Varieties of the Spoken English

English language has a great diversity in the spoken realization of the language and particularly in terms of pronunciation (accent). The varieties of the language are conditioned by language communities ranging from small groups to whole nations. National variant of language is historical category evolving from conditions of economic and political concentration which characterizes the formation of the nation. All the English speaking nations have their own national variants and each of them has peculiar features that distinguish it from other varieties of English. The English language is the national language of Great Britain, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand and the greater part of the population in Canada. So, there exist such national variants of the English language as English English, American English, Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, etc. The literary spoken form of the language has its national pronunciation standard (a socially accepted variety of a language established by a codified norm of correctness). Each national variety falls into several territorial or regional dialects. Dialects differ from one another in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Local accents may have features of pronunciation in common and consequently are grouped into territorial or area accents. In Britain, for example, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire accents form the group “Northern accent”. For certain geographical, economic, political and cultural reasons one of the dialects becomes the standard language of the nation, while its accent becomes the received standard pronunciation. This was the case of London dialect, whose accent became the “RP” (British English). The social differentiation of language is closely connected with the social differentiations of society. British sociologists divide the society into upper, middle and lower classes, which vary from one another on the basis of professional, educational and cultural level. It should be also remembered the language of its users varies according to their individualities, range of intelligibility, cultural habits, sex and age differences. Nowadays there are two main types of English spoken in the English-speaking world: British English and American English. According to British dialectologists the following variants of English are referred to the English-based group: English English, Welsh English, Australian English, New Zealand English; to the American-based group: United States English, Canadian English. Scottish English and Ireland English fall somewhere between the two. It would be wrong to consider that RP is used by entire population of Great Britain, for only 3-5 per cent of the population of England speak RP. British phoneticians estimate that nowadays RP is not homogenous. Within RP itself they distinguish four main types: General RP (adopted by the BBC), Advanced RP (used by young people), Conservative RP, Near RP southern. American English is characterized by a lesser degree of dialect than British due to some historical factors like the existence of standard English when first English settlers came to America, the high mobility of population. What concerns pronunciation it is not at all homogenous. On the subject of Canadian English – it is generally considered to be a peculiar “blend”, or hybrid, of two national varieties of English, namely, American English and British. Australia is, generally speaking, linguistically unified. The three varieties of Australian English are: Cultivated Australia (the so-called “minority form” of speech in Australia); General Australian (the so-called language of communication); and Broad Australian (or uneducated, Popular Australian).

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1150