The Linguistic Culture-11 (The American English Language) (1157937)
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Lecture N 11 . THE AMERICAN ENGLISH LANGUAGERead the following words and word combinations:Landmark - веха ; to assert- утверждать ; to set about- начинать;a coat of arms-герб; to fascinate – очаровывать; frontier men-переселенцы ;to lay the grounds-заложить основы; a high pitch-высота тона royaltiesгонорар; retain- сохранять; a coinage-создание нового слова; mortgage –заложить, взять залог; to pan out-намывать золото; to be nasalized-произноситьв нос; to take a claim-«застолбить» участок; cluster reduction-сокращениегруппы звуков; compendium-краткое руководство; bonanza-богатаязолотоносная жила.The linguistic history of the American English Language is quite complicated.Having acquired numerous component elements of American culture the AmericanEnglish language can be rightly called “a linguistic melting pot”.
Which linguisticprocesses have occurred in American English language to make it different fromits British origin? As words are often called “windows into our past” we can saythat American vocabulary reflects all events of American history.One of the main features of the American language is derivation. The migrationof the English colonists to North America created the needed vocabulary added tothe 17-century British English that the earliest immigrants brought with them. Inthe formation of American English a lot of words were derived from the languagesof the different peoples with whom the English got into contact.First in importance came the words derived from the languages of various Indiantribes. The English immigrants met in America with the nature, plants and animalsunlike anything they had seen before in Europe.
The landscape was completelydifferent from the neatly tailored English countryside. Words had to be providedfor all aspects of their new life: names of rivers, mountains, lakes, plants andanimal world, for implements and food .The Indian languages gave the colonists alot of such words and thousands of geographical names all over the USA. Thenames Palmyra, Washington, Alabama, Alaska, Chicago, Idaho, Massachusetts,Mississippi, Oklahoma, Manhattan (island of hills) and many others are of theIndian origin. Such words as canoe, moccasin, wigwam, toboggan, tomahawk,squaw, raccoon, opossum, skunk, moose, caribou, totem, etc.
were also borrowedfrom the Indians.Besides the Indian influences, American English reflects the other non-Englishcultures, which the colonists and frontier men met in their conquest of thecontinent. As we know, in the expansion of their territory, the English-speakingcolonists came into contact with the French and Spanish. Some of the borrowingsfrom these languages proved to be very productive in American English. Wordslike liaison, rendezvous, silhouette, prairie, chowder and rapids came fromFrench. Creole, mulatto, canyon, ranch, sombrero, rodeo, mosquito, lassocafeteria, hammock, stampede, vigilantes were acquired from Spanish. Opera,pizza, dominoes are of Italian origin.The Dutch settlers also contributed some words to American English. Among thewidely used words of the Dutch origin are Yankee, boss, roster, cookie, SantaClaus.The words of German origin found their way into the American vocabulary aswell: frankfurter, hamburger, semester, and seminar are among them.The black slaves from Africa brought to North America not only their culture,songs and music but also words: jazz, hippies are probably African in origin.Linguistic NationalismThe American Revolution marked the turning point in the creation of new,American variant of the English language.
For Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams,and the other leaders of the American Revolution, American English was one ofthe weapons for independence, for forming national consciousness. After theRevolution the problem of having a national language acquired great politicalsignificance .The extent to which the English language became a political problemis illustrated by the curious procession, in New York on July 23, 1788, whichcoincided with the ratification of the new American Constitution. An association ofyoung men, called the Philological Society, carried the coat of arms and a bookinscribed “Federal Language”, emphasizing the strong desire of many Americansto break with the classical British English.John Adams and Thomas Jefferson made the first attempts to renovate theEnglish language. Jefferson was fascinated by words and liked to invent the newones.
“Belittle” was one of his most famous, much laughed at in London at histime. Benjamin Franklin, who founded the first free public library in the USA, wasalso interested in the reform of the English language. In 1768, he published a paperentitled “A Scheme for a New Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling”. Hisideas were not adopted, but made a profound influence on further US linguists.One of the first to publish the Grammar book in New York was Lindley Murray(1745-1826), the author of “English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Classes ofLearners” (1795).All revolutionary ideas of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin andMurray were implemented in the works of the greatestAmerica’s lexicographer Noah Webster (1758-1843).The mostfamous of all American dictionary-makers; Noah Webster wasas influential in the history of American English as GeorgeWashingtonintheAmericanRevolution.FromhisDissertations on the English Language in 1789 to his great monument of 1828, anAmerican Dictionary of the English Language (referred to simply as» Webster’s”),his work was the real landmark in American language history.Webster was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and, like many other Americanrevolutionaries, started teaching as a means of living.
During the war forindependence, schoolbooks, traditionally imported from London, were in shortsupply. Besides, in Webster’s view, they were unsatisfactory for Americanchildren. He complained that the English language used in such books had beencorrupted by the British aristocracy, who set its own standards for proper spellingand pronunciation. He claimed to “save our native tongue from the clamor ofpedantry” surrounding the English language and provide a specific Americanapproach to training children. So, still in his twenties, Webster set about filling thegap and published three-volume compendium “A Grammatical Institute of theEnglish Language”, consisting ofa Speller(1783), a Grammar (1784)andReader(1785).The "Speller" had the greatest success and sold more than 80 million copies,turning out to be a runaway bestseller.
It was written so that it could be easilytaught to elementary pupils, and it progressed by age. Most people called it the"Blue-Backed Speller" because of its blue cover, and for many years it was themain textbook in American elementary school.The royalties gave Webster the money to continue working on his politicalactivity and linguistic reforms. Webster toured the United States, convincing that"America must be as independent in literature as she is in politics, as famous forarts as for arms”, and to accomplish this she must protect the literary products ofher countrymen by copyright. Webster also wrote his vigorous Federalist workSketches of American Policy (1785).
In Philadelphia, where he paused briefly hepublished his politically effective An Examination into the Leading Principles ofthe Federal Constitution (1787).In 1806, Webster published his first Dictionary, the next step in his programto standardize the American language The following year, at the age of 43,Webster began writing an expanded and comprehensive dictionary, "An AmericanDictionary of the English Language", which took him twenty-seven years tocomplete. To supplement the etymology of the words, Webster learned twenty-sixlanguages, including old Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit.He completed his two-volume Dictionary after returning from European tourand published it in 1828, when he was already 70. His book contained seventythousand words and became the culmination of Webster’s efforts onAmericanization of the English language.The dictionary was not sold well at Webster’s lifetime and to bring out hissecond edition Webster had to mortgage his house.
On May 28, 1843, a few daysafter he had completed revising an appendix to the second edition, Noah Websterdied in debt and poverty.Though not all Webster’s ventures were recognized at his time, hiscontribution in the creation of American language is hard to overestimate. Hisname became synonymous with the word “dictionary”, and. his works onlinguistics had an enormous influence on American standards of spelling andwriting. By including thousands of technical and scientific terms, Webster laid thegroundwork for modern lexicography and very many dictionaries published in theUSA still bear his name.Two Nations separated by the same languageOnce a famous Irish playwright Bernard Show said that America and Englandwere two nations separated by the language.
What are the main differencesbetween British and American English now?There are a few grammatical differences. To begin with, some British irregularverbs (e.g. burn, learn, etc.) turned into regular ones in America. Past participle ofget became gotten.Americans say “Do you have a car?” where British people would prefer to say:“Have you got a car? The auxiliary word shall is used more seldom, and modelverb may in the meaning “permission” has been changed for can.So-called “bare infinitive” (without to) is used after help, insist, suggest, etc.: Thedoctor insisted / suggested that the injured man be taken to hospital.Past Simple (not Present Perfect) is often used with modifiers just, already, yet:”I’m not hungry.
I just had lunch”. “Don’t forget to mail the letter. I already mailedit”.One may say that Americans tend to use articles more loosely than Englishmen.The definite article is often omitted in America after “all” in cases where it wouldbe considered necessary in English. So Americans say “all day”, “all night”, “allmorning”, “all week,” “all summer”. A difference in the order of words may benoted in the use of the indefinite article. An American might say “a half dozen» or“a half hour”, whereas an Englishman would say “half a dozen”, “a half of anhour”.On the matter of prepositions there is some difference between English andAmerican usage, too.
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