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HUE UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF OPEN EDUCATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ENGLISH LANGUAGE o0o SOCIOLINGUISTIC PROJECT Lecturer: Trần Thuần Student’s name: Hoàng Thị Hương Giang Student’s code: 7052900503 Class: Nghe An Topic 1: There are systematic differences between the English spoken in the US and the English spoken in the UK, hence the terms ‘American English’ and ‘British English’ due to historical and political reasons It is highly plausible that a similar phenomenon, historically and politically triggered, can be found in the Korean language Investigate the (possible) differences between the Korean spoken in North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic Korea) and the Korean spoken in South Korea (Republic of Korea) Nghe An, July 2023 I – INTRODUTION English, spoken in both the US and the UK, evolved over hundreds of years from Old English Funny enough, Old English is primarily incomprehensible with to its contemporary counterpart, modern English Oscar Wilde famously stated, "We truly have everything in common with America today, except, of course, the language." This quote shows how English in the US and the UK differ If the origin of the languages they spoke was the same, how did they become different? The main reason these two countries' English is different is how the language has changed over time At one point, they both spoke English the same way American English owes much to the original 13 colonies by British immigrants in the late 17th century In terms of speech, the differences between American and British English actually took place after the first settlers arrived in America These groups of people spoke using what was called rhotic speech, where the ‘r’ sounds of words are pronounced Meanwhile, the higher classes in the UK wanted to distinguish the way they spoke from the common masses by softening their pronunciation of the ‘r’ sounds Since the elite even back then were considered the standard for being fashionable, other people began to copy their speech, until it eventually became the common way of speaking in the south of England II - DIFFERENCE 2.1 Phonological difference A language cannot be studied without alluding to its sounds and pronunciation, that is to say the study of Phonology Indeed this linguistic field is essential to study the different dialects Defined as the study of sounds patterning in a language, at one extreme Phonology focuses on anatomy and physiology or the organs of speech and how we learn to use them and from an-other extent, it shades into Sociolinguistics as we consider social attitudes to intonation and accent This latter refers to the way people pronounce when they speak and it is various be-cause the way people speak is unique and personal to everyone It even changes at the indi-vidual level as people adapt to different situation they use sounds consistently to different contexts Nevertheless, some identifiable groups of people living in the same geographical area or hav-ing the same social features share a collection of sounds in the language they speak that is ex-clusively scattered in their social group or location In other words, they have a particular ac-cent (a way of pronouncing) which is unique and different from the varieties of accents in the given language In effect, several accents can be noticed as far as British and American Eng-lishes are concerned, identifying them may be complex due to their diversity besides even within in a single country different segments of the population may exhibit different behav-iors In what follows, are some phonological features that definitely distinguish speakers from the United Kingdom and those from the United States 2.2Rhotic accent Rhoticity concerns the deletion or the pronunciation of the consonant [r] depending on the English dialect The presence of rhotic accent is one of the most noticeable differences between the British and the American English For American English is rhotic1 except for New York City and the area of Boston, while the British English is non-rhotic2, save for Scotland and Ireland Let us describe now how the prevocalic sound /r/ is produced or dropped depending on accents As far as rhotic accent is concerned, the tongue approaches the gum and the tip is curled back towards the roof of the mouth The pronunciation of sound / r/ behaves in different ways such as: - The alveolar approximant [ɹ] Sound [ɹ] appears at prevocalic positions in a syllable or syllable-clusters Example 1: as in red [ɹed], camera [ˈkæməɹə], train [tɹeɪn], confrontation [ˈkɑ:nfɹənˈteɪʃn], or program [ˈpɹoʊgɹæm] - The alveolar flap [ɾ] In American English, very often in colloquial registers, sound [ɹ] at intervocalic position with the stress on the first vowel is substituted by [ɾ], Example 2: in words like parish [ˈpæɾɪʃ], or lurid [ˈlʊɾɪd] However, camera is pronounced as [ˈkæməɹə] because the vowel before letter r is not stressed The alveolar flap [ɾ] only occurs in American English, while the alveolar approximant [ɹ] is found in both accents - Intrusive R: the insertion of an epenthetic r between vowels when the first vowel is one that can occur before syllable final /r/ An epenthetic / The pronunciation of the orthographic r The deletion of the orthographic r in pronunciation r/ at word boundaries is intruded especially where one or both vowels are schwa 2.3 Differences in vowel pronunciation There are many paradigms showing the differences in vowel pronunciation between British English and American English Change of Diphthong [əʊ] to [oʊ]: The shift from the British diphthong [əʊ] to [oʊ] The shift consisted in the change of the mid central unrounded vowel [ə] to the close-mid back rounded vowel [o] in the first vowel of the diphthong This shift is considered systematic In Table 1, several examples of this shift are shown WORD RP GA No [nəʊ] [noʊ] Go [ɡəʊ] [ɡoʊ] Crow [krəʊ] [kroʊ] Cocoa [kəʊ.kəʊ] [koʊ.koʊ] Component [kəmˈpəʊ.nənt] [kəmˈpoʊ.nənt] Promotion [prəˈməʊ.ʃən] [prəˈmoʊ.ʃən] Romantic [rəʊˈmæn.tɪk] [rəˈmæn.tɪk] Change of Vowel [ɒ]: the sound /o/ is pronounced in many different ways in English Example 3: Hot [hɒt] in RP, but [hɑ:t] in GA; love[lʌv]; corn [kɔ:n] in RP, but [kɔ:rn] in GA; continue[kənˈtɪnju:]; moon[mu:n]; coast[kəʊst] in RP, but [koʊst] in GA; house[haʊs] The so-called “short o”, which often appears in a stressed syllable with one letter o such as in dog or model, underwent a change in American English In British English that sound is pronounced as an open back rounded short sound [ɒ], as in hot [hɒt], or possible [ˈpɒsəbl] In American English it is pronounced either as an open back unrounded long sound [ɑ:], as in hot [hɑ:t], or as an open-mid back rounded long vowel [ɔ:], as in dog [dɔ:g] Note that British English prefers a short sound as opposed to American English, which prefers a long sound in all cases Table shows several words in both pronunciations WORD BRTISH ENGISH AMERICAN Box Chocolate Clock Cost Dog Gone Got Hot Job Lot Not Off Possible Sorry Stop Want [bɒks] [ˈtʃɒk.lət] [klɒk] [kɒst] [dɒɡ] [ɡɒn] [ɡɒt] [hɒt] [dʒɒb] [lɒt] [nɒt] [ɒf] [pɒs.ə.bl̩ ] [ˈsɒr.i] [stɒp] [want] ENGLISH [bɑːks] [ˈtʃɑːk.lət] [klɑːk] [kɑːst] [dɑːɡ] [ɡɑːn] [ɡɑːt] [hɑːt] [dʒɑːb] [lɑːt] [nɑːt] [ɑːf] [pɑːs.ə.bl̩ ] [ˈsɔːr.i] [stɑːp] [wɑːnt] In the areas of Eastern New England, such as the Boston accent, and New York City this change did not take place This is coherent with the same theory explaining why speakers of those areas are non-rhotic (C.Wells, 2000) Changes to [oʊ] and [ʌ]: the most frequent changes are from [ɒ] to [ɑ:] and [ɔ:] However, in a very few cases the vowel [ɒ] is changed to [oʊ] and [ʌ] -Change to [oʊ]: Example 4: compost is [ˈkɒmpɒst] in RP, but in GA it is [ˈkɑ:mpoʊst]. -Change to [ʌ] : Example 13: hovel; hover Change of [æ]: Around the American Revolutionary War vowel [æ] started to undergo a change in Southern English, the future seed of RP This nearopen front unrounded vowel [æ] is first lengthened to [æ:] and later lowered to the open back unrounded vowel [ɑ:] However, the change did not take off in GA, bringing about a new difference between both accents The change of vowel occurs under certain conditions, but it is deemed inconsistent, as we will see in the examples below Vowel [æ] becomes vowel [ɑ:] in RP when:  Vowel [æ] is before sounds [s], [f], and [ɵ], as in pass, calf, and path  Vowel [æ] is followed by another consonant, especially in the cases such as [ns], [nt], [nʧ], and [mpl], as in dance, can’t, ranch and sample NB: The changes are not applied before other consonants, as in cat, pal, cab, and drag Here we give some examples to illustrate the above rules as well as a few exceptions:  Examples 5: words pronounced with [æf] in GA with [ɑ:f] in RP:calf, graph, giraffe, half, laugh, staff, after, craft, daft, draft, laughter, raft, shaft  2.4 Grammatical difference  What is referred to as grammatical variation really involves two sub-types: morphology and syntax Morphology refers to the structure or form of words, including the morphemes or minimal units of meaning which comprise words for instance the morphemes {un}"not" and {kind} "kind" in unkind, or the morphemes {dog}"dog" and {s} "plural" in dogs Syntax refers to the structure of larger units like phrases and sentences, including rules for combining and relating words in sentences, for instance the rule that in English yes/no questions, auxiliaries must occur at the beginning of sentences, before the subject noun phrase (e.g Can Mary go? versus the statement Mary can go)  Actually, one can find examples of variation in both types as far as American and British is concerned  First, there are landmark morphologic features showing the differences between these two dialects  2.2.1 Verbs morphology:   - One of the difference at this level is the use of past tense and past participle of certain verbs such as spoil, spell, burn, dream, smell, spill, leap, and others These verbs that can be regular or irregular have a various use in the American and in British English In fact, in BrE both regular and irregular forms are current except from some verbs (such as smelt and leapt) There is a strong tendency towards the irregular forms, especially by users of Received Pronunciation For other words (such as dreamed, leaned and learned), the regular is somewhat more common In most accents of AmE, the irregular forms are never or rarely used (except for burnt)  The t endings may be encountered frequently in older American texts, especially poetry There may be a various usage when the past participles are used as adjectives, as in burnt toast or as in the twosyllable form learned, (an adjective used to mean "educated" or to refer to academic institutions both in BrE and AmE.) Finally, the past tense and past participle of dwell and kneel are more commonly dwelt and knelt in both standards, with dwelled and kneeled as common variants in the US but not in the UK  - Lit as the past tense of light is more common than lighted in the UK Americans use lit to mean ‘set afire’ or ‘to emit light’ but lighted to mean ‘to cast light upon’  Example 6: "The stagehand lighted the set and then lit a cigarette."  Conversely, BrE favors fitted as the past tense of fit generally, whereas the preference of American English is more complex  - The past tense of spit "expectorate" is spat in BrE, spit or spat in AmE AmE typically has spat in figurative contexts, for example, "He spat out the name with a sneer", or in the context of expectoration of an object that is not saliva Example 7: "He spat out the foul-tasting fish" but spit for "expectorated" when it refers only to the expulsion of phlegm or saliva  - The past participle gotten is never used in modern BrE (apart from in dialects that retain the older form), which generally uses got, except in old expressions such as ill-gotten gains According to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary3, "The form gotten is not used The main historical dictionary of the English language, published by the Oxford University Press in British English but is very common in North American English." The American dictionary Merriam-Webster, however, lists "gotten" as a standard past participle of "get." In AmE gotten emphasizes the action of acquiring and got tends to indicate simple possession (for example, Have you gotten it? versus Have you got it?) Gotten is also typically used in AmE as the past participle for phrasal verbs using get, such as get off, get on, get into, get up, and get around: If you hadn't gotten up so late, you might not have gotten into this mess AmE, but not BrE, has forgot as a less common alternative to forgotten for the past participle of forget  - Another special case concerns the AmE usage of the verb slay, which has two past tenses, the choice depending on the meaning: when slay means ‘to kill violently’ its past tense form is slew, but in its figurative sense, ‘to delight or to amuse immensely’, the regular form slayed is usually chosen  Example 8: He slayed the audience or that slayed me meaning ‘caused me to laugh vigorously’  CONCLUSION  The main goals of dialectology are to describe the component varieties of a language and discover the different boundaries between dialect regions or social stratifications  It is undeniable that English shows internal variations, like all languages, that is to say it is made of a number of varieties and is in one sense the sum of those varieties As English is more and more gaining ground around the world, its dialects are widely increasing  Since the United States and the United Kingdom not exactly share the same cultures regardless of speaking the same language, consequently several versions of English are retrieved in both countries These varieties explains the differences in spelling, pronunciation, words that differ in terms of stress as well as vocabulary etc  English, a language originating from England has undoubtedly well spread in the American continent ever since its discovery Because of massive immigrations of English people who came and settle in the New World, English has become the dominant language everywhere in America However, one could say that, thanks to the media, technology and the power of the United States in the world, American English has been standardized and emerged to influence even British English For this reason many American terms has ousted the British one as in the case of radio for wireless; the ubiquitous use of okay As well as the notable use of derivational suffixes in this respect: -ster: gangster, oldster; -ician: beautician, cosmetician; -ee: escapee, returnee; -ette: roomette; drum majorette; -ite: socialite, sub-urbanite; -ize; to winterize, to itemize, to fictionalize