English Language: American or British?
Phonology offers many more of such systematic contrasts.
In addition to problems of correctness discussed above, the divergences between American and British English raised problems of intelligibility that cannot be altogether overlooked.
Studies specifically measuring the intelligibility between American English and British English are not available to me at the moment. But others involving the intelligibility of the two varieties, from the point of view of the non-native speaker, do exist, and show that American English and British English do not have the same degree of intelligibility. For example, in Smith’s (1992) study conducted in America, a British English speaker (interacting with a Papua Guinean) is 70% understandable to non-native speakers while an American (interacting with an Indonesian is 90% undertandable). The rates of comprehensibility and interpretability in the same context are 90% and 60%, 10% and 30%, respectively.
Differences between American English and British English would have no major impact on intelligibility if they only concerned, for example, features in phonology like American English rhoticity, darkening of “l” across the board, the nasal twang, some word stress differences; in spelling like –ize, -or and –er discussed above; or in lexis items like vacation, movie, cab, schedule (for British English timetable), etc. But the various levels of analysis offer more serious, and very often, less known divergences. In phonology for example, a learner who is used to British English /dentist, kla:k, le3e/ (dentist, clerk, leisure) may not find (American English) /deni:st, kle:rk, li:3er/ intelligibe unless the context is very supportive. And when&nbs 《English Language: American or British?》
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In addition to problems of correctness discussed above, the divergences between American and British English raised problems of intelligibility that cannot be altogether overlooked.
Studies specifically measuring the intelligibility between American English and British English are not available to me at the moment. But others involving the intelligibility of the two varieties, from the point of view of the non-native speaker, do exist, and show that American English and British English do not have the same degree of intelligibility. For example, in Smith’s (1992) study conducted in America, a British English speaker (interacting with a Papua Guinean) is 70% understandable to non-native speakers while an American (interacting with an Indonesian is 90% undertandable). The rates of comprehensibility and interpretability in the same context are 90% and 60%, 10% and 30%, respectively.
Differences between American English and British English would have no major impact on intelligibility if they only concerned, for example, features in phonology like American English rhoticity, darkening of “l” across the board, the nasal twang, some word stress differences; in spelling like –ize, -or and –er discussed above; or in lexis items like vacation, movie, cab, schedule (for British English timetable), etc. But the various levels of analysis offer more serious, and very often, less known divergences. In phonology for example, a learner who is used to British English /dentist, kla:k, le3e/ (dentist, clerk, leisure) may not find (American English) /deni:st, kle:rk, li:3er/ intelligibe unless the context is very supportive. And when&nbs 《English Language: American or British?》
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