画鸵萌宠网
Comparison of Linguistic Differences between American English and British English
英国英语和美国英语语法差异比较
Major: Linguistics and Applied Linguistic
专业: 外国语言学及应用语言学 Author: Shen Jun 作者： 沈军
Supervisor: Professor Tan Wancheng 指导教师: 谭万成 教授
University: Dalian Maritime University 学位授予单位：大连海事大学 Date: December 2003 完成日期： 2003年12月
Contents
Abstract...............................................................................................................IV 摘要........................................................................................................................V Abbreviations......................................................................................................VI Chapter 1: Brief introduction.............................................................................１ Chapter 2: Theory background..........................................................................２
2.1 Historical linguistics: language changing.................................................２
2.1.1 Functional explanations..................................................................２ 2.1.2 Psycholinguistic explanations: language acquisition.....................３ 2.1.3 Sociolinguistic explanations: Labov’s theory.................................３ 2.1.4 Conclusion......................................................................................５ 2.2 Language and varieties.............................................................................６
2.2.1 Formation of varieties.....................................................................６ 2.2.2 Regional variation..........................................................................７
Chapter 3: Historical description...................................................................１０
3.1 History of British English.....................................................................１０
3.1.1 Origin and development of British English................................１０
3.1.1.1 Old English. (450BC--1100BC).......................................１０ 3.1.1.2 Middle English (1100BC--1500BC).................................１３ 3.1.1.3 Modern English (1500BC--the present)...........................１５ 3.1.2 B.E. dialects:...............................................................................１６ 3.2 History of American English................................................................１６
3.2.1 Origin of American Englsih: from Elizabeth English................１７ 3.2.2 Development and influence of American English......................１７
3.2.2.1 Colonial Period.................................................................１７ 3.2.2.2 Territorial Expansion and Urbanization............................１９ 3.2.2.3 Development of regional speech patterns.........................２０
I
3.2.2.4 Modern variation in American English............................２２ 3.2.3 American English variety: Black English...................................２３
Chapter 4: Comparative study between American English and British English..............................................................................................................２５
4.0 Reasons of grammatical research.........................................................２５ 4.1 Verbs.....................................................................................................２６
4.1.1 Past tense and past participle of verbs........................................２６ 4.1.2 Have got, do have and have to....................................................３０ 4.1.3 shall/should and will/would........................................................３３ 4.1.4. Can’t, must not and mustn't.......................................................３４ 4.1.5 Subjunctive mood.......................................................................３５ 4.1.6 Present Perfect............................................................................３５ 4.2 Nouns....................................................................................................３６ 4.3 Articles..................................................................................................３８ 4.4 Pronouns...............................................................................................３９ 4.5 Prepositions..........................................................................................４０
4.5.1Forms of preposions....................................................................４０ 4.5.2 Simplification of preposition......................................................４２ 4.6 Adjectives and Adverbs........................................................................４３ 4.7 Other usages.........................................................................................４５ 4.8 Summary...............................................................................................４５ Chapter 5: Analysis of the differences and their influence..........................４７
5.1 Historical reasons of difference formation...........................................４７
5.1.1 Borrowings of British English....................................................４８ 5.1.2 Borrowings of American English...............................................４９ 5.2 A.E. features: fogyism..........................................................................５１ 5.3 Social and political reasons..................................................................５２ 5.4 Inter-influence between A.E. and B.E. and its development................５４
II
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Suggestions........................................................５７
6.1 Conclusion............................................................................................５７ 6.2 Suggestions to language teaching and learning....................................５７ Paper and books published during graduate study......................................５９ Acknowledgements..........................................................................................６０ References.........................................................................................................６１
III
Abstract
English is a world language. It is easy for any language to produce different varieties with the changing of sounds, vocabulary and grammar, which are employed by more and more people in more and more districts and areas. The paper is aimed at the grammatical differences and relations between two English varieties--American English and British English. The research adopts the comparative methods and applies social linguistics and historical linguistics theory to study the variety formation and its future development. The study also discusses how to deal with the differences in the language learning and teaching.
The first chapter is the brief introduction of the whole dissertation. The second chapter is the theory background. The third chapter describes the history of American English and British English. The fourth chapter is the comparative research that is divided into seven parts discussing the difference in verbs, nouns, articles, pronouns, prepositions, adjectives and adverbs and other usages. The fifth chapter is about the reasons of differences formation, the influence of the two dialects and their future tendency. The study also discusses in the last chapter how to deal with the differences in the language teaching.
Key words: American English (AE) British English (BE) Comparison Variety
IV
摘要
英语是一门世界性的语言。 一种语言使用的人越多，范围越广，就越容易产生语音，词汇和语法方面的变异，形成不同的变体。本文的目的是研究英语的两种变体—美国英语和英国英语之间在语法上的异同和相互间的关系。本文采用了对比的方法来展现两种变体之间的语法差异，并试图应用社会语言学及历史语言学的关于语言变化和地区方言的理论解释差异形成的原因和未来的发展。文章也的简单讨论了在英语教学和学习中对差异的态度。 第一章是简要介绍全文。第二章是理论阐述，包括语言的变化及语言和地区方言的形成。第三章分别描述了英国英语和美国英语的发展历史。第四章对比研究英美两种变体之间语法上的异同点，共分七部分，分别从动词，名词，冠词，代词，介词以及形容词和副词等方面来展现英美之间的语法差异。第五章讨论了差异形成的原因，两种英语变体之间的影响和未来发展趋势。最后一章简要讨论了英语教学中对待两种变体应持的态度。
关键词：英国英语（AE） 美国英语（BE） 对比 变体
V
Abbreviations
AE: American English BE: British English
Italic type is used for emphasis, examples and quotations
VI
Chapter 1: Brief introduction
Languages change with time, but not always in the same way among various groups who speak the language. As no two persons ever have an identical command of their common language, there are also differences between British and American English. Apparently both languages have certain qualities peculiar to each other. These differences appear, for example, in vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and spelling.
This paper will concentrate on the development and change of American English and British English, especially on the grammatical differences between American English and British English.
American and British English are varieties of English, which have a recognized standard form and are equally acceptable in Academic English as long as the style and register used are appropriately formal. The present paper is mainly aimed at the grammatical differences and relations between two English varieties--American English and British English. The first chapter is the brief introduction of the whole dissertation. The second chapter is composed of some historical linguistics theory on language change and regional varieties. The third chapter respectively describes the history of American English and British English. The fourth chapter and the fifth chapter are the comparative research, adopting the comparative methods to show the grammatical differences between these two varieties and applying social linguistics and historical linguistics to study the variety formation and its future development. The study also discusses in the last chapter how to deal with the differences in the language teaching.
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Chapter 2: Theory background
2.1 Historical linguistics: language changing
One obvious answer to the question why languages change in general is that everything changes in human affairs. It would be surprising if languages did not change. The interesting question is why particular changes take place and why grammatical or lexical features of a language change or disappear at a particular time.
Historical linguistics has three general types of explanation of linguistic change deserving consideration, namely, functional explanation, psycholinguistic explanations and sociolinguistic explanations.
2.1.1 Functional explanations
Functional explanations focus on language as an abstract system in which system-internal forces operate and lead to change. In functional thinking, linguistic system are seen as having a natural tendency to regulate themselves, and linguistic change as basically therapeutic in that it makes systems more symmetrical and balanced, and therefore simpler.
A basic problem with such functional explanations is how the individual speakers or the speech community as a whole could know about the actual or threatening asymmetry of systems and act accordingly. Another problem with the notion of ‘therapeutic change’ is that the therapeutic changes in one part of the grammar may create imbalance in another part; finally, if this was the main driving force behind change then we would expect all linguistic systems to have become balanced by now, which they clearly are not.
However, though linguistic factors such as functional explanations undoubtedly can contribute to linguistic change, there is no empirical proof of
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their coming into play in specific cases.
2.1.2 Psycholinguistic explanations: language acquisition
Psycholinguistic explanations of change focus on the cognitive processes in the brain of the speaker and are particularly related to the different versions of generative theories of language as first developed by Noam Chomsky. These theories. Which have developed highly formalized models of grammar, see human beings as being endowed with an innate faculty for acquiring language, which has been variously conceived as a Language Acquisition Device, a Universal Grammar, a bio-program, or a number of pre-set parameters.
In spite of the obvious attractions of this explanation, many of its general axioms have been severely criticized on theoretical grounds, and some of the explanations of specific changes, such as the development of English modals from full verbs, have been shown not to be substantiated by textual evidence. Furthermore, we have conclusive empirical evidence that linguistic change in general, and syntactic change in particular, is not restricted to language acquisition, but may also occur with adult speakers.
2.1.3 Sociolinguistic explanations: Labov’s theory
Sociolinguistic explanations see the reasons for change in the roles of speakers as social beings. The language change discussed above is a continuous process and is as evident in the present as in the past. Yet linguists have plotted change as it is actually happening. Previously, the received linguistic wisdom was that language change could never be directly observed (apart from the obvious adoption of new words) but had to be inferred indirectly by reference to older stages of the language concerned.
Variation is the indicator of change, which is on more empirical ground. Linguists have been aware of variation for a long time. They simply assumed that
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it was a more or less random and trivial phenomenon, which could not be accounted for in any systematic way. It was the American linguist William Labov who realized that the careful analysis of linguistic variation combined with sociologically oriented statistics might tell us a lot about the relation between the synchronic state and the diachronic development of a language.
Though Labov’s main interest was in the social dimension of linguistic change in contemporary American English, he was equally interested in the general properties of linguistic change as such. Labov adopted the so-called uniformitarian principle: general principles of change in former times are not fundamentally different in kind from those governing changes happening at the present time. Moreover, he realized that language change over time is closely related to language variation at any one moment in time, and that we could use insights from contemporary sociolinguistic studies about language variation in the present to explain the phenomenon of language change in the past.
In every language most speakers have a varied linguistic repertoire in the sense that they have more than one ‘version’ or variant of may linguistic items at their disposal, which they tend to use at different times. Two decisive parameters which influence speakers’ linguistic behavior are their social class membership and the formality of the situation.
However, with regard to the direction of change, Labov observed two different types: first, changes which move towards the established norms and are brought about consciously, labeled ‘changes from above’; second, the unconscious ‘changes from below’, which lead away from standard linguistic norms. Changes from above seem to be mainly carried by women, for whom the overt prestige of linguistic standards is more important; changes from below, on the other hand, are predominantly carried by men, for whom the covert prestige of non-standard varieties, connected with working-class values of toughness, crude language, and group solidarity, are more important.
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Labov’s discovery that variation is the basis of every linguistic change was a major breakthrough in linguistics. Though variation is an inherent property of language, it originates from a range extralinguistic and linguistic factors, such as language contact, phonetic and structural or functional factors. Furthermore, different variants may coexist over a considerable period of time. Only with the social marking of a specific variant and its socially conditioned spread through the speech community does language change take place. The discovery of the close interdependence of variation and change has also led to the abandoning of the strict separation between synchronic and diachronic linguistics.
Labov’s approach to language change is basically ‘macro-sociolinguistic’ and looked at society as a whole. The decisive step of it is that various social factors may cause an existing variant to become socially significant for the group identification of speakers. This entails that this variant also becomes grammatically significant, since the rules for its fluctuating use, the so-called ‘variable rules’, become an integral part of a speaker’s competence. In other words, a member of a specific social group somehow knows the probability of occurrence of a variant, and knows which variant to use in a given speech style with what overall frequency.
2.1.4 Conclusion
The present chapter has shown that there is still no generally accepted answer to the question of how and why language change, though many important insights have been gained in the last decades. Much of the controversy is linked to what we understand by explanation, and how we view language-as an autonomous system, as a psychological or biological fact, or as a vehicle of communication which speakers use. Language is certainly all that and much more, but one thing should be absolutely clear: languages which have no speakers do not change-and thus any explanation which does not also somehow consider the
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speaker can never fully explain language change.
2.2 Language and varieties
2.2.1 Formation of varieties
When the Anglo-Saxons first settled in Britain some 1500-year ago, the several tribes who settled in various parts of the country were already speaking slightly different varieties of their continental language, but the differences were rather minor. With the passage of time, the inevitable processes of language change of course began to affect their newly installed English language: new words, new meanings, new pronunciations, and new grammatical forms began to creep into their speech, and, at the same time, old ones began to drop out of use.
Before the nineteenth century, no man could travel faster than a horse could take him, and very few people could even afford to own horses, so that travel normally meant travel normally meant travel on foot, or very occasionally by boat. For many centuries passed after the settlement, Then, most people were tied firmly to their place of birth, and they rarely traveled as much as fifty miles away from there. Consequently, most of their dealings were with people from their immediate area, or at best with people in the next town or the next valley.
Suppose a few people in one valley began using a new word or a new pronunciation. Perhaps the new form would be picked up by others in the valley, and gradually become general there. People in the next valley would therefore start to hear the new forms, and maybe they too would take a liking to them and begin to use them, thereby giving the people in the next valley again a chance to hear them. Then again, maybe they wouldn't. Perhaps they would just accept their neighbors' odd forms as typical of those neighbors but go on themselves using the older forms, or perhaps they would come up with some different new forms of their own. In the case of every such innovation-and there were thousands and
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thousands of them-people might or might not choose to adopt the innovation from their neighbors, and, if they didn't adopt it, their neighbors on the other side would hardly ever get to hear it at all.
With the passage of centuries, then, the relatively homogeneous English of the settlers began to break up into regional varieties that were becoming steadily more different from one another. Every local group of people spoke the language a little differently from their next-door neighbors, and these differences accumulated as you moved across the country, so that people living far apart from one another were speaking very different kinds of English indeed. People in different parts of England had different words for things, and they used different grammatical endings and different constructions. In short, English had broken up into what we call regional dialects, or dialects for short.
By about 1500, it is clear, people were often finding it exceedingly difficult to understand English-speakers from other areas. In 1490, the printer William Caxton first selected words and forms to print books that could be read throughout England. The words and forms selected by him, and by the printers who followed him, in many cases gradually came to be accepted as the standard English ones, and today we have a fairly homogeneous standard version of English which is at least accessible to all English-speakers, regardless of the sort of English they have grown up speaking.
2.2.2 Regional variation
Nonetheless, regional differences are still very much with us, and they have extended by the spread of English to Ireland, Wales, North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific during the last several centuries. It is easily to tell an English person from a Scot, a North American, a Jamaican, or a southern-hemisphere speaker.
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In fact, variation in English is considerably greater than an Englishman might realize from his own experience. Following examples are from English varieties: 1. I done shot me squirrel.
2. That will make Peter and I's job easier. 3. The lass divn't gan to the pictures, pet. 4. As well, there are three other cases of this. 5. I am not knowing where to find a stepney. 6. They're a lousy team any more.
7. She's the student that's books I borrowed.
8. If Hitler had invaded earlier, he may have captured Moscow. 9. She mustn't be in: her car's not there. 10. You must finish today your work. 11. I might could do it.
Each of above is routinely used by speakers of English in certain parts of the world, but not in other parts; speakers who don't use them typically find them very strange and sometimes even in comprehensible, a fact which would astonish the speakers who use them.
Example 1 is typical of much of the southern USA and means 'I shot a squirrel'. Example 2 is typically Australian, though it is occasionally heard elsewhere. Example 3 is from the Geordie speech of Newcastle and means 'The girl didn't go to the movies'. Example 4 is Canadian; most other speakers (including Americans) cannot use as well in this way. Example 5 represents the English of India and means 'I don't know where to find a spare wheel'. Example 6 is typical of much of the northeastern USA, and means 'They didn't use to be a lousy team, but now they are'-that is, it means exactly the opposite of 'They 're not a lousy team any more'. This one is particularly baffling for other speakers. Example7 occurs in a number of regional varieties all over the world, including
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Australia; other speakers require 'whose books'. Example 8 is typical of the English of England, though it is beginning to appear in several other places; it means '...he might have captured...' Example 9 is normal in Ireland and other areas influenced by Irish English, including parts of the USA and Australia. Example 10 is usual in the English of Malaysia and Singapore; other speakers require '...finish your work today'. Finally, Example 11 is normal in much of Scotland and can also be heard in the Appalachian Mountains and the American South; it means 'I might be able to do it'.
Such regional differences not only persist but multiply. Linguists are constantly reporting new words, new pronunciations, or new grammatical forms. Sometimes these new forms quickly become widely known and used; in other cases they remain purely local.
Regional fragmentation of this kind is in no way peculiar to English: it happens to every language which is spoken over any significant area. French, Spanish, German, Russian, Hindi, and Arabic - all show extensive regional variation, sometimes beyond anything found in English. In recent centuries, especially in Europe, the extent of regional diversity has been somewhat obscured by the development of standard forms for the principal languages of nation states.
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Chapter 3: Historical description
3.1 History of British English
3.1.1 Origin and development of British English
The history of English is conventionally, if perhaps too neatly, divided into three periods usually called Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Middle English, and Modern English.
3.1.1.1 Old English. (450BC--1100BC)
The earliest period begins with the migration 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 until the end of the eleventh century or a bit later. By that 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, and the well-developed inflectional system that typifies the grammar of Old English had begun to break down. The following brief sample of Old English prose illustrates several of the significant ways in which change has so transformed English that we must look carefully to find points of resemblance between the language of the tenth century and our own. It is taken from Aelfric's \"Homily on St. Gregory the Great\" and concerns the famous story of how that pope came to send missionaries to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity after seeing Anglo-Saxon boys for sale as slaves in Rome:
Eft he axode, hu ære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron.
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Þa cwæð he,
\"Rihtlice hi sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað,
and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon.\"
A few of these words will be recognized as identical in spelling with their modern equivalents -- he, of, him, for, and, on -- and the resemblance of a few others to familiar words may be guessed -- nama to name, common to come, wære to were, wæs to was -- but only those who have made a special study of Old English will be able to read the passage with understanding. The sense of it is as follows: \"Again he [St. Gregory] asked what might be the name of the people from which they came. It was answered to him that they were named Angles. Then he said, 'Rightly are they called Angles because they have the beauty of angels, and it is fitting that such as they should be angels' companions in heaven.' \" Some of the words in the original have survived in altered form, including axode (asked), hu (how), rihtlice (rightly), engla (angels), habbað (have), swilcum (such), heofonum (heaven), and beon (be). Others, however, have vanished from our lexicon, mostly without a trace, including several that were quite common words in Old English: eft \"again,\" ðeode \"people, nation,\" cwæð \"said, spoke,\" gehatene \"called, named,\" wlite \"appearance, beauty,\" and geferan \"companions.\" Recognition of some words is naturally hindered by the presence of two special characters, þ, called \"thorn,\" and ð, called \"edh,\" which served in Old English to represent the sounds now spelled with th.
Other points worth noting include the fact that the pronoun system did not yet, in the late tenth century, include the third person plural forms beginning with th-: hi appears where we would use they. Several aspects of word order will also strike the reader as oddly unlike ours. Subject and verb are inverted after an adverb -- þa
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cwæð he \"Then said he\" -- a phenomenon not unknown in Modern English but now restricted to a few adverbs such as never and requiring the presence of an auxiliary verb like do or have. In subordinate clauses the main verb must be last, and so an object or a preposition may precede it in a way no longer natural: þe hi of comon \"which they from came,\" for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað \"because they angels' beauty have.\"
Perhaps the most distinctive difference between Old and Modern English reflected in Aelfric's sentences is the elaborate system of inflections, of which we now have only remnants. Nouns, adjectives, and even the definite article are inflected for gender, case, and number: ðære ðeode \"(of) the people\" is feminine, genitive, and singular, Angle \"Angles\" is masculine, accusative, and plural, and swilcum \"such\" is masculine, dative, and plural. The system of inflections for verbs was also more elaborate than ours: for example, habbað \"have\" ends with the -að suffix characteristic of plural present indicative verbs. In addition, there were two imperative forms, four subjunctive forms (two for the present tense and two for the preterit, or past, tense), and several others which we no longer have. Even where Modern English retains a particular category of inflection, the form has often changed. Old English present participles ended in -ende not -ing, and past participles bore a prefix ge- (as geandwyrd \"answered\" above).
The period from 450 to 1150 is known as the Old English. It is described as the period of full inflections, since during most of this period the case ending of the noun, the adjective and the conjugation of the verb were not weakened. Old English was a highly inflected language. It had a complete system of declensions with four case and conjugations. So Old English grammar differs from Modern English grammar in these aspects.
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3.1.1.2 Middle English (1100BC--1500BC)
The period from 1100 is known as the Middle English period. It is known as the period inflections. This period was marked by important changes in the English language. The Norman Conquest was the cause of these changes. The change of this period had a great effect on both grammar and vocabulary. In this period many Old English words were lost, but thousands of words borrowed from French and Latin appeared in the English vocabulary. In the Middle English period grammatical gender disappeared, grammatical gender was completely replaced by the natural gender.
The period of Middle English extends roughly from the twelfth century through the fifteenth. The influence of French (and Latin, often by way of French) upon the lexicon continued throughout this period, the loss of some inflections and the reduction of others (often to a final unstressed vowel spelled -e) accelerated, and many changes took place within the phonological and grammatical systems of the language. A typical prose passage, especially one from the later part of the period, will not have such a foreign look to us as Aelfric's prose has; but it will not be mistaken for contemporary writing either. The following brief passage is drawn from a work of the late fourteenth century called Mandeville's Travels. It is fiction in the guise of travel literature, and, though it purports to be from the pen of an English knight, it was originally written in French and later translated into Latin and English. In this extract Mandeville describes the land of Bactria, apparently not an altogether inviting place, as it is inhabited by \"full yuele [evil] folk and full cruell.\"
In þat lond ben trees þat beren wolle, as þogh it were of scheep; whereof men maken clothes, and all þing þat may ben made of wolle. In þat contree ben many ipotaynes, þat dwellen som tyme in the water, and somtyme on the lond: and þei ben half man and half hors, as I haue seyd before; and þei eten men, whan þei may take hem. And þere ben ryueres and
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watres þat ben fulle byttere, þree sithes more þan is the water of the see. In þat contré ben many griffounes, more plentee þan in ony other contree. Sum men seyn þat þei han the body vpward as an egle, and benethe as a lyoun: and treuly þei seyn soth þat þei ben of þat schapp. But o griffoun hath the body more gret, and is more strong, þanne eight lyouns, of suche lyouns as ben o this half; and more gret and strongere þan an hundred egles, suche as we han amonges vs. For o griffoun þere wil bere fleynge to his nest a gret hors, 3if he may fynde him at the poynt, or two oxen 3oked togidere, as þei gon at the plowgh.
The spelling is often peculiar by modern standards and even inconsistent within these few sentences (contré and contree, o [griffoun] and a [gret hors], þanne and þan, for example).
Even the older spellings (including those where u stands for v or vice versa) are recognizable, however, and there are only a few words like ipotaynes \"hippopotamuses\" and sithes \"times\" that have dropped out of the language altogether. We may notice a few words and phrases that have meanings no longer common such as byttere \"salty,\" on this half \"on this side of the world,\" and at the poynt \"to hand,\" and the effect of the centuries-long dominance of French on the vocabulary is evident in many familiar words which could not have occurred in Aelfric's writing even if his subject had allowed them, words like contree, ryueres, plentee, egle, and lyoun.
In general word order is now very close to that of our time, though we notice constructions like hath the body more gret and three sithes more þan is the water of the see. We also notice that present tense verbs still receive a plural inflection as in beren, dwellen, han, and ben and that while nominative þei has replaced Aelfric's hi in the third person plural, the form for objects is still hem. All the same, the number of inflections for nouns, adjectives, and verbs has been greatly reduced, and in most respects Mandeville is closer to Modern than to Old English.
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3.1.1.3 Modern English (1500BC--the present)
Modern English period extends from 1500 to the present day. The Early modern English period extends from 1500 to 1700. The chief influence of this time was great humanistic movement of the Renaissance. The influence of Latin and Greek on English was great. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries are a period of rapid expansion for the English vocabulary in the history of the English language.
The period of Modern English extends from the sixteenth century to our own day. The early part of this period saw the completion of a revolution in the phonology of English that had begun in late Middle English and that effectively redistributed the occurrence of the vowel phonemes to something approximating their present pattern. (Mandeville's English would have sounded even less familiar to us than it looks.) Other important early developments include the stabilizing effect on spelling of the printing press and the beginning of the direct influence of Latin and, to a lesser extent, Greek on the lexicon. Later, as English came into contact with other cultures around the world and distinctive dialects of English developed in the many areas which Britain had colonized, numerous other languages made small but interesting contributions to the British English. The historical aspect of English really encompasses more than the three stages of development just under consideration. English has what might be called a prehistory as well. As we have seen, our 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 and that other dialects of this unknown language must have included the ancestors of such languages as German, Dutch, Low German, and Frisian. They know this because of certain systematic similarities which these languages share with each other but
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do not share with, say, Danish. However, they have had somehow to reconstruct what that language was like in its lexicon, phonology, grammar, and semantics as best they can through sophisticated techniques of comparison developed chiefly during the last century. Similarly, because ancient and modern languages like Old Norse and Gothic or Icelandic and Norwegian have points in common with Old English and Old High German or Dutch and English that they do not share with French or Russian, it is clear that there was an earlier unrecorded language that can be called simply Germanic and that must be reconstructed in the same way. Still earlier, Germanic was just a dialect (the ancestors of Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit were three other such dialects) of a language conventionally designated Indo-European, and thus English is just one relatively young member of an ancient family of languages whose descendants cover a fair portion of the globe.
3.1.2 B.E. dialects:
It is not an easy job to define how many dialects there are in British English, because different researcher has different criterion of his own. Generally speaking, British English can be divided into four-dialect districts: England English, Scotland English, Ireland English and Welsh English.
3.2 History of 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.
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3.2.1 Origin of American Englsih: from Elizabeth English
The English language was brought to the New World by colonists in the 17th century. The actual shaping of American English took place by the War of Independence. Then, a strong language identity began to grow, and Americans felt an urge to declare their English separate from mother English.
The first significant steps in the progress of American English were taken in 1607, when the first English settlement, Jamestown, was established, followed by the Pilgrim Fathers, who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. The pioneer settlers had grown up in England. They spoke English similar to the English found in Shakespeare's texts; this is often called Elizabethan English. Naturally, that language did not sound like its present counterpart; many phonemes had different quality. Although some words are still spelled the way they used to be in the Elizabethan time, their pronunciation differed from today’s pronunciation. As well as that, the spelling of many words has changed dramatically though their might have retained their pronunciation. All in all, Elizabethan English was what both the people who left England and those who stayed there used every day; hence, present-day American and British English are said to have a common starting point.
3.2.2 Development and influence of American English
3.2.2.1 Colonial Period
The first settlements on the East Coast of North America in the 17th century were composed mostly of British subjects. Accounting for about 90 percent of the people, the British vastly outnumbered French and German settlers. English was therefore the only real candidate for a common American language. The settlers
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spoke varieties of English from various parts of England, but in the creation of American English, these varieties were leveled—that is, their differences largely disappeared. Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur, a French-born writer who published under the name J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur and became famous for his book Letters from an American Farmer (1782), describes the desire of settlers to “become an American,” their common ideal to own and work their own farms, without prejudice toward neighbors whatever their neighbors’ religion or national origin. This shared goal encouraged development of a shared variety of the language, which came to be enriched by contributions from many cultures.
As the European settlers came into contact with Native Americans, American English collected a large stock of Native American place names (Allegheny, Chicago, Mississippi, Potomac) and Native American names for things not found in Europe or Asia (moose, opossum, squash, moccasin, tomahawk, totem). Sometimes Native American words were spelled by settlers so that they looked more like English words; woodchuck, for example, probably comes from the Creek word wuchak. Cultural exchange with Native Americans was more limited than might be expected, because diseases brought by Spanish explorers and European settlers greatly reduced the Native American population in eastern North America during early settlement.
In the 18th century people from Ireland and Northern Europe joined the British settlers. By the time of the American Revolution (1775-1783), there were comparable numbers of British settlers and settlers from other European countries. Some Europeans formed separate communities, such as the Pennsylvania Germans, but most mixed with British settlers and contributed to American English words from their own languages. Examples include pumpkin, bayou, and bureau from French; cookie, waffle, and boss from Dutch; and pretzel, pinochle, and phooey from German. Scottish and Irish settlers were already English speakers, but they influenced American English with features from their own
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varieties—for example, pronunciation of r after vowels (while many British English speakers were losing the r after vowels) and double verb forms like might could.
Africans were imported as slaves throughout the early settlement of North America. By the American Revolution one-quarter of the American population consisted of African Americans, and as much as 95 percent of the population living in plantation areas was African American. Slaves were not allowed to share in Crèvecoeur’s American ideal, but they learned American English from their owners, overseers, and other slaves. Some slaves may have developed creole languages on plantations. A creole is made of words from different languages—in this case, English and the African languages spoken by the slaves. It also has its own grammar. Over time, especially after slavery was abolished, the language of African Americans came to have fewer creole characteristics. One authentic American plantation creole remains: Gullah, spoken by African Americans in communities on the Sea Islands off South Carolina and Georgia. African words in American English include gumbo, okra, and voodoo.
3.2.2.2 Territorial Expansion and Urbanization
During the 19th and 20th centuries settlers pushed westward as the United States acquired control of land from the French, the Spanish, and the Native Americans. Crèvecoeur’s American ideal of separate farms lasted well into the 20th century, and a shared sense of purpose maintained social pressure for immigrants to participate in American language and culture. This period also saw the rise of great cities, first in the East and later in other regions. Development of industries brought opportunities for immigrants to work in cities instead of on farms, and the resulting concentration of people in urban areas allowed for
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maintenance of immigrant languages in some quarters, while most people still found it best to learn and use American English for everyday discourse.
At the same time that settlers from other countries were adapting to English, they were influencing it as well. Settlement of the West and Southwest by northern Europeans meant contact with the Spanish-speaking settlers who were already there. As a result, American English adopted many words commonly associated with Spanish, such as enchilada, pueblo, sombrero, and tortilla, and also many words not usually thought of as Spanish, such as alfalfa, cockroach, marina, plaza, and ranch. Scandinavians established homesteads in the upper Midwest and gave American English the words smorgasbord and sauna. Other European immigrants were drawn primarily to urban areas. Jewish immigrants are particularly associated with New York City, for example, and provided such words as kosher and kibbitz. Polish immigrants, strongly associated with Chicago, provided kielbasa and pierogi; Chinese immigrants, associated with San Francisco or Los Angeles, chow mein and mahjong; Italian immigrants, associated with many cities, contributed the words spaghetti and pizza. Many other cultural groups have also had an impact on American English, often more local than national, as, for example, Cubans in Miami, Florida.
3.2.2.3 Development of regional speech patterns
Even settlers who shared Crèvecouer’s goal of “becoming an American” did not always share American English in exactly the same form. People tend to talk like the people they talk to, and so American English developed regional varieties. These varieties match the main ports of entry and follow the typical paths of settlement that started in each port. According to American linguist Hans Kurath, three broad east-west bands—North, Midland, and South—show a link between
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settlement and speech patterns. These bands reach as far as the Mississippi River but do not cross it, because settlement of the West was more mixed.
The Northern speech band includes New England and the northernmost tier of states. Boston served as the focus of the New England settlement area, from Rhode Island north to Maine, but mountains hindered direct overland settlement to the west. New England speech came to leave out the r sound after vowels, as also occurred in British English, and to pronounce the vowels of aunt, half, and law much like the vowel in calm.
New York City, also in the Northern speech band, developed speech habits different from those of many other northern regions, in ways made famous by the city’s prominence in the media. These differences include the lack of the r sound after vowels, occasional substitution of a t sound for a th sound, and pronunciation of words with an oi sound that others pronounce with an er sound. All of these combine in the pronunciation toity-toid for thirty-third.
The first English-speaking settlers in the Inland Northern region traveled through Connecticut to get to upstate New York. Later, the Hudson River and the Erie Canal opened up settlement for the entire Inland Northern region via the Great Lakes. Inland Northern speakers do pronounce r after vowels.
The Midland region has one city as its focus, Philadelphia, but two different settlement pathways. Settlers could move west from Philadelphia through southern Pennsylvania to Ohio and Indiana; this path created the North Midland area, whose inhabitants share linguistic features with the Northern region. Settlers could also proceed southwest through the Shenandoah Valley, creating the South Midland region, where people share linguistic features with the Southern region. Midland speakers from both pathways pronounce r after vowels.
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The Southern region has two focal areas—the Virginia plantation area around Richmond and the Charleston plantation area in South Carolina and Georgia—but only one main path of settlement. This main thrust of Southern settlement went into areas suitable for plantations, extending as far as eastern Texas. Southern speakers do not pronounce r after vowels. African Americans worked on plantations and learned Southern American English, acquiring many other Southern linguistic features.
Settlement west of the Mississippi River was more mixed than settlement through the regular pathways in the East, and eastern regional features were leveled in the West just as the speech of people from different parts of England had been leveled in the colonies. Western American English is not all the same, however, because of varying amounts of influence from Spanish residents and because the plains and Western states were settled by different proportions of Northerners, Midlanders, and Southerners. The Pacific Northwest and northern California gained more Northerners and North Midlanders, while the Southwest and the southern plains received more settlement from the South and South Midland.
3.2.2.4 Modern variation in American English
The regional speech patterns that developed during the settlement of the United States are still present and are still important aspects of American English. However, social circumstances have changed in the 20th century. Large-scale immigration and initial settlement have given way to movements between established regions of the country, and people who stay in one area develop local speech patterns. These social conditions lead, paradoxically, both to wider use of a spoken standard American English and to greater variety in local speech types.
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Some scholars believe that local accents in American cities differ more now than ever before.
This paradox occurs because people talk differently depending on whom they are talking to and on the circumstances of the conversation. For instance, people who work together in different kinds of jobs have special words for their jobs: lawyers know legal language, doctors know medical terms, and factory workers know the right terms to describe the products they make and the processes used to make them. Such job-related language not only has special purposes, it also identifies the user as somebody who knows the job. For example, someone who cannot use legal language convincingly is probably not a lawyer. Language for particular needs and for identification occurs in connection not only with jobs but also with social groups—groups formed by region, gender, ethnic affiliation, age, or other criteria.
3.2.3 American English variety: Black English.
Black English is a major social speech type. It refers to the variety of American English most shaped by African American culture. Historically, African American English has probably drawn some features from plantation creoles, but has drawn many more characteristics from the Southern American English associated with plantation culture.
During and after the Great Depression of the 1930s, many African Americans left farms in old plantation areas and moved to cities in search of work and opportunity. They maintained a strong common culture in the cities because of segregated housing, and African American English was maintained as well, although some African American communities began to develop more local speech characteristics.
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As more and more African Americans moved away from segregated housing, they had less connection to the vernacular and more occasion to use other regional or social speech characteristics or to speak standard American English. Experts disagree about whether African American Vernacular English is becoming more different from regional and social varieties of standard English or more like these varieties. This disagreement stems from differences in which African Americans they count as speakers of African American Vernacular English.
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Chapter 4: Comparative study between American
English and British English
4.0 Reasons of grammatical research.
In the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the word grammar has three explanations: I
[U] (the study and practice of) the rules by which words change their forms
and are combined into sentences
Ii [U] the correct or esp. incorrect use of these rules in speech or writing: I'm afraid my secretary sometimes has to set my grammar right.
Iii [C] also grammar book - a book which teaches these rules: This is the best Italian grammar I've seen.
In the present paper, grammar refers to the language rules containing the morphology, syntactic, and semantics.
The study of grammar is important for the learning and teaching of foreign languages. Noam Chomsky took grammar as 'the native speaker's internalized knowledge of the language'. Compared with vocabulary and sound, fewer grammatical differences exist between American English and British English, and fewer regulations can be followed so that it is easy to enumerate examples instead of theory discussion.
Americamerican Englis5 English is developed on the basis of 17th's BE. The contemporary English grammar is formed and fixed at that time. During the past 300 years, some of the grammar usages are changed that Englishman is inclined to one form and American is used to another form. In linguistics, it is distributional difference rather than inventorial difference that exists between AE and BE grammar.
The following chapter will discuss the distributional differences of AE and
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BE. Most of examples of this chapter are from newspapers, magazines, literary works and other scholar’s works, which are usually not given chapter and verse for.
4.1 Verbs
4.1.1 Past tense and past participle of verbs.
To get in AE has two past participles: one is gotten and the other is got. Only got is used in BE. Gotten in AE is to express \"to acquire, to obtain, to cause, or to come\" For example:
(1) We’ve gotten a new car since you were here last.
(2) You never would have gotten anything like this in Paris. (Hemingway) (3) For if we had missed our trains and gotten home late! (Dreiser)
(4) His stuff had already been moved into Number Two for him and the men
in Number Two had gotten together and fixed it up for him. (Jones) (5) We had already gotten off the train when it was hit. (6) They've gotten me into trouble again.
As same as Englishmen, Americans also use got when they want to express the idea of \" to possess or to be obliged to\". For example:
(7) They've got no pride. (Reed) (8) I've got to write a letter.
(9) I’ve got plenty of material if I can just handle it. (Lardner)
Here are three couples of American usages: (10a) Everybody's got to do it. (=Must, be obliged)
(10b) Everybody's gotten to do it. (=Have been able, permitted) (11a) She's got a neurosis. (=Have, possess)
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(11b) She's gotten a neurosis. (=Come to have, acquire)
(12a) He doesn't have much hair, but he's got a full beard. (=Have, possess) (12b) So far he's gotten most of his ideas about ecology from the Reader's Digest. (=Come to have, acquire)
It can be obviously observed that the use of got or gotten in AE is closely related to the semantic circumstance of the verb to get. Next example is from the works of American Modern dramatist Edward Albee :
(13) George: (very cheerful) Well, now let me see. I've got the ice.
Martha: ...gotten...
George: Got, Matha. Got is perfectly correct... It's just a little archaic like you.
In the example above, George thought the word got is an old word. In fact, gotten is used widely in both sides of Atlantic in 18th century. Most users are young gentlemen with high education. Nowadays word gotten disappears in BE, but is still kept in AE so that the verb to get owns two participles in AE. It proves AE is more reserved than BE on some aspects.
Similarly, to strike has two participles: struck and stricken. English people usually use the form of struck, and stricken only appears in some fixed phrases such as stricken heart (=despondent), stricken field (=field of battle), stricken in years (=of extreme old age). Among these phrases, stricken actually is becoming an adjective instead of a participle of to strike, which don't have this meaning as a verb.
In AE, struck and stricken exist together but their usages are confined by the semantic meaning. According to the former Soviet scholar A.D. Svejcer's research, stricken is only used as a participle in America when to strike is used in
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the phrase of to strike out. On other occasions, struck is used both in AE and BE. For Example:
(14) Objection to this interminable irrelevancy about the crate and request it
be stricken from the record. (Wouk) (15) The clause was stricken out. (Evans)
Verb to prove has two participles, proved and proven. They are universal in AE without any semantic restriction. For example:
(16) I have used a little different method in teaching bowling that has proved
very successful.
(17) Getting these two problems ironed out before going to the bowling alley
has proven to be a great help.
In BE, to prove only has one participle, proved. Proven simply appears in the old formula--not proven that is said to be from the Scottish laws.
The difference exists not only in past participles of verbs, but also in past tense.
For example, to dive just has one form of past tense in BE---dived. It has two forms in AE---dived and dove, and the latter one is use more common. To plead has pleaded in BE, and it has pleaded and pled in AE. Here are some examples:
(18) He dove for them, heard the club whistle over his head. (Saxton) (19) And he begged and pled so humble...(Benet)
So American scholars B. Evans and C. Evans think dove and pled is more oral than dived and pleaded in AE.
To thrive is quite contrary to to strike, to dive, and to plead. Its past tense is throve and its past participle is thriven in BE, but in AE both its past tense and past participle is thrived. In addition, some verbs have the same form of past
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tense and past participle, but has variations in AE and BE. One variation is form of -ed, the other is -t. Former one is universal in American and Britain, and the latter is just common in Britain.
Verb
Both in AE and BE (Past tense and participle)
Only in BE
(Past tense and participle) burnt dwelt learnt smelt spelt spilt spoilt
burn burned dwell dwelled learn learned smell smelled spell spelled spill spilled spoil spoiled
Some verbs in BE change it vowel as it becomes past tense and past participle such as:
Verb
Both in AE and BE (Past tense and participle)
Only in BE (Past tense and participle)
dreamt/dremt/ knelt leaned leapt dream dreamed /dri:md/ kneel kneeled lean leant leap leaped
Verbs' past participles can be used as attributives and predicative usually meaning passiveness, but in AE some verbs' past participles may express active meaning. For example:
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(20) A crouched tiger is ready to spring on any prey that is weak and wound. (21) There were three of the birds squatted obscenely. (Hemingway) (22) The man...wan tall, slightly stooped and in his forties. (Coronet) (23) He sat sprawled against the bar. (Saxton)
In the former examples, crouched, squatted, stooped and sprawled have their corresponding forms in BE which are crouching, squatting, stooping and sprawling.
4.1.2 Have got, do have and have to
To have in English is not a definite verb. It can be treated as a meaning verb or an auxiliary verb. Englishmen take it as a meaning verb or an auxiliary verb under different circumstances. Americans always use it as a meaning verb so Americans adopt an auxiliary verb do and its variations when making a negative or question sentence. Some comparisons are as followed:
(1a) How many dictionaries do you have? (AE) (1b) How many dictionaries have you (got)? (BE) (2a) Do you have any children? (AE) (2b) Have you (got) any children? (BE)
(3a) Harry doesn't have enough money for the car. (AE) (3b) Harry hasn't (got) enough money for the car. (BE) (4a) Don’t you have a driver's license? (AE) (4b) Haven’t you got a driver's license? (BE) (4c) Have you got a driver's license? (BE)
Do you have can also be heard in BE, but the meaning is different from that in AE. It only appears in the occasion of expressing \" whether regularly have it or
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not\".
Next couples of sentences are the comparison of two BE usage of to have:
(5a) Do you have much time for football? (Regularly)
(5b) Have you (got) time for a game of football this evening? (Temporarily) (6a) Do they have much snow in London in winter? (Regularly) (6b) Have they (got) much snow in London this winter? . (Temporarily)
Do you have in AE is costumed to express \"whether have it now or not \". If it wants to express the meaning of \"whether regularly have it or not\be added words like usually, ever and so on. For example:
(7) Do you usually/ever have fresh cod?
So next dialogue may be understood by any British man, American would be totally in the dark.
(8) --Have you any sardines?
---No, Madam, I am afraid, we have not. ---Do you have them?
---Yes, we do have them. But at the moment we are sold out.
Now in the daily dialogues, more and more young Englishmen have accepted the American usage of do you have. Even in the news of conservative British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), this American usage can often be heard. British scholar Peter Strevens said that it was on the 2nd. Feb. 1972 that he first heard the BBC announcer using this form:
(9) More schools are going to close because they don't have enough coal for
heating.
It's easy found from above that don't have refers to temporarily instead of
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regularly. It is generally believed that a new usage adopted by BBC broadcasting means that it's been widely accepted by Englishmen.
In contrast, British usage have you (got) may also be found in American writers' works. For example:
(10) Or haven't you any children? (Lardner) (11) Have you enough covers on? (Steinbeck)
(12) \"Have you a Communist card?\" the Senator asked P. Robeson.
American linguist D. L. Bolinger points out that this BE usage can also be accepted in AE, but it can’t be accepted when the object is a pronoun. Such sentences as ‘have you them’ or ‘has he it’ are very rare in AE.
Have and got, this British usage is common in AE oral English, and usually got is left as have is omitted. For example: (13) I got a problem. (14) You got a light?
It is different in the past tense. the usage of did you have is employed in AE and BE both meaning \"whether owns it or not regularly\" and \"whether owns it or not temporarily\". For example:
(15) Did you have any money at that time? (16) I didn't have any friends in the village.
Some sentences such as \"Had you got any money at that time\" can be heard in Britain, but it is rare in America. Even in Britain, this usage also belongs to an old usage.
Answers to the questions of have you got and do you have are different between AE and BE. Here are two sentences which can be heard both in AE and BE.
(17a) Have you got fresh cod?
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(18b) Do you have any fresh cod?
British answer to these two questions is Yes, I have and American answer is Yes, I do. The auxiliary verb in the answer may not be consistent to that in the question, so it means that the two English varieties still keep each own traditional usage in making an answer, although the forms of have you got and do you have have been widely accepted on both sides.
4.1.3 shall/should and will/would
There is obvious variation between AE and BE on the use of shall and will. When expressing a future behavior, British is inclined to use shall on the first person, and using will on other persons. American likes using will on all the persons. For example:
(1a) We shall go to the country next weekend. (BE) (1b) We will go to the country next weekend. (AE) (2a) I shan't be able to come. (BE) (2b) I won't be able to come. (AE)
(3) \"What will you do when the war is over if it is over?\" he asked me.
\"Speak grammatically.\"
\"I will go to the States.\" (Hemingway)
In the first person question, American use should instead of shall or will. For examples:
(4a) Should I drink this now? (AE) (4b) Shall I drink this now? (BE)
Of course, the difference between AE and BE is not absolute. On one hand American sometimes use shall on the first person. On the other hand, will is also
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used on the first person in BE. It is the result of inter-influence so that difference of will and shall is still distributional. American Telephone and Telegram Company has made a research and found the word will appear 1305 times and shall 6 times among 79390 words. So some people predicted that the difference of shall and will may disappear and finally united to be one word will. Until now, shall is still widely used in BE.
Compared with shall and will, should and would has similar difference in the direct speech and indirect speech. For example:
(5a) He said that we should arrive at the railway station by ten. (BE) (5b) He said that we would arrive at the railway station by ten. (AE)
4.1.4. Can’t, must not and mustn't
Modal verb must can express a positive presumption, which is the same in both varieties. Its negative form must not is just in AE, and can't or cannot is used in BE to express this meaning. For example:
(1a) That must not be what she meant. (AE) (2b) That can’t be what she meant. (BE) (3a) He must not be in his car is gone. (AE) (4b) He can't be in his car is gone. (BE)
Next Example is from TOEFL test:
(5) It’s not like Mary to be unfriendly, so she must not have seen you when
you waved.
In AE, must not can't be briefed to mustn't which means not be allowed. For examples:
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(6a) He must not be in his car is gone.
(6b) He mustn't be in his car is gone. (=He is not allowed to be in when we arrive.)
4.1.5 Subjunctive mood
The subjunctive mood is a grammatical mood of the verb that expresses wishes, commands (in subordinate clauses), and statements that are contrary to fact.
The differences of subjunctive mood between AE and BE mainly lie in the object clauses after the verbs such as to suggest, to demand, to insist, to require, to order, to recommend and so on. Or some fixed patterns such as:
It is important/necessary/vital/essential/desirable/obligatory+that+subordinate clause. For Example:
(1a) They suggested that Smith be dropped from the team. (AE) (1b) They suggested that Smith should be dropped from the team. (BE)
In fact, Englishmen like using statement mood to replace subjunctive mood especially in oral English. For example:
(2) I thank Mr. Watson Taylor for his compliments and suggest he has another look at what I actually wrote.
4.1.6 Present Perfect
In British English the present perfect is used to express an action that has occurred in the recent past that has an effect on the present moment. For example:
(1a) I've lost my key. Can you help me look for it? In American English the following is also possible: (1b) I lost my key. Can you help me look for it?
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In British English the above would be considered incorrect. However, both forms are generally accepted in American English. Other differences involving the use of the present perfect in British English and simple past in American English include already, just and yet.
(2a) I've just had lunch. (BE)
(2b) I just had lunch or I've just had lunch. (AE) (3a) I've already seen that film. (BE)
(3b) I've already seen that film or I already saw that film. (AE)
(4) Have your finished your homework yet? or Did you finish your homework yet? (AE)
4.2 Nouns
When a noun is taken as an attributive, AE are using its singular form and BE using plurals more. In TOFEL test, there is an item as follows:
(1) Some bloods types are quite common, others are regionally distributed,
A B C
and others are rare everywhere. D
In American English, bloods types is usually said to be blood types. In BE, this item is thought not wrong because bloods types is still widely used. Next are some comparisons:
(2a) There is a serious drug problem in the country. (AE) (2b) There is a serious drugs problem in the country. (BE) (3a) The workers decided to form a new trade union. (AE) (3b) The workers decided to form a new trades union. (BE)
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(4a) They have built a new chemical plant in the area. (AE) (4b) They have built a new chemicals plant in the area. (BE)
In the writings, especially in the news, BE takes the modifiers of identity or titles after the name, and AE is inclined to place the modifiers before the name and not to use any articles. For Example:
(5a) John Smith, the lanky Californian teenage tennis star, won another major
tournament today. (BE)
(5b) Lanky Californian teenage tennis star John Smith won another major
tournament today. (AE)
(6a) Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister, arrived in Washington
today. (BE)
(6b) British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher arrived in Washington today.
(AE)
In the river names, BE usually lay river in front of the names, and AE is quite contrary. For example:
British English the River Thamesthe River Avon
The morphemes –ee and –ery are more productive in AE, providing words such as advisee, retiree, crookery, and fakery. AE regularly transforms phrasal verbs into nouns, resulting in words such as cook-out, fly-over, turn-off, etc. Collective nouns are more likely to take a singular verb and singular pronoun substitution in AE. Nouns like \"team\" and \"government\" that describe multiple people are often used with the plural form of a verb in British English, and with the singular form in American English.
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American English the Mississippi Riverthe Hudson River
The government has made up its mind, hasn’t it? The government have made up their mind, haven’t they?
4.3 Articles
In the use of articles, AE tends to be more simplified. Many noun phrases in BE needing an article do not need in AE, particularly in some time phrases such as:
all the afternoon, all the winter, all the week, all the year round, the day before yesterday, the day after tomorrow, this time of the year,
Among the above examples, the definite article is usually omitted in AE. Next sentences are in AE usage.
(1) The swimming pools are open all summer. (2) I’ll be here all afternoon. (lardner) (3) He has been gone all week. (Carey)
BE is certain to use definite articles in front of nouns of diseases or rivers and falls, and AE uses the zero article such as :
BE: the measles, the mumps, the flu, the scarlatina, the smallpox. AE: measles, mumps, flu, scarlatina, smallpox
BE: the Clear Water, the Black Creek, the Swift River, the Niagara Falls AE: Clear Water, Black Creek, Swift River, Niagara Falls
Some phrases, which don’t need articles in BE, need articles in AE. For Example:
BE: go into hospital, in hospital, go to university, at university.
AE: go into the hospital, in the hospital, go to the university, at a university.
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In describing the past, some chronic adverbial modifiers are needed. AE must add a definite article and BE not. For example:
(4a) Next day, the rains began. (BE) (4b) The next day, the rains began. (AE. BE) (5a) I saw him next day. (BE) (5b) I saw him the next day. (AE. BE)
4.4 Pronouns
The biggest distributional difference of pronouns between AE and BE is the echo form of infinite pronoun one. BE usually uses the pattern of one...one. AE is inclined to use he, his or himself to replace one, one's or oneself. For example:
(1a) One should always be careful in talking about one's finances. (BE) (1b) One should always be careful in talking about his finances. (AE) (2a) One should learn to take care of oneself. (BE) (2b) One should learn to take care of himself. (AE) (3a) One can't be too careful, can one? (BE) (3b) One can't be too careful, can he? (AE) One another is much less formal in BE: (4a) They really loved one another deeply. (BE) (4b) They really loved each other deeply. (AE)
In fact, the usage of one.... he is originated from Britain. Oxford Dictionary was written down an example of 15th century BE:
(5) One was surer in keeping his tunge, than in mochee spekyng.
From the example above, it shows that American English has kept the old the usage of English and proves its fogyism again
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4.5 Prepositions
4.5.1Forms of preposions
Some prepositions have different forms in AE and BE. The preposition round in BE usually appears as around in AE. Towards of BE may be toward in AE. And the preposition among has a variety in BE, that is amongst, which form is rare in AE.
(1a) She lives just round the corner. (BE) (1b) She lives just around the corner. (AE)
AE and BE use different prepositions in some same semantic phrases. For example:
(2a) He is walking in the street. (BE) (2b) He is walking on the street. (AE)
(3a) Your daughter's name stands first in the list. (BE) (3b) Your daughter's name stands first on the list. (AE) (4a) We happened to meet him in an express train. (BE) (4b) We happened to meet him on an express train. (AE) (5a) John was also in the volleyball team. (BE) (5b) John was also on the volleyball team. (AE) (6a) These dresses are in a sale. (BE) (6b) These dresses are on sale. (AE)
The preposition through has a special usage in AE. It refers to up to and including such as Monday through Friday, September 1 through October 15. The corresponding usage in BE is from...to, but its meaning is not definite as that in AE. For example, whether does from Monday to Friday include Friday? In order to avoid the ambiguity, Englishmen usually use from Monday to Friday
４０
inclusive or Monday up to and including Friday to clearly express it. Here are some comparison:
(7a) Our holiday will cover the period from Monday to Saturday inclusive.
(BE)
(7b) Our holiday will cover the period Monday through Saturday. (AE) (8a) We shall review from chapter2 to chapter 5. (BE) (8b) We shall review chapter2 through chapter 5. (AE)
Next are two examples from TOEFL and GRE tests:
(9) The main library is open from eight A.M. until nine P.M. Monday through Friday. (TOEFL)
(10) Along the Downstate Expressway from Bakersfield west to Oak Ridge are nine exits numbered consecutively east to west 14 through22. (GRE)
When expressing a period of time, BE usually uses the preposition for, and AE uses for and in. For example:
(11a) I haven't seen him for weeks/ages. (BE. AE) (11b) I haven't seen him in weeks/ages. (AE)
In front of the holiday nouns like weekend, Christmas and so on, Englishmen generally use at, sometimes over; Americans use over or on. For example:
at the weekend/Christmas (BE) over the weekend/Christmas (AE, BE) on the weekend/Christmas (AE)
(12a) We prefer to go to the theatre at the weekend. (BE) (12b) We prefer to go to the theatre over/on the weekend. (AE)
The other different preposition usages are as follows:
４１
(13a) His membership of the party was discussed. (BE) (13b) His membership in the party was discussed. (AE) (14a) The joke is against you. (BE) (14b) The joke is on you. (AE)
(15a) There is a stream behind the house. (BE. AE) (15b) There is a stream in the back of the house. (AE) (16a) Edward got in/out of the window. (BE) (16b) Harry got on/off the train. (AE)
(17a) Mary threw the ball out of the window. (BE) (17b) Mary threw the ball out the window. (AE)
4.5.2 Simplification of preposition
Modern English has the inclination of simplification, which is particularly obvious in AE. In the date expression, for example, AE often omits its preposition on:
(1a) I'll see you on Monday. (BE) (1b) I'll see you Monday. (AE)
(2a) Why didn’t you come here on Friday evening? (BE) (2b) Why didn’t you come here on Friday evening? (AE)
Those in front of time nouns can be omitted in AE, and the nouns are changed into plural forms.
(3a) He works by day and studies at night. (BE, AE) (3b) He works days and studies nights. (AE) (4a) On Saturdays we go to London. (BE, AE) (4b) Saturdays we go to London. (AE)
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Next are some examples from AE:
(5) Government buildings and their exhibits are open mornings and afternoons.
(6) The new air service begins January 1st.
(7) She had left a city which sat up nights to talk of universal transition. (8) This place is jam-packed Saturdays.
In the formality of BE, proposition phrases such as on next Sunday, during last January can be changed into on Sunday next, during January last. This usage of changing order cannot be found in AE. What Americans only use is next Sunday, last January, omitting a preposition.
Discussion above is all about the status of using prepositions in BE and of omitting prepositions in AE. AE does not always adopt simpler form than BE. Phrases in BE such as all the time, all the many boys is added a preposition of in AE. They are turned out be all of the time, all of the many boys.
4.6 Adjectives and Adverbs.
In some varieties of AE, the comparative degree of adjectives may follow the phrase all the to emphasize, for example:
(1) Is that all the better you can do? (AE) (2) This is all the bigger they grow. (AE)
There is no usage in BE. The usage of any+adj(comparative degree) is used in BE to emphasize. For example:
(3) Can’t you do any better than that? (BE) (4) They don’t grow any bigger than this. (BE) This usage can also be accepted in AE.
Colloquial AE often employs adjectives where colloquial BE requires an adverb. Adjective real in informal AE sometimes can be used as an adverb such as
４３
a real good meal or a real good time. And in BE and formal AE it is really that is used. For example: a really good meal.
The position of adverbs in AE is comparatively free. In BE, adverbs of never, always, probably are usually placed in the back of first auxiliary word. For example:
(5) They will never agree to it.
(6) You could always have called us first.
The position of adverbs in AE can be used both before and after the auxiliary word without changing meaning.
(7a) They never will agree to it. (7b) They will never agree to it.
(8a) You probably could have done it yourself. (8b) You could probably have done it yourself.
Adverbs of yet and already can only be used in the present tense in BE and cannot be in the past tense. But in AE, the past tense is often use to replace the present tense so that these two adverbs can be used in the past tense. For example:
(9a) I haven’t bought one yet. (BE, AE) (9b) I didn’t buy one yet. (AE)
(10a) Have you read it already? (BE, AE) (10b) Did you read it already? (AE)
The adverb presently means soon both in AE and in BE, but in AE it has the meaning of at present, which is used in the present tense sentences. For example:
(11) They will be here presently. (=soon) (AE, BE) (12) They are presently here. (=at present) (AE)
Momentarily can be used by AE speakers to mean ‘in a moment’; whilst in BE it means ‘for just a very short period of time’.
４４
(13) I’ll find it momentarily. (AE)
(14) He was so surprised that he was momentarily unable to speak. (BE)
4.7 Other usages
When a speaker of British English is on the telephone he may refer to himself as “this” and the other person as “that”. In American English both parties refer to themselves and each other as “this”. In telephone conversation one might hear:
(1a) “Hello, this is Graham. Is that Liam?”(BE) (1b) “Hello, this is Mike. Is this Tom?”(AE)
American English uses only the singular form of a verb or pronoun to refer to a singular noun corresponding to a plurality. In British English both singular and plural verbs and pronouns can be used in this capacity. For example:
(2a) The class is going to Euro Disney. (AE, BE verb) (2b) The class are going to Euro Disney. (BE verb)
(3a) My company is great. They are the best firm in England!(BE pronoun) (3b) My company is great. It is the best firm in England!(AE, BE pronoun)
4.8 Summary
Because of the great American political, economic and cultural influence in the world, there is a tendency in Britain to accept the what is called Americanism, especially young people. However, the major differences will exist for a long time.
There are no significant regulations on grammatical difference; however, we can summarize several items as follows:
４５
1. B.E. and A.E. sometimes employ different grammatical forms to express the same meaning.
2. The same grammar form has different meanings between two varieties. 3. Under some circumstances, one is inclined to adopt full grammar usages at the same time the other uses the simplification form. A.E is much more than B.E. on this simplification phenomenon.
4. Sometimes two grammatical forms are commonly used in BE and AE. But Frequency of using is different between B.E. and A.E. Some may be frequently appearing in BE, and some may be more in AE.
5. AE and BE sometimes use the same grammar form to express some idea but the two varieties or one of varieties has another form to it and this expression is not adopted by the opposite side.
４６
Chapter 5: Analysis of the differences and their
influence
5.1 Historical reasons of difference formation
When the brave colonists left England for the New World, the language they spoke on the Mayflower and also in their new home land was the English language which was currently employed in England. However, there are a great number of differences between American and British English today which have developed during the past centuries. How, and more importantly, why did these differences emerge? There are many factors which have contributed to the situation, and some of these factors will be considered in this paper.
The first settlers had grown up in England. They spoke English which is similar to what we can find in Shakespeare's texts; this is also called Elizabethan English. Naturally the language did not sound the same as its present counterpart; many of the phonemes had different quality. Although some words are still spelled in the same way than they used to be in the Elizabethan time, the pronunciation was different then than in our days. On the other hand, the spelling of many words has changed dramatically although the word might have retained its pronunciation. However, this language, Elizabethan English, was what both the people who left England and those who stayed used in their everyday life; therefore both present-day American and British English have a common starting point.
What was it then that happened to Elizabethan English that led to these two varieties of English? Peter Strevens notes three phenomena, which have contributed to the divergence of the two varieties. First, British English itself changed as a result of time and social changes in the British Isles. Second, the English used in America developed a character of its own, reflecting the growth of the American nation. Third, the interactions between Britain and America themselves changed, which also affected English.
４７
5.1.1 Borrowings of British English
First of all what shall be considered are the changes in British English from Elizabethan times onwards. The first new material to come into use in British English was borrowings from Latin and Greek. Great quantities of ideas and therefore vocabulary were taken into English as scholars became aware of the classical manuscripts. Peter Strevens shows us that words like amen, arena, complex, focus, maximum, minimum, opera and series did not exist in English before about 1600 (p. 29), which we might find difficult to believe, so common have these nouns become since those days.
Another borrowing was from an entirely different source, foreign countries which made up the British Empire. Strevens' examples of this include bungalow, kangaroo, pyjamas and tea. These words were imported to the English language by traders, administrators, soldiers and missionaries who had traveled the world and found that English lacked words for these concepts (Strevens, p. 30).
In recent times British English has had another source for borrowings: American English. Apart from Americanisms that are used with consciousness for their American origin (for example, talk-show and hot dog), British English has started to use other words and expressions that have originated in American English. In Strevens' opinion this is only rarely realized, and he points out as examples of this borrowing the words to enthuse, cafeteria, double-cross, a flop, gangster, high-light, and popcorn (pp. 30-31). During the passage of time, British English has borrowed words and expressions from other languages and that has influenced it greatly. It still continues to do so; however, it seems that the main source for borrowings at our times is the variety once developed from British English itself, American English.
４８
5.1.2 Borrowings of American English
As Elizabethan English developed in Britain to what we now know as British English, also the language of the settlers developed to American English and gained some features which only are found in it. First task for the colonists was to find names for concepts that did not exist in Britain; also place-names had to be invented. The most fruitful source for these words was the native languages of the American continent; American Indian languages. Words like moose, skunk, tepee and tomahawk were borrowed into American English from American Indian languages (Strevens, p. 31). Most of these borrowings somehow deal with nature and, as you might expect, Indian concepts as totem. There were no words for most of the Indian concepts in English, and so the most convenient way to \"invent\" words for English was to borrow them from the Indians themselves, who were, so to say, experts at their field.
The second cultural contact for the colonists was with the French. France was a great empire at the time and therefore it is not surprising that French should have influence on English. Some of the words were borrowed from French by the Indians and then adopted to English as well; however, some words were straight borrowings from French into English: bureau, prairie, pumpkin and rapids, to mention a few (Strevens p. 32).
Yet another influence was Spain, also a great empire at the time. Over the years many words were borrowed from it: cockroach, creole, mustang, patio and rodeo (Strevens p. 32).
What is now known as New York used to be a Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and therefore it is clear that Dutch should have had long and extensive influence on American English. Among words borrowed from Dutch are boss, dumb, Santa Claus and waffle (Strevens p. 32).
During the years, the Indians were incorporated into the United States, and likewise were many Frenchmen and -women after Louisiana was sold to the U.S.
４９
by France. Many Spanish and Dutch speakers also became citizens of the United States when the borders of Mexico were established and when Holland was driven out of its territory.
Of course this kind of incorporation always changes the language; even though these people spoke their native language at first, their children gradually started using English and finally English was adopted by these different peoples. However, these different peoples who had different mother tongues also added concepts and words to English thus enriching it and giving vividness to its vocabulary and syntax.
The largest single immigrant group in the United States was, of course, the slaves brought from Africa. However, Their influence on American English was not so significant as we might expect because of the great number of the slaves.
There are three reasons for this: first, they did not share a single tribal or linguistic origin and did not actually have anything in common what comes to language. Secondly, these people were slaves and so their customs and language did not have any value in the eyes of the white Americans and therefore their expressions were not likely to be borrowed into English. Thirdly, the children and further descendants of the African slaves had to learn English, both in order to communicate with their masters and as a language for their own use as their linguistic backgrounds were totally different from each other.
However, a few words remain in the English language that are of African origin: gumbo 'a stew, soup', hoodoo 'a curse or spell', okra 'a vegetable' and voodoo 'a cult' (p. 34). Although the influence of the African languages on English is small, that does not mean that Afro-Americans would be without their own characteristic forms of English. On the contrary, black English is marked with a grammar and a pronunciation of its own which differs greatly from General American, and they also have a great deal of vocabulary of their own.
The United States has been, over the years, a great melting pot. Many
５０
immigrants from many different cultures have brought along their personality, their labor, and also their language. One obvious example is that of the Italians who bought their cooking to America--and also their cooking vocabulary. The words pizza, pasta and spaghetti are of Italian origin, but are common words for the most Americans today.
Another source of American English still needs to be mentioned, and that is the rapid growth of new and special institutions in America after political independence was achieved. New terms were needed for election and administration, as well as for new political procedures. Words such assembly, Congress, primary, President, representative and Senate refer to American ideas, offices and practices and are of pure American origin. Furthermore, Americans are very innovative and coin new words easily, as was the case with \"burgers\": first you had hamburger, then cheeseburger, beefburger, baconburger, fishburger and so on. This is a very fruitful way of creating new words and American English seems to accept these kinds of innovations more easily than British English.
It is understandable that when a group of people leaves their native country, the language they speak evolves differently than the one of their homeland, and this happens because of lack of contact between the tongues. The less contact, the more different the evolution, because the home dialect also continues to evolve. Thus, the language of the settlers developed into American English and gained some features which are found in it only. On the whole, differences between the two varieties reflect differences between British culture and American culture.
5.2 A.E. features: fogyism
The fogyism in AE means the use and keep of British old usages. The most popular example people like to discuss is the use of verb to get. To get has only one participle in BE, that is got. But in AE, it has two forms: got and gotten. The difference has been illustrated in the chapter 3.1. In fact, before the seventeenth
５１
century in Britain, the participle of gotten was still in use. Until the mid and late of seventeenth century, this usage were beginning to disappear in Britain instead Americans have been keeping using it until the present.
To some extent, AE is more loyal than BE to the early modern English-Elizabeth English. With the changing of English in Britain from the seventeenth century, AE does not produce the same variants and preserve old traditions on many aspects. It is a very interesting phenomenon in linguistics that language used in abroad is more preserved and more inherited than that in mainland. And this phenomenon is just one of the main reasons of difference formation between AE and BE.
5.3 Social and political reasons.
The principal language of the USA is English, the language brought to the 'New World' by colonists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, affected by the history of the British Isles and by interaction with other Englishes and foreign languages. Ever since that time, a strong language identity began to grow, and the Americans had an urge to declare American English separate from mother English. These two family members wanted and were forced to grow apart and form their own identity.
Significant steps in the progress of American English towards the language of the USA were taken in 1607, when the first English settlement Jamestown was established and the Pilgrim Fathers had arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. These two patterns of settlement resulted in different linguistic consequences. By 1720 it was noticed by some English colonists in America that the language they spoke was different from that spoken in England:
1. They coined some new words for themselves.
2. They borrowed from foreign cultures like Indians: chipmunk, hickory,
５２
wigwam Dutch: boss, caboose, coleslaw French: praline, cent, chowder Spanish: lassoo, marijuana, rodeo
3. They used English dialect words in general speech
4. They continued to use some English words grammar and syntax that had now become obsolete back across the Atlantic in England.
5. They evolved some peculiar uses, pronunciation, grammar and syntax.
New words were needed for plants, landscapes, living conditions, institutions and attitudes seldom encountered in England. These new inventions led to the study of Americanisms, and the first man to publish the first collection of Americanisms was John Pickering, an early statesman, who once said: \"Americans have much stronger propensity that the English to add new words to the language.\" During the colonial period, there were people who supported the linguistic bond between American and British English, and they felt a \"loyalty toward Britain for cultural, humanistic and literary reasons\" and, above all, they wanted to maintain \"language solidarity\". The opposite group would certainly have agreed with the teacher Noah Webster's (1758-1843) words:
\"The reasons for American English being different from British English are simple: As an independent nation, our honour requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government.\"
Webster's effective writings on the language of America kept up the idea of a national language and led to a vision of a Standard American English also known as General American (GA). It is a generally acceptable form of a native variety of English spoken in the central and western USA and in most of Canada. (The equivalent form in England is Received Pronunciation [RP].) But just a small amount of differences between these two languages have entered the standard
５３
written language, as there are thousands of non-standard and regionally restricted words used in daily life.
5.4 Inter-influence between A.E. and B.E. and its development.
As regards the interactions between BE and AE, Strevens and McArthur name three periods, or phases, whose dates correspond to political and social events with important consequences for the language: 1. The Colonial Period (1607-1776)
During this period distinctive American English was conceived (mainly due to borrowings), colonial in status, while British English was dominant. The direction of influence was from BE to AE. 2. The National Period (1776-1898)
From the War of Independence AE underwent consolidation. Noah Webster’s writings on the language of America kept up the idea of a national language and led to a vision of a Standard American English. AE gained a reputation for creating new expressions while still being regarded a junior partner beside BE. 3. The International Period (from 1898-the present)
With the Spanish-American War the USA became internationally significant. AE has emerged as being of equal status and value with BE. At present BE is greatly influenced by AE.
５４
B.E
First settlers (Turning point 1918) Future
(About1600BC) A.E Present
(Independence 1776) (World war 1)
British and American English have also influenced each other. At the beginning, American English was \"colonial\" and British English was dominant, the standard. During this period the influence was, of course, from British English to American English. Then came the time when American English created a character of its own and became regarded as another important variety of English. However, during this period American English was still regarded as a \"junior language\" whereas British English was regarded the only really correct form.
At present American and British English have an equal status and value, and in some respects the flow of influence has shifted towards British English. Naturally there is some interaction going all the time and new ideas and expressions are changed every day. American English has always been very open to influence, but British English has stayed a \"private club\" till recently, and has just in the past few decades started accepting new ideas from American English.
American and British English have the same origin, Elizabethan English, but these two varieties are relatively different from each other today. The different social and political events have greatly influenced these both languages, and so have the immigrants, too. Because of the geographical distance between these two countries both these languages could have developed in their own directions and therefore the differences between them are so easily spotted. However, American and British English have more in common than they are different from each other,
５５
and that is why they are treated as varieties of one language, English, rather than two separate languages.
５６
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Suggestions
6.1 Conclusion
Language is in a state of constant change. The change can be easily seen in the vocabulary, grammar and sound: old usages cease to be used, new usages are added, and existing usages change their meaning. A language has to renew itself in order to stay alive. \" When language ceases to change, we call it a dead language\" (Baugh and Cable 2). In the chapters above, it has discussed three explanations of language changing including functional, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic explanations. And in the chapter four, it shows a whole grammatical differences and description between American English and British English.
As regards to the influence between AE and BE, it can be inferred: before the American Independence War (1776), British English was dominant and standard so that the influence is from BE to AE; from World War I to the present, AE is enjoying an equal status and even begins influencing BE. In the future, it has the trend that AE and BE will reunite and reach a common ‘destination’.
6.2 Suggestions to language teaching and learning
Most people around the world who learn English as a second language learn either American English or British English. The worldwide use of English began when Britain created a worldwide empire. Today, most people who learn English as a foreign language still learn British English. This happens because Britain has had a longstanding interest in teaching English and has publishers and institutions in place to promote it. American English is taught more and more, however, because of the worldwide success of American business and technology. This success also leads speakers of British English—even in England—to adopt many
５７
Americanisms. English has truly become a world language in science and business, and over time it will come to have more of an American English sound.
Which English should be used in the language teaching in China? Such a question has often been asked after seeing the differences. Since there is no better or worse between two varieties, any of them can fulfill the needs of our international communication and intercourse. There is no need to regulate it strictly, but teachers should pay attention to the unification in English teaching. The same English variety should be used in the same situation and avoid the employment of two varieties simultaneously. The teachers are supposed to stress the common ground of the two varieties in teaching. Especially in the fundamental teaching, teachers should make full use of the differences of little influence. Students who have mastered one variety are easy to grasp and understand the other.
To deal with the problem, teachers should get a full knowledge of the varieties systematically. Comprehensive research on differences between AE and BE is of no need to the common English teaching, but proper understandings would be of great help to the English teaching and English learning.
５８
Paper and books published during graduate study
Qiu Bo ＆ Shen Jun et.al. The Olympic Ball Games. Welcome to Beijing Olympic Games 2008 Series. Dalian Maritime University Press. 2004
Shen Jun et.al. The Winter Olympic Games. Welcome to Beijing Olympic Games 2008 Series. Dalian Maritime University Press. 2004
奥运会球类比赛 （迎奥运英语系列丛书） 大连海事大学出版社 2004 冬季奥运会比赛项目 （迎奥运英语系列丛书） 大连海事大学出版社 2004
５９
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank a number of people for different kinds of help which they have given me in producing this paper, and naturally, to exonerate them from any responsibility for the bad parts of it.
First of all, I have to thank my tutor to whom I owe my greatest indebtedness. He has spared no pains in reading my manuscript, pointing out my mistakes with meticulous readiness and offering many a stern criticism with the utmost promptitude.
I also want to show my gratitude to my friends Eric Chen and Julian Qiu for their help of collecting materials and computer works.
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