English Language: American or British?
p;one bears in mind that processes yielding there differences affect a multitude of other words, one easily understands the risk of intelligibility failure.
Lexis also offers very interesting cases. A user of British English who listens to or reads American English will face problems of intelligibility with words that do not exist in his/her own version like faucet (British English tap), janitor (caretaker), pitcher (jug), mortician (undertaker), realtor (estate agent), closet (cupboard), penitentiary [noun] (prison). He/she will also find words which exist in his/her variety, but have a different meaning. The difference in meaning may be negligible and not cause communication problems, as in American English vacation vs British English holidays, call (by phone) vs ring, schedule vs time; both members of these pairs, in particular, and many others, are now used in Britain, which further reduces the risk of communication failure. But major semantic differences sometimes exist, such as between (American English) first floor, second floor and British English ground floor, first floor, pants and trousers, gas and petrol, (from American English, 12th of February 1998). These extreme cases of divergence may cause communication problems or great embarrassment in some cases. Just imagine an American English speaker directing a British English speaker to the first or second floor, asking him/her for gas, asking him/her to show his/her pants, and you will agree that American English and British English are not “so overwhelmingly alike”, as claimed above.
Cases of communication failure (or potential failure) due to such lexico-semantic problems are reported by Modiano. They include&nb 《English Language: American or British?》
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Lexis also offers very interesting cases. A user of British English who listens to or reads American English will face problems of intelligibility with words that do not exist in his/her own version like faucet (British English tap), janitor (caretaker), pitcher (jug), mortician (undertaker), realtor (estate agent), closet (cupboard), penitentiary [noun] (prison). He/she will also find words which exist in his/her variety, but have a different meaning. The difference in meaning may be negligible and not cause communication problems, as in American English vacation vs British English holidays, call (by phone) vs ring, schedule vs time; both members of these pairs, in particular, and many others, are now used in Britain, which further reduces the risk of communication failure. But major semantic differences sometimes exist, such as between (American English) first floor, second floor and British English ground floor, first floor, pants and trousers, gas and petrol, (from American English, 12th of February 1998). These extreme cases of divergence may cause communication problems or great embarrassment in some cases. Just imagine an American English speaker directing a British English speaker to the first or second floor, asking him/her for gas, asking him/her to show his/her pants, and you will agree that American English and British English are not “so overwhelmingly alike”, as claimed above.
Cases of communication failure (or potential failure) due to such lexico-semantic problems are reported by Modiano. They include&nb 《English Language: American or British?》
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