Territorial and social differences in the pronunciation of english in different countries (1)

A number of geographical-historical and socio-cultural factors caused English to become a global language spoken by approximately 1, 500 million speakers.

In geographical variation we have to distinguish two basic concepts:

• dialect – is distinguished for its vocabulary, grammar and pronounciation. In this sense the two major varieties of English , the British English and American English may be treated as “dialects”.

• Accent – is a type of pronunciation or a feature of one which can be found in speech of any individual or the whole speech community. Thus, phonetics is mainly concerned with accents of English, as spoken on different territories, in diverse social groups, by particular individuals.

Accents of English worldwide are grouped into:

• Accents in the countries where English is the mother tongue of the majority of the population (“the inner circle”): the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the white population of the Republic of South Africa;

• Accents in the new developing states, former British colonies, where English is one of the official languages (“the outer circle”): India and Singapore.

• Accents in the countries where English is the most widely used foreign language taught at schools (“the expanding circle”), like Russia and China.

Historical-geographical division of native English accents may be based on the division into:

• British-oriented (the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa);

• North-America-oriented (the USA, Canada).

Most of the countries possess their national pronunciation standards, regional standards and local accents.

National standards

• RP (Received Pronunciation), or BBC English, in the UK;

• GA (General American), or American Network English, in the USA;

• GenCan (General Canadian) in Canada;

• GenAus (General Australian) in Australia.

National pronunciation standards are associated with radio and television newsreaders and presenters of serious channels. There are also professional groups and public figures whose speech is symbolic of certain types of accents.

Smaller geographical divisions are regional standards which are accents of educated population in a certain area.

• Southern, Northern, Scottish and Northern Irish on the British Isles,

• Northern, Northern Midland, Southern Midland, Southern, Western in the USA.

In the US, geographically, the situation is quite the reverse: it is the South and South Midland which stand out for their marked difference from the standard pronunciation.

Less educated people use numerous local accents which can be:

1. urban (characteristic of a city like Liverpool or New York);

2. rural (spoken in the countryside).