DIFFERENCES IN SPELLING

The reform in the English spelling for American English was introduced by the famous American lexicographer Noah Webster who published his first dictionary in 1806. The following of his proposals were adopted in the English spelling:

a) the deletion of the letter u in words ending in our, e.g. honor, favor;

b) the deletion of the second consonant in words with double consonants, e.g. traveler, wagon;

c) the replacement of re by er in words of French origin, e.g. theater, center;

d) the deletion of unpronounced endings in words of Romanic origin, e.g. catalog, program;

e) the replacement of ce by se in words of Romanic origin, e.g. defense, offense.

DIFFERENCES IN PRONUNCIATION

In American English we have fully articulated vowels in the combinations ar, er, ir, or, ur, our etc. In BE the sound [P] corresponds to the AE [Λ], e.g. not. In BE before fricatives and combinations of consonants with fricatives “ a” is pronounced as [R], in AE it is pronounced [æ] e.g. class [klæs], dance, answer, fast etc.

There are some differences in the position of the stress:

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Local varieties of English.

2. British and American English.

3. History of American English. Differences in the vocabulary units. Semantic groups in American English different from British English vocabulary units. Differences in the spelling. Differences in pronunciation.

LECTURE 9

NEW WORDS

Read the words with their translation and write them down into your vocabularies. Pay attention to the spelling of difficult words.

LECTURE 9

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