Obsolete and archaic words

Obsolete words - no longer in general use, especially, out of use for at least the past century. Many words you still hear in England might be considered obsolete in America(whilst – пока); Groovy (1900's), which meant "excellent".

Archaic words – words and phrases that were used regularly in a language but now are less common and used to deliberatly refer to earlier times (agone – ago, avaunt – away, belike – probably)

Neologisms, international words

A neologism is a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event (x-ray, radar, laser)

In linguistics, an internationalism or international word is a loanword that occurs in several languages with the same or at least similar meaning and etymology. These words exist in "several different languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from the ultimate source" (I.V.Arnold). Pronunciation and orthography are similar so that the word is understandable between the different languages.

Non-literary colloquial words (slang, jargonisms, professionalisms, vulgarisms)

A colloquialism is a word, phrase or paralanguage that is employed in conversational or informal language but not in formal speech or formal writing.

Slang - an informal nonstandard vocabulary composed typically of coinages, arbitrarily changed words, and extravagant, forced, or facetious figures of speech

Jargon - a strange, outlandish, or barbarous language or dialect, a hybrid language or dialect simplified in vocabulary and grammar and used for communication between peoples of different speech

Professionalism - are the words used in a definite trade, profession: or calling by people connected by common interests both at work and at home. The main feature of a professionalism is its techtricality. Professionalisms are special worth in the non-literary layer of the English vocabulary, whereas terms are я specialized group belonging to the Literary layer- of words.

Vulgarisms - A crudely indecent word or phrase; an obscenity, A word, phrase, or manner of expression used chiefly by uneducated people.

Standard English. Its variants and dialects

Standard English – the official language of great Britain taught at school and universities, used by the press, the radio, television, spoken by educated speakers. Local dialects – are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. There are two variants of English in Britain: Scottish English and southern. Dialects: northern, midland, eastern, western, southern.

American English.

American English cannot be called a dialect because it has a literary normalised form called Standard American. An Americanisms can be defined as a word or a set expression peculiar to the English language as spoken in the USA. E.s. cookie "a biscuit”, frame house “a house consisting of a skeleton of limber”.

The American variant of the English language differs from British English in pronunciation, some minor features of grammar, but chiefly in vocabulary.

Words, which have died out in Britain, or changed their meaning, may survive in the USA. The early Americans had to coin words for the unfamiliar fauna & flora. Bullfrog “a large frog”, moose (the American elk).

Many of foreign elements borrowed into American English from the Indian dialects or from Spanish penetrated very soon not only Into British English but also into several other languages. They are: canoe, moccasin. tomahawk, wigwam etc. Spain borrowings and translation Ioans: pipe of peace, pale-face are taken from Indian languages.

As to the toponyms. for instance. Iowa. Kansas, Michigan. Missouri (all the names of Indian tribes), or other names of towns, rivers named by Indian words.

The American spelling is in some respects simpler than its British counterpart, in other respects just different

The existing cases of difference between the two variants are conveniently classified into:

1) Cases where there are no equivalents in British English: drive-in "a cinema where you can sec the film without getting out of your car".

2) Cases where different words are used for the same denotatum such as mailboy in the USA & tin, sweets in England.

3) Cases where the semantic structure of a partially equivalent word is different. The word "pavement", for example, means in the first place» covering of the street or the floor A the like made of asphalt, stones or some other material". The derived meaning is in England "the foot way at the side of the road".

4) Cases where otherwise equivalent words are different in distribution.

5) It sometimes happens that the same word is used at Americas English with some difference in emotional & stylistic colouring.

6) I here may be a merited difference in frequency characteristics.

Canadian English is influenced both by British & American English but it also has some specific features of its own. Specifically Canadian words arc called Canadians. They are not very frequent outside Canada, except shack "a hut". & to fathom out “ to explain". The vocabulary is characterized by a high percentage of borrowings from the language of the people who inhabited the land before the English colonizers came. Many of them denote somе specific realia of the new country: localanimals, plants or weather conditions, now social relations, new trades & conditions of labour. The local words for new notions penetrate into the English language & later on may become international, if they are of sufficient interest & importance for people speaking other, languages.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1892