English` is a common core. It is realized only in the different forms
of the language that we actually hear or read.
Six kinds of varieties of the English language:



regional



education and social standing



subject matter



medium



attitude



interference

Regional varieties:
- it is regional dialects
- in the course of time, with poor communications and relative
remoteness, such dispersion results in dialects becoming so
distinct that we regard them as different languages. It was reached
by the Germanic dialects that are now Dutch, English, German,
Swedish. It hasn`t been reached with the dialects of English that
have resulted from the regional separation of English-speaking
communities both within the British Isles and throughout the
world.
- regional variation seems to be realized usually in phonology (we
generally recognize a different dialect from a speaker`s
pronunciation before we notice that his vocabulary is also
distinctive)
- there are indefinitely many dialects of English
- examples: American E, Irish E, Scottish E, Canadian E, Australian
E, New Zealand E
Education and social status:
- within each of the dialect areas, there is considerable variation in
speech according to education and social standing
- uneducated (can be indentified with the regional dialect) and
educated speech (it moves from dialectal usage to a form of
English that cuts across dialectal boundaries)
- we can distinguish standard and non-standard English
- educated English refers to standard English
- educated English is mainly used by government agencies, the
learned professions, the political parties, the press, the law court
and the pulpit
- there is an important polarity of uneducated and educated
speech
- uneducated English refers to social dialects
Standard English
- uniformity throughout the world is greatest in what is from most
viewpoints the relatively unimportant matter of spelling
- even though printing houses in all English-speaking countries
retain a tiny area of individual decision, there is a basically a single
system, with two minor subsystems
- the one is the subsystem with British orientation with distinctive
forms in only a small class of words: colour, centre, leveled etc. It
is used in all English speaking countries expect the United States.
- the two is the American subsystem with forms like: color, center,
level etc.
- in Canada in most areas the British system is used but some
publishers follow the American subsystem or some a mixture
- in grammar and vocabulary, Standard English presets somewhat
less of a monolithic character
National standards of English



British and American English

- they are overwhelmingly predominant both in the number of
distinctive usages and in the degree to which these distinctions are
`institutionalized`
- grammatical differences are few but some are widely known:
AmE has two past participles foe `get` and BrE only one
in BrE the indefinite pronoun `one` is repeated in co-reference
where AmE uses `he`
- lexical examples of difference are numerous; some of them:
BrE

AmE

railway

railroad

tap

faucet

autumn

fall

valves

tubes



Scotland, Ireland

- Scots is perhaps nearest to the self-confident independence of
BrE and AmE, though the differences in grammar and vocabulary
are rather few
- Irish English is also regarded as independent of BrE by
educational and broadcasting services



Canadian English

- sth between BrE and AmE, to a large extent it is closer to AmE;
The United States, as a larger community than Canada, has an
enormous influence on the smaller, not least in language.
- the problem of vocabulary
- the most famous feature of CanE: A nice day, eh?; `eh` at the end
of the sentence, similar to question tag but more universal
- great vowel shift: i -> ei -> aI ; au -> eu -> au



South Africa

- it is in remote from the day-to-day impact of BrE and AmE
- South African English in educated use is virtually identical with
BrE, but in vocabulary there are considerable differences
- firstly colonized by the Dutch, later Boers called farmers; they
settled there and discovered more in South Africa
- Boers spoke Afrikaans, fought against the invaders; the British
using old-fashioned terror – commanda
- apartheid comes from Afrikaans, meaning system of racial
segregation



East & West Africa

- the majority of white people spoke Afrikaans
- English minority spoke Bantu languages
- there were few white people
- after the World War II they become independent and faced the
problem of the choice of language
- in East Africa they chose English as an official language of
business, education and general communication
- West African English is spoken in West Africa
- in contrary to Australia and New Zealand where English became
standard, in Africa English doesn`t really resemble standard English
or any of them; but grammar and vocabulary are standard; but
there are grammar and pronunciation problems
- they don`t distinguish between long and short vowels
- they translate their own expressions into English
wedding bells – invitation for a wedding
be in state – be pregnant
give cola – offer a bribe
have longlegs – be an influential person
- no distinction between countable and uncountable nouns



Australia

- Australia English is undoubtedly the dominant form of English in

Accent – a type of pronunciation characteristic to a specific group of
people.
Cockney accents: Cockney speakers have a distinctive accent and
dialect, and occasionally use rhyming slang.; the extensive
glottalisation e.g. cat [‘kæʔt]. Monophthongisation; It concerns
words with a diphthong /aʊ/; is h-dropping at the beginning of some
words; is g-dropping. It occurs in words like: talking; Cockney speech
is full of vocalisation of /l/.
Creole is a pidgin which has become the mother tongue of a
community,” and therefore has native speakers. Vocabulary is
extensively borrowed from other languages, but the grammar often
shares few traits with the languages that contributed vocabulary.
Grammar and syntax are as fully developed as any other long-
established tongue.
Dialect - a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular
group of the language's speakers. A dialect is distinguished by its
vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.
Isogloss - is the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature,
such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use
of some syntactic feature. Major dialects are typically demarcated by
groups of isoglosses.
Langue (French, meaning "language") and parole (meaning
"speech") are linguistic terms used by Ferdinand de Saussure.
Langue describes the social, impersonal phenomenon of language as
a system of signs, while parole describes the individual, personal
phenomenon of language as a series of speech acts made by a
linguistic subject.
Jargon is language that is specific to a particular profession or a
particular group of people who share a common interest.
Oftentimes, though not always, only people from these professions
or groups know the meaning of their own jargon. Jargon can be
informal or formal, depending on the profession or the group.
Pidgin is a language with a reduced range of structure and use, with
NO native speakers.” It grows up among people who do not share a
common language but who want to communicate with each other.
"Pidgin" involves situations in which a population speaks several
different languages and is required to communicate on a regular
basis, but none of the languages of the population has primacy over
the others.
Register has to do with the style of one's language: formal as
opposed to informal, serious as opposed to easygoing, friendly and
familiar as opposed to more respectful and distant. A register can
also reflect the specific style of language one uses. For example, one
could speak or write in a business register, a scientific register, a
legal-law register, or an academic register.
Received Pronunciation is the accent of Standard English in England,
with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in
other European languages between their standard varieties and their
regional forms.
"RP" stands for "Received Pronunciation", the traditional name for
the standard British English accent. "Received" really means
"accepted in good society", which shows the prescriptive social
character of the original concept. Today, "RP" is used to refer to the
pronunciation usually taught to foreigners -unlike the other English
accents it is not associated with any one georgraphical area, and can
be heard spoken as a prestige accent thoughout the British Isles.
"GA"or "General American", (or AE-American English) is the accent
spoken by the majority of Americans, namely those who do not have
a noticeable Eastern or Southern accent.
Standard English is the literary dialect used in formal writing and in
the speech of well educated persons. It descends from the West
Saxon dialect of Old English, specifically the dialect of London.
Non-standard English includes many regional dialects, whose
grammatical forms and words ( such as ain't and varmint, for
example) are not exactly incorrect but are unsuited to formal
discourse
Social dialect (sociolect) – depends on your social status, class and
education; types: standard and non-standard.
Regional dialect – language of people who live in some region;
types: rural and urban.
An idiolect is the dialect of an individual person at one time. This
term implies an awareness that no two persons speak in exactly the
same way and that each person’s dialect is constantly undergoing
change—e.g., by the introduction of newly acquired words. Most
recent investigations emphasize the versatility of each person’s
speech habits according to levels or styles of language usage.

Spelling differences
1. in words of more than one syllable ending in –our in BrE, AmE
omits the u:
AmE

BrE

-ize CRITICISE -ise
-or BEHAVI-OUR

-our

- og CATALOG-OGUE - ogue
-er CENTER/ CENTRE

-re

-ense DEFENSE-CE

-ence

2. in verbs ending with an unstressed syllable vowel + consonant, the
British double the final consonant before –ing and –ed:
canceling

cancelling

traveled

travelled

programing

programming

3. nouns ending in –ogue in BrE are shortened to –og in AmE:
catalog

catalogue

dialog

dialogue

4. one large group in which we have option
-ize

-ise/ize

-ization

-isation/ization

criticize

criticize/criticize

regularize

regularize/regularize

baptize

baptize/baptise

5. in words like theater, -er in AmE is often equivalent to –re in BrE:
center

centre

kilometer

kilometer

liter

litre

theater

theatre

6. some words spelled –ense in AmE have –ence in BrE:
defense

defence

license

licence

7. there are some spelling differences that are unique to particular
words:
check

cheque

draft

draught

gage

gauge

curb

kerb

mold

mould

plow

plough

Political/cultural differences
- different political concepts
- different stages of education
-universities
-British have Halloween that comes from America
BrE

AmE

Parliament

Congress

Oxbridge

Ivy League

Groundhog Day

Synonyms
1. different names for the same item
BrE

AmE

sweets

candy

cot

crib

nappy

diaper

holdall

carryall

2. you can use these terms interchangeably (preferred
word or comprehensible for the other nation)
BrE

AmE

luggage

baggage

jumper

sweater

post

mail

3. British words can be used in America but never
American words in Britain
BrE

AmE

coffin

casket

queue

line

bath

bathtub

4. British adopts American words
BrE

AmE

ice

ice cream

line

track

tin

can

eraser

rubber

5.British adopt new meaning
BrE

AmE

caravan

caravan/trailer

pharmacy

pharmacy

chemist`s

drugstore

a car
American and British have different names of parts of the
car
BrE

AmE

windscreen

windshield

side light

parking light

wing mirror

side mirror

accelerator = sth that speeds up

gas pedal

AmE

BrE

ax/axe

axe

baggage

luggage

baptize

baptize/ise

bathtub

bath

behavior

behaviour

canceling

cancelling

can

tin

candy

sweets

caryyall

holdall

casket

coffin

catalog

catalogue

center

centre

check

cheque

color

colour

commuter

season ticket holder

conductor

guard

curb

kerb

criticize

criticize/ise

defense

defence

dialog

dialogue

diaper

nappy

divided highway

dual

carriageway
draft

draught

drugstore

chemist`s

elevator

lift

engineer

driver

favor

favour

freight

goods

gage

gauge

gas, gasoline

petrol

gearshift

gear lever

gray

grey

hood

bonnet

holdall

carryall

humor

humour

ice cream

ice

kilometer

kilometre

labor

labour

license

licence

license plate

number plate

line

queue

liter

litre

mail

post

mold

mould

muffler

silencer

one-way ticket single ticket
overpass

flyover

pajamas

pyjamas

phonograph

gramophone

programing

programming

radio

wireless

round-tripticket

return ticket

rubber

eraser

skeptical

sceptical

story

storey

subway

underground

sweater

jumper

theater

theatre

tire

tyre

track

line

traveling

travelling

truck

lorry

the Antipodes
- the differences in pronunciation, vocabulary were broken
- the local phenomena: British people would see strange animals
and they took names for them from the Aborigins: kangaroo, koala
- weak education: in most cases people who went there were poor
educated; occurrence of slang expressions, these from BrE are still
to be found in Australian English but no longer in BrE
- the problem of local culture: different civilizations
- interference from other languages e.g. from the Dutch colony
- it is the place of mainly convicts from London midlands
- pronunciation close to Cockney or Midlands
- in Australian language there are words with different meanings
than in standard BrE



New Zealand

- New Zealand English is more like BrE than any other non-
European variety, but it now feels the powerful influence of
Australia and – to small degree – of the USA.



India

- a part of the British empire from the early 18

th

century

- Indian English: strange collocations, different idioms
- we have people who spoke English perfectly and also those less
educated, speaking English with mistakes; their English is non-
standard
- General Pronunciation in India is different
- vocabulary is the major problem
- in contrary to Africa, British didn`t invest in education
- the English noticed that it would be impossible to control the
country without help of local people so they took most important
posts and the lower post were occupied by Indians so they learned
English from the upper class English people and imitated them
- Indian English is a strange mixture
- after World War II when India gained independence there were
14 languages that were official
- it is standard now but with some interference of local languages



West Indies (Jamaica, Barbados)

- there was English as a second language
- pidgins and creoles
Pidgin- a simplified language that develops as a means of
communication between 2 or more groups that do not have a
language in common; it's not the native language of any speech
community; it's learned as a second language; may be built from
words, sounds, or body language from multiple other language;
have low prestige with respect to other language; very simplified
language: grammar very simple, no inflections, no ending; it
started in China, then was transported to Africa and America
Creole- a mixture of various languages; consists of words inherited
from the parent lang.; can be regarded as degenerate variants or
dialects of their parent lang.
- Lingua Franca was used when an Indian sailor came to Africa and
spoke to Arabs
- Pidgin: the Atlantic group (Caribbean creoles); no native speakers
Creoles: the Pacific group (islands of the Indian origin); native
speakers
- there are no longer pidgins, there are creoles
- features of creoles and pidgins: simplification of grammar, some
strange structures instead of cases, special use of pronouns,
spelling closer to pronunciation
Pronunciation and Standard English
- all the regional and national variants, that approximate to the
status of standard, are remarkable primarily in the trivial extent to
which even the most firmly established, BrE and AmE, differ from
each other in vocabulary, grammar and spelling.
- however, pronunciation distinguishes one national standard from
another most immediately and completely, and links in a most
obvious way the national standards to the regional varieties
- uIn BrE, `Received Pronunciation` (RP) comes close to enjoying
the status of “standard”
Varieties according to subject matter
- varieties involved in a discourse are sometimes referred to as
`registers` and `jargons`
- the speaker has the repertoire of varieties and habitually
switches to the appropriate one as occasion arises
- the use of a specific variety of one class frequently presupposes
the use of a specific variety of another
- a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose
or in a particular social setting
- jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship
to a specific activity, profession, group, or event
Varieties according to medium
- we have to varieties: spoken and written
- the use of a written medium normally presumes the absence of
the person to whom the piece of language is addressed; it imposes
the necessity of a greater explicitness: the careful and precise
completion of a sentence, rather than the odd word, supported by
gesture, and terminating when the speaker is assured by word or
look that his hearer has understood
- the devices we use to transmit language by speech e.g. stress,
rhythm, intonation, tempo, are impossible to represent in a
written text. The writer has often to reformulate his sentences if
he is to convey fully and successfully what he wants to express
within the orthographic system
Varieties according to attitude
- they are often called `stylistic`
- we distinguishes two styles: formal and informal
- it`s the choice of linguistic form that proceeds from our attitude
to the hearer (or reader), to the subject matter, or to the purpose
of our communication
Varieties according to interference
- it refers to the trace left by someone`s native language upon the
foreign language he has acquired e.g. the Frenchman who says: `I
am here since Friday` is imposing a French grammatical usage on
English
- some interference varieties are so widespread and of such long
standing that they may be thought stable and adequate enough to
be regarded as varieties of English in their own right
After the World War I we saw the influence of American culture
upon the British culture
- music: jazz
- Hollywood: American actors speaking American accent
- American literature: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner
- we have more and more American linguists: H.L. Mencken – a
journalist who wrote the 1

st

description of “the American

Language”
- American vocabulary replacing the British one
BrE

AmE

wireless

radio

pajamas

pyjamas

skeptical

skeptical

story

storey

tire

tyre

skillful

skilful

fulfill

fulfil

gypsy

gipsy

inquiry

enquiry

Morphology differences
AmE

BrE

received  gotten/got

got

stricken

struck (only in idioms)

proved/proven

proved

wed

wedded

learned (regular form)

learn (irregular form)

Grammar differences
1. the American word gotten, as a past participle of get:
2. AmE has a useful construction to refer to a period of time
The tour lasted from May through August. (AmE)
The tour lasted from May to August. (BrE)
3. in BrE the collective nouns such as team, audience, the public can
be treated as singular or plural, whereas the singular is normal in
AmE
The committee has voted in favour of the bill
4. AmE has a preference for the subjunctive verb with verbs like
insist, recommend, suggest and avoids verb `should`
I suggested he do (AmE)

I suggested he should do (BrE)
5. AmE uses adverbs instead of adjectives
It`s real nice (AmE)

It`s really nice (BrE)
6. the use of `like` as a conjunction instead of `as if`
It seems like we have made another mistake. (AmE)
It seems as if we have made another mistake. (BrE)
7. in AmE the past tense is used rather than the perfect for the
recent past
he just came (AmE)
he has just came (BrE)
8. let`s not

don`t let us

9. help + inf

help + to inf

10.August 2

nd

2

nd

August

11. in AmE `will` almost never used
will

shall

12. You have a car, haven`t you?  BrE
You have a car, don`t you?  AmE
13. in the summer

in supper

in the hospital

in hospital

14. - in BrE indefinite pronoun `one` is repeated in co-reference
where AmE uses `he`
15. no shift of tenses in Reported Speech
he said he came yesterday (AmE)
he said he had come yesterday (BrE)

Linguistic features:
- spelling
- gram mar
- lexicon
- accent
Structural features:
- discourse features
- layout (paragraphs, stanzas, letter)
Extra linguistic features:
- cultural info
- historical info
- names
Variety of English:
1. common core of English
2. classification
- regional dialects
- educational (standard/non standard) & social status (AmE, BrE,
AusE, SAfrE, WAfrE)
BrE - StBrE & non-standard Br Englishes; StBrE - standard
pronunciation & non-standard pronunciation
- subject matter (register & jargons)
- attitude: when we use language we have such one about the
speaker, writer, the subject and the list (very colloquial, very formal)
- medium: we have such two in English: langue (an abstract way of
thinking) ad parole (is what we use) (spoken English, written English)
- interference: certain influence of sb`s native language upon the
other language that sb uses
English as a Native language;
English as 2

nd

language;

English as FL (foreign language)
General American pronunciation
- American were moving so they were mixing.
- In the south (Texas) there is another accent which they keep
because they stayed in one place. People were moving from villages
to big cities.
- People not moving from York to Yorkshire keep their accent.
American borrowed many words from Dutch (spooky, cookies, boss).
- They also met French who lived in Louisiana (bureau, prairie, cent).
Spanish lived in the South. Germans lives in Pennsylvania (Anglo-
German mixture).
- New Amsterdam – New York.
- Indian words: tomahawk, squaw, wigwam
- new species of plants, animals (robin, creek, corn)
- 90% of people came from British Isles so they spoke English
- 10% of people spoke other languages (French, Spanish)
- John Adams suggested creating an American academy which could
be an institution for controlling the new language (after the country
turned to industry)
- Noah Webster: a lawyer educated in Yale; wrote a number of books
on AmE language and he is known for making Standard AmE;
American English started to be more and more different; “The
American Spelling Book”; he published the first good dictionary: “The
American Dictionary of the English Language”: a coursebook used in
American schools to teach children reading and writing, he shows
differences in American spelling (AmE:BrE; color-colour, center-
centre, jail-gad, ax-axe); he divided multisyllabic words into syllables
and children kept repeating and held all the syllables
- emigrants brought other words: spaghetti, pasta
- then the language moves to the West
- American films in cinemas (cinema that people from Europe could
hear); American English as the world language (music, literature,
films)

trunk

boat

windshield

windscreen

vacuum cleaner hoove
I think

I guess

One lexeme has different meanings:
BrE

AmE

bill (banknot, rachunek)

check

note

bill

vest

undershit

underground, tube

subway

it`s five past twelve

it`s five after twelve

it`s five to twelve

it`s five of twelve

in front of / behind

in back of

from Monday to Friday

Monday through Friday

I live in High Street

I live in Main Street

fill in the document

fill out the document

-songs played in AmE
- email, truck – AmE
Black English Vernacular
- most widely known in the South
- now it is social (it used to be racial – English used by black people)
- they had to learn a common language on plantations
- simplified English (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation)
- blues, jazz, music
- now we have farmer and educated people so it`s no longer
connected with race