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National varieties of English (стр. 1 из 3)

Introduction

“The youth is not only our hope and future, but it is a decisive force of our today and tomorrow”.

Islam Abduganievich Karimov

Our Republic pays the great attention to the education of the students of Universities ,colleges, schools.

Great attention is paid in the republic to the improvement of educational system and training of qualified specialists. On the basis of the president's decree dated February 28, 1992, twenty-four new institutions of higher learning and their branches to train specialists for principle branches of the national economy were established. Today there are 59 institutions of higher learning function in the republic, including 16 universities, 39 teacher training institutes, medical, technical, economic, agricultural, and other institutes. About 300 thousand students master 276 specialties there. The oldest higher Institutions in Uzbekistan are the National University named after Ulugbek (in past: first - Middle Asian, than Tashkent State University), the Technical Institute ( Polytecnical Institute). Since 1991 the number of higher educational institutions has increased by 30 %. New higher educational institutions have appeared: the University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Academy of State and Public Structuring, Academy of Armed Forces, Academy of Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The English language is the national language of GB, USA, Australia, New Zealand .The English language is also one of the official languages of the United Nations Organization.We are learning such kind language which serves to connect people all over the world, this language is the language of the official documents of international organizations.It is the language of world famous poets,writers , beginners of the English literature.

Every language changes ,according to the rule of the modern world. You can find different varieties of pronunciation of the English language in different parts of our planet .

And the pronunciation of every national variety of English has its own specific pecularities that serves to distinguish it from other varieties of English.


1. The development of American english pronunciation

The development of American English on the American continent has a comparatively short history. The conditions under which it developed were peculiar and quite unlike those under which the English language developed in Great Britain.

It is generally assumed that American English, in its spoken form, is essentially Southern English Standard of the 17th and 18th centuries as modified locally in the course of the last century or two. The linguistic evidence for a historical connection between American speech of the North and West and that of Northern England on the one hand, and between the speech of Eastern New England and the pronunciation of the South of England on the other hand, is well supported by the history of American colonization, of the Westward movement, and of later immigration.

The details are complex and obscure, it is known that early settlers of New England and most of the central Atlantic coast were largely populated by people of the Southern and eastern part of England. Those who settled Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey came from the North of England. During the first half of the 18th century a large group of Germans came to America and settled throughout Pennsylvania .A group of Welsh immigrants also settled in an area just west of Philadelphia. These settlements were supplemented by the arrival of the Scotch and Scottish-Irish whose speech was similar to that of the North of England.

Thus, differences in American speech represented differences in British speech from the outset. Later settlers also reflected later usage in the British Isles.

During the centuries in which the migrations were moving to the west of the country, the original settlements maintained a contact with Britain which the western settlers lost. Cities of the East coast long maintained their contact with London, and the Southern gentry continued to go to England for their education. Ships which arrived in Boston and other eastern cities brought new fashions in speech from across the Atlantic. These new fashions in speech rarely reached the west.

The foundations of most of diversities in American pronunciation were thus laid during the colonial period. Some of the present differences in American pronunciation are attributed to that period as well.

American English pronunciation (AE) of today is by no means homogeneous. Variations in AE are treated by many linguists.

Many American linguists specify the fact that the diversities in pronunciation between the various regional standards in the USA are not so marked as in Great Britain, and they tend to become levelled out.

The three major types of American English standard pronunciation are not equal in importance. It may be said with certainty that the pronunciation of the southern States of the United States, example, is not the pronunciation standard of American English. The Southern American pronunciation is peculiar to that part of the country only and has not spread north.

Strictly speaking, there may be a question as to the priority of General American over Eastern American English. But it is an established fact that most of the typical American peculiarities of pronunciation are characteristic of both General American and Eastern American pronunciation.

GA is the form of speech used by radio and television. It is mostly used in scientific and business discourse. It not only the most wide spread type in the USA , but like RP in Great Britain , the least regional in character and the regionally neutral variety.

2.Phonology

Compared to English as spoken in England, North American English is more homogeneous. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast (for example, in eastern New England and New York City), partly because these areas were in close contact with England and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when these were undergoing changes. In addition, many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations for centuries, while the interior of the country was settled by people from all regions of the existing United States and developed a far more generic linguistic pattern.

The red areas are those where non-rhotic pronunciations are found among some white people in the United States. AAVE-influenced non-rhotic pronunciations may be found among black people throughout the country.

Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English, West Country English and Scottish English as well as the fact most regions of England at this time also had rhotic accents. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter r is a retroflex[ɻ] or alveolar approximant [ɹ] rather than a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to the accents of eastern New England, New York City and surrounding areas and the coastal portions of the South, and African American Vernacular English. In rural tidewater Virginia and eastern New England, 'r' is non-rhotic in accented (such as "bird", "work", "first", "birthday") as well as unaccented syllables, although this is declining among the younger generation of speakers. Dropping of syllable-final r sometimes happens in natively rhotic dialects if r is located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in a consonant. In England, the lost r was often changed into [ə] (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs. Furthermore, the er sound of fur or butter, is realized in AmE as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] )This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.

Some other English English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:

· The shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called "broad A") before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance. In the United States, only eastern New England speakers took up this modification, although even there it is becoming increasingly rare.

· The realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [t] (as in [bɒtəl] for bottle). This change is not universal for British English and is not considered a feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North American dialects. Newfoundland English is a notable exception.

On the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound changes not found in other varieties of English speech:

· The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, making father and bother rhyme. This change is nearly universal in North American English, occurring almost everywhere except for parts of eastern New England, hence the Boston accent

· The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɔ/. This is the so-called cot-caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones. This change has occurred in eastern New England, in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, and from the Great Plains westward.

· For speakers who do not merge caught and cot: The replacement of the cot vowel with the caught vowel before voiceless fricatives (as in cloth, off [which is found in some old-fashioned varieties of RP), as well as before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long), usually in gone, often in on, and irregularly before /ɡ/ (log, hog, dog, fog [which is not found in British English at all]).

· The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what and in many utterances of the words everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody; the word because has either /ʌ/ or /ɔ/; want has normally /ɔ/ or /ɑ/, sometimes /ʌ/.

· Vowel merger before intervocalic /ɹ/. Which vowels are affected varies between dialects, but the Mary-marry-merry, nearer-mirror, and hurry-furry mergers are all widespread. Another such change is the laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like [pɛɹ], [pɪɹ] and [pjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure. The resulting sound [ʊɹ] is often further reduced to [ɝ], especially after palatals, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir.

· Dropping of /j/ is more extensive than in RP. In most North American accents, /j/ is dropped after all alveolar and interdental consonant, so that new, duke, Tuesday, resume are pronounced /nu/, /duk/, /tuzdeɪ/, /ɹɪzum/.

· æ-tensing in environments that vary widely from accent to accent; for example, for many speakers, /æ/ is approximately realized as [eə] before nasal consonants. In some accents, particularly those from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City, [æ] and [eə] contrast sometimes, as in Yes, I can [kæn] vs. tin can [keən].

· The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are pronounced the same. For many speakers, this merger is incomplete and does not occur after /aɪ/; these speakers tend to pronounce writer with [əɪ] and rider with [aɪ]. This is a form of Canadian raising but, unlike more extreme forms of that process, does not affect /aʊ/. In some areas and idiolects, a phonemic distinction between what elsewhere become homophones through this process is maintained by vowel lengthening in the vowel preceding the formerly voiced consonant, e.g., [læ:·ɾɹ̩] for "ladder" as opposed to [læ·ɾɹ̩] for "latter".

· T-glottalization is common when /t/ is in the final position of a syllable or word (get, fretful: [ɡɛt], [fɹɛtfəl]), though this is always superseded by the aforementioned rules of flapping

· Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], making winter and winner homophones. Most areas in which /nt/ is reduced to /n/, it is accompanied further by nasalization of simple post-vocalic /n/, so that V/nt/ and V/n/ remain phonemically distinct. In such cases, the preceding vowel becomes nasalized, and is followed in cases where the former /nt/ was present, by a distinct /n/. This stop-absorption by the preceding nasal /n/ does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.

· The pin-pen merger, by which [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before nasal consonants, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in Southern American English but is now also sometimes found in parts of the Midwest and West as well, especially in people with roots in the mountainous areas of the Southeastern United States.

Some mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include:

· The merger of the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before 'r', making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, etc. homophones.

· The wine-whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where, etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating ɛ/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. Many older varieties of southern and western American English still keep these distinct, but the merger appears to be spreading.

3. Eastern American english

C.G.Van Riper and D.E. Smith wrote in 1962:”It is difficult to generalize about Eastern American English ,since within the region where it is spoken there are many differing pronunciations.Eastern American pronunciation is typified as an “r-less”, or non-rhotic, type of American English pronunciation. Consequently ,it is characterized by the loss of [ɾ] in the final and preconsonantal positions,as in car [ka:] and park [pa:k] . EA speakers use [з:] and [ə] instead of the GA [ɝ] and [ɚ] in such words as bird,sister. One of the most striking features of EA, or more precisely, of Eastern New England is, perhaps, the use of the broad [a] ,in far , park,father...In contrast to GA Eastern American speakers use the RP [ɒ] in so-called “short-o” words, as in hot, crop, not, dog, in which places GA speakers use [ɑ] .In contrast to RP [ɒ] is also used in such words as caught , fought , law, horse. The word cot and caught come to the identical –[kɒt].

The frequent vowel in doll and solve is [ɑ] , though [ɔ] and [ɒ] can also occur.

In forest, orange, horrid ,tomorrow [ɑ] predominates. However , [ɒ] varies with [ɑ] , especially before the velar consonants [ə] and [ŋ] as in fog, long.

[ʌ] is normal in burry ,worry ,courage.

The diphtongs [aɪ] , [ɔɪ],[aʊ] are relatively stable, though some traces of [aʊ] and [æʊ] remain in rural areas.

Absorb, absurd, and desolate may have either [s] or [z] , greasy and the verb greasy have [s].

4. Southern American english

In the speech of the South there are subareas and gradations of social status, as reflected in speech ,to be found nowhere else in the country .Generally speaking ,SA has unique differences in the manner of articulation .Southerners lengthen certain vowels,they make the single vowels (monophthongs) into diphthongs and triphthongs .The articulation is more lax and unprecise and it is this rather than the rate ,or speed , of speech which characterizes “the southern drawl”. Few generalizations can be made about Southern pronunciation as there is great variation between the regions of the South , between older and younger people, and between people of different ethnic backgrounds.

The following features are characteristic of older SAE:

· Lack of yod-dropping, thus pairs like do/due and toon/tune are distinct. Historically, words like due, lute, and new contained /juː/ (as RP does), but report says that the only Southern speakers who make a distinction today use a diphthong /ɪu/ in such words. They further report that speakers with the distinction are found primarily in North Carolina and northwest South Carolina, and in a corridor extending from Jackson to Tallahassee.

o The distinction between /ær/, /ɛr/, and /er/ in marry, merry, and Mary is preserved by some older speakers, but few young people make a distinction. The r-sound almost becomes a vowel, and may be elided after a long vowel, as it often is in AAVE. The following phenomena are relatively wide spread in SAE, though the extent of these features varies across regions and between rural and urban areas. The older the speaker, the less likely he or she is to display these features:

· The merger of [ɛ] and [ɪ] before nasal consonants, so that pen and pin are pronounced the same, but the pin-pen merger is not found in New Orleans, Savannah, or Miami (which does not fall within the Southern dialect region). This sound change has spread beyond the South in recent decades and is now found in parts of the Midwest and West as well.

· Lax and tense vowels often neutralize before /l/, making pairs like feel/fill and fail/fell homophones for speakers in some areas of the South. Some speakers may distinguish between the two sets of words by reversing the normal vowel sound, e.g., feel in SAE may sound like fill, and vice versa.