities, shed the trappings of civilization and turned into a jock [16; 21].

The lexical unit Canuck is used in the following fragment in order to mark the nationality of Canadians:

At a heated juncture, I made the unfortunate error of referring to their center as a “fucking Canuck” [16; 27].

The lexical unit breeze is used in order to underline that the deal was easy in the following fragment:

“Please, Jen. It’ll be a breeze” [16; 60].

To underline the peculiarities of the literary character’s behaviour the author uses the lexical unit demeanor as the element of American variant of English:

Doubtless, Mother was sizing up Jennifer, checking out her costume (not Boho this afternoon), her posture, her demeanor, her accent [16; 64].

The lexical unit diner that means a cheap restaurant is used in the following fragment:

I kept my cool long enough to pull into the parking lot of a seafood diner [16; 72].

The lexical unit bucks that means dollar as the currency is used in the following fragment:

“But he’d be happier if I had a few bucks” [16; 82].

The lexical unit zilch that means zero is used in the following fragment:

“I have absolutely zilch in the bank, and I’m already accepted” [16; 93].

The lexical unit dough that means money is used in the following fragment:

… we would be able to scrape up enough dough to do whatever it was we had to do [16; 102].

The lexical unit counselor (its Ukrainian equivalent is “консультант”) is used in the following fragment:

… and Jenny was a children’s counselor [16; 103].

The lexical unit freshman that means the student of the first course is used in the following fragment:

“…And by the time he’s a freshman, you’ll probably be in Supreme Court!” [16; 113]

The lexical unit tackle (its Ukrainian equivalent is “напівзахисник”) is used in the following fragment:

“Bozo Barrett, Harvard’s huge All-Ivy tackle” [16; 135]. So the elements of American variant of English are rather wide-spread in the mentioned literary work. This variant of English makes the literary work more expressive and helps to represent the peculiarities between the literary characters better.

2.2. The functional role of American English in the novel

The use of American English American English in the novel is characterized by its functional role. For instance, the lexical unit goddamn that means чортова in Ukrainian is used as the element of slang in the following fragment:

I normally cut these types to ribbons, but just then I badly needed that goddamn book [16; 4]. In this case the mentioned lexical unit is used to underline the literary character’s attitude to the book.

The lexical unit knock their heads off that means покажи їм! in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

Go, Oliver, go! Knock their heads off [16; 23]. The mentioned lexical unit is used in order to underline the literary character’s peculiarities.

The lexical unit buddy that means товариш, приятель in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

Every afternoon of my college life I walked into that space, greeted my buddies with friendly obsenties… [16; 37]. In this case the mentioned lexical unit is used in order to underline the literary character’s attitude to his friends.

The lexical unit a slightly chicken type that means трохи боягуз in Ukrainian is used as the element of slang in the following fragment:

I could see Davey Johnston on my left, but I thought I would take it all the way, their goalie being a slightly chicken type I had terrorized since he played for Deerfield [16; 34]. In this case the mentioned lexical unit is used in order to give the estimation of the literary character.

The lexical unit streak that means період, проміжок in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

But then Davey, our captain, had this incredible streak, but Jesus – tears! [16; 38]. In this case the mentioned lexical unit is used in order to represent the literary character’s peculiarities.

Another element of slang represented with the help of the lexical unit jock that means спортсмен in Ukrainian is also used to give the estimation of the literary character:

Every afternoon of my college life I walked into that place, greeted my buddies with friendly obscenities, shed the trapping of civilization and turned into a jock [16; 42].

The lexical unit wonk that means заучка in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

Some musical wonk? [16; 47]. In this case the mentioned lexical unit is used in order to underline the literary character’s attitude to the elements represented in the novel.

The lexical unit breeze that means легка справа, дрібниця in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

It’ll be a breeze [16; 53]. In this case the mentioned lexical unit is used in order to underline the literary character’s attitude to the elements represented in the novel.  The lexical unit it’s all crap that means це все дрібниці in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment in order to play the similar functional role:

“It’s all crap”, I told her [16; 54].

The lexical unit a put-up job that means заздалегідь продумана схема in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

I mean, it was a put-up job, if ever there was one [16; 63]. In this case the mentioned lexical unit is used in order to underline the literary character’s attitude to the elements represented in the novel.

The lexical unit zilch that means нуль in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

I have absolutely zilch in the bank, and I’m already accepted [16; 71]. The mentioned lexical unit is used in order to underline the literary character’s financial situation.

The lexical unit steep that means дуже високий in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

Your tuition is pretty steep, Dean Thompson [16; 79]. In this case the mentioned lexical unit is also used in order underline the literary character’s attitude to the elements represented in the novel.

Another lexical element of slang represented with the help of the lexical unit honesty dig it that means чесно кажучи, від цього в захваті in Ukrainian is also used to give the estimation of the literary character:

I honesty dig it [16; 80].

The lexical unit to feel absolutely shitty that means почуватися препаскудно in Ukrainian is used in the following fragment:

And then Jenny explained how she had feeling “absolutely shitty”… [16; 89]

In this case the mentioned lexical unit is used in order to represent the peculiarities of the literary character’s state. So the elements of slang used in the novel “Love Story” by E. Segal are characterized by their functional role.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusions

           So American English has both spelling and grammatical differences from British English, some of which were made as part of an attempt to rationalize the English spelling used by British English at the time. Unlike many 20^th century language reforms (e.g., Turkey’s alphabet shift, Norway’s spelling reform) the American spelling changes were not driven by government, but by textbook writers and dictionary makers.

As mentioned above American English and British English differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, was written by Noah Webster in 1828; Webster intended to show that the United States, which was a relatively new country at the time, spoke a different dialect from that of Britain.

Besides, differences in grammar are relatively minor, and normally do not affect mutual intelligibility. Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable, since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other.

         The elements of American variant of English are rather wide-spread in the novel “Love Story” by E. Segal. In this case the mentioned lexical units are used in order to represent the peculiarities of the literary character’s state. So the elements of slang used in the novel “Love Story” by E. Segal are characterized by their functional role.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

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