Regional varieties of the English language. AmE vs BrE: Lexical / phraseological differences.
The Eng. language. exists in the form of its varieties. It is the national language of England proper, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and some part of Canada.
Standard English - the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the mass media and spoken by educated people. Modern linguistics distinguishes territorial variants of a national language and local dialects. Dialects are varieties of a language with some distinctive features of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, used in one area. EX. Cockney (the East End of London), Scouse (Liverpool).
Although BrE, AmE andAusEhave practically the same grammar system, phonetic system and vocabulary, they cannot be regarded as different languages. Thus we must speak of three variants of the English national language having different accepted literary standards, one spoken in the British Isles, another spoken in the USA, the third in Australia. Canadian English is influenced both by British and American English but it also has some specific features of its own. Specifically Canadian words are called Canadianisms. So there are Australian English, Canadian English, Indian English, and each of these has developed a literature of its own, and is characterised by peculiarities in phonetics, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.
Ways of enriching and expanding the English lexicon.
Vocabulary of any living language is constantly changing, growing and decaying. The changes occurring in the vocabulary are due to both linguistic and non-linguistic causes, but in most cases to the combination of both. Words may drop out altogether as a result of the disappearance of the actual objects they denote (they called archaisms: e g. billow — ‘wave’). Yet the number of new words that appear in the language is so much greater than those that drop out, that the development of vocabularies may be described as a process of never-ending growth. The appearance of a great number of new words is mostly due to the progress of science and technology.
New vocabulary units have a special feature - they primarily belong to the specialised vocabulary. Neutral words and phrases are comparatively few. And also words are a mirror of their times: in 40s such word as bikini appeared, in 50s - do it yourself, in 60s - fast-food, 70s - global warming, etc.
Ways of enriching:
· Word formation
1) affixation (workaholism; micro- hipo-), 2) Compounding (e-mail), 3) conversion (to office), 4) semantic derivation (antivirus), 5) borrowings: French, Japanese, Spanish, Portugese, Russian.
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British and American lexicography. Main types of English dictionaries
Lexicography is the science and practice of compiling dictionaries. All dictionaries are traditionally divided into several groups:
According to number of languages: mono- (mainly explanatory), bi- (translation dict.), multilingual (Lingvo).
According to number lexical units: abridged (сокращенный, EX. pocket dictionary), unabridged (=complete)
According to the nature of lexical items: general (all spheres of life), specialized (limited sphere).
According to structural arrangement of lexical units: alphabetical order, thematically (Roget’s thesaurus)
According to temporality: synchronic (certain period of time, Concise Oxford Eng.dict., Oxford Advanced Learners), diachronic (through the history, Oxford Concise Dict. of English etymology).
According to type of information: encyclopedic and linguistic (Britanic)
The biggest dictionaries:
1. Oxford Engl. Dict., 2. Webster’s
Some basic problems of dictionary compiling.
It divided into two problems: that of the number of the words, and that of the list of words to be included in a dictionary. As for the number of words there exist dictionaries of different volumes (there are pocket dictionaries with 25 or less thousand words. Among the largest dictionaries there is Webster’s dictionary, it include about 600000 words.
The volume of the dictionary and the list of the words depend on the type of dictionary and its aim.
At different stages of his work the lexicographer deals with some other problems. The most important ones are 1) the selection of lexical units for inclusion (The choice of lexical units for inclusion in the prospective dictionary is one of the first problems the lexicographer faces. 2) their arrangement, 3) the setting of the entries(Since different types of dictionaries differ in their aim, in the information they provide, in their size, etc., they of necessity differ in the structure and content of the entry), 4) the selection and arrangement (grouping) of word-meanings, 5) the definition of meanings, 6) illustrative material, 7) supplementary material.
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When the selection of the dictionary entries, the contents and structure of the entries, their order of arrangement etc. are decided upon, the lexicographer is to settle upon this or that structure of the dictionary. In spite of the great variety of linguistic dictionaries their composition has many features in common.
It is also very important for the user of a dictionary to read the preface, that will show what is to be found in the dictionary and what is not.
In translation dictionaries supplementary material is in some respects different from that in explanatory dictionaries, e.g. the Russian-English dictionary referred to above does not only include a list of geographical names and standard abbreviations, but also contains the rules of English and Russian pronunciation as well as brief outlines of English and Russian grammar.
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