British and American English Comparative

British and American English

Comparative Analysis of British and American English

Benefits of a comparative, polyimide approach

Conscious identification of differences

Traditional Standard English (SE)

Other standardized Wes

Unity within English

Zero-marking of 3rd person singular verbs

Modal Past in English

Modal Auxiliaries

Modal Past in Hypothetical Conditionals

Cross-Linguistic Findings

Comparative Analysis of British and American English

In a world where globalization is the trend -- a global economy, a global internet, global warming, global businesses -- it should not be surprising to learn that there is now also an undisputed global language, namely English. Because English today is used in a plethora of contexts around the world, as the native language of millions, the official language of numerous nations, and a lingua franca in a multitude of international dealings, more users of English than ever before either feel some ownership in the language through their national dialect or some resentment towards the Western cultural norms that tend to come embedded with the language. These citizens of English as an international language feel that changes need to be made: in how the language is viewed in general, in attitudes towards varieties of English, in the construct of English proficiency tests, and in methods of teaching English.

The current paper is a comparative analysis of the British English and American English. The author has focused and discussed various aspects of language, including accent, vocabulary, writings, words, spells, etc. while comparing these aspects in British and American English

Benefits of a comparative, polyimide approach

The overwhelming majority of scholars, whether considering a traditional EFL context, an ELF context, an EIL context, or an SESD context, advocate the benefits of an approach in which the students are exposed to more than one variety of English, affirming the legitimacy of each variety while becoming aware of the differences between them. This has been called a poly model approach, versus the mono model approach where one variety is learned in isolation, and also a comparative approach, due to the comparison of one variety to another, as in dialect awareness. In this way, students learn to see accuracy in light of contexts of usage, not as deficiencies of a "worse" variety as compared to a "better" variety, and to consider successful communication a more important outcome of learning English. One benefit of this approach is that it promotes students sense of self-worth as members of specific socio-cultural groups in that it validates the language with which they identify. Another benefit is that it promotes the use of culturally appropriate content and pedagogical methods. Furthermore, it helps students see that there are many more NNSs than NSs of English and, for that reason users of English do not need to produce English like NSs to be considered proficient in the language. Finally, for most contexts in which English is used internationally, communication which is appropriate is the goal over communication which is accurate; thus, the goal of ELT for students heading into the world of international relations should focus less on form and more on communication.

Conscious identification of differences

According to the results of Yiakoumetti's study (2005, 2006, 2007), a comparative approach is indeed important to produce striking improvements in the ability to use the standard dialect when the non-standard dialect is juxtaposed with it in the language classroom, especially when compared with control groups which are only exposed to the standard dialect in language class. Rather than causing greater interference from the D1, encouraging the students to consciously identify differences between the D1 and D2 resulted in less grammatical, lexical and phonological interference of the D1 on the D2 by the students in the experimental group than those in the control group as well as a greater awareness as to when certain features are appropriate and when they are not. From this result, it could be predicted that learning SAE in comparison to a WE would help students recognize and keep straight which features belong to WE contexts and which are appropriate for SAE contexts.

It is important to note, however, that the non-standard variety used for comparison to the standard variety in the Cypriot situation was the students' own mother tongue, whereas in most ESL/EFL classrooms, the non-standard variety would be the students' world English, in almost all cases an L2 at the very least, if not an L3 or L4. Could the results of the Cypriot study have similar implications for a situation in which the students are likely to lack the same intimate familiarity with the non-standard variety as they would with their mother tongue? Just as Brandon et al. (2009) assert that in the area of bilingualism and bidialectism new knowledge is built on current knowledge, it would seem reasonable to assume that even an L2- or L3-level of familiarity with one variety of English should provide some current knowledge on which to base a comparison with a standard English, and that greater improvement in target language proficiency would occur. Furthermore, there would still be the benefit of an increase in learning gained through the technique of consciously noticing differences between varieties. Thus, while the benefits of a comparative, poly model approach may not be as striking in the WE to SAE context as they were in the Cyprus study's MT to D2 context, it seems rational to expect that some improvement over a strictly monomodel approach would be observed.

Traditional Standard English (SE)

For many years, the only standard for properly spoken and written English was Standard British English (SBE), also known as Received Pronunciation (RP) in the 19th century. Today, Standard American English (SAE) enjoys similar prestige on the world stage thanks to the growth of the United States' prominence as a global power and, with the advent of the computer age, the fact that word processing software has nudged standards towards SAE conventions (McArthur, 2001, p. 6). However, increasingly the question is being asked: who really has the right to decide what is "standard" for a language with hundreds of millions of users around the world (McArthur, 2001, p. 1)? At this time standard English (SE), seen as a dual standard of U.S. And U.K. conventions, still seems to be the goal of language learning programs around the world, especially when the high-stakes international tests of English proficiency are normed to one of those two standards.

Other standardized Wes

In the case of world Englishness, several other varieties besides SBE and SAE are also considered standard. Standardization can be defined both by the existence of dictionaries and grammar books for a particular variety or by the production of publications in that variety. In this way, Australian English (AusE), Canadian English (CanE), New Zealand English (NSE), Philippine English (PhlE), White South African English (WSAE), Indian English (IndE), Irish English (IrE) and Singaporean English (SgE), among others, are also considered standard varieties (McArthur, 2002, pp. 443-444; Kortmann et al., 2004, pp. xv-xvii).

Unity within English

While great diversity exists in English, scholars also acknowledge the commonalities that unite the language. For communication to occur across cultures through the use of English, speakers of diverse varieties of English must draw upon the features of English they have in common in order to make themselves understood. As Widdowson (1997) points out, "Even if we allow diversification for local communities, we must surely deny it in the interests of global communication" (p. 143). The following terms reflect the unifying forces at work within the dynamics of global English.

English as an international language (EIL)

The term international English is often used interchangeably with the term English as an international language (EIL); however Seidlhofer (2004) makes a slight distinction between the two. Whereas IE refers to one "clearly distinguishable, codified, and unitary variety," EIL refers to the situations of English usage internationally, whether in Expanding Circle, Outer Circle or Inner Circle contexts (p. 210). In this way, EIL can be seen as relating to ELF in that both refer to the context in which the language is used as well as to the actual code itself.

Zero-marking of 3rd person singular verbs

In terms of present tense verb inflections, SE is an anomaly among languages as there is very little marking of present tense verbs, except in the irregular verbs be and have, and the 3rd person singular inflection of regular verbs. Making this 3rd person singular marking even more unusual is the fact that it is a redundant feature; because SE is a non-pro-drop language, the marking of the verb as 3rd person singular through the addition of an -s is unnecessary. Thus, it stands to reason that ELLs would find this feature of standard English troublesome, if not downright illogical. Breiteneder (2009) cites the online version of Kortmann and Schneider's Varieties of English Multimedia Reference Tool which shows that out of 46 varieties they pooled, 26 of them exhibited this feature (p. 257) [e.g., So he show up and say. He don't like me.]. Among NSs, the 3rd person singular -s has acquired the status of one of the "markers of in-group membership" (Seidlhofer, 2000, cited in Breiteneder, 2005, p. 5). Surprisingly, however, in a corpus of 50,000 spoken words compiled from "group discussions between representatives of the EU government and national agencies of higher education" (pp. 6-7), Breiteneder (2009) did not find a large incidence of 3rd person singular - O. In only about 21% of the cases where 3rd personal singular was used was the -s left off. Perhaps, reasons Breiteneder, this is because all the speakers in the study had received formal schooling in a SE, but if so, then why was the -s used in some cases and not in others? Breiteneder posits that in some instances the interlocutors may have been purposely leaving off the -s for social reasons (2009, p. 262).

Certain verbs and expletive phrases seem to divide along dialectal lines with regard to use of modal past. Jacobsson (1975) writes that the sentences I suggested he took it with him, and I suggested he should take it with him, both using modal past, are acceptable in British English and equivalent to the American version I suggested he take it with him, which uses subjunctive (p. 222). Likewise, it's important (that) you went at once (British dialect) (Jacobsson, p. 222) as compared with it's important (that) you go at once (American dialect). And there are many more examples of this kind. Interestingly, this dialectal difference is not merely stylistic, as Jacobsson observes: "In British English, the sentence it is important that we have an adequate supply of atom bombs could be taken to mean that we have already got the supply, while the American interpretation would be that it is important for us to get it" (p. 222).

Finally, the modal past expression as it were is commonly employed, at least in American English, as a rhetorical device signaling metaphor. It is frequently used to reinforce the metaphorical nature of an idiomatic expression that directly precedes it, as in: He told me so he, straight from the horse's mouth, as it was.

Modal Past in English

Most speakers of English, if asked what is meant by the -ed ending on a word such as lived, will know very well that it means "past tense" and signifies that the action of living is in the past. And in many cases, of course, this is true. However, past morphology also frequently has a meaning quite apart from "past time"; in fact, it often refers specifically to present or future time and semantically reflects modality rather than temporality. Consider the following uses of past morphology on the verb live:

When I was 16, I lived in Hawaii.

If I lived in Hawaii, I could go to the beach every day.

I wish I lived in Hawaii.

Of the above examples, only the first actually refers to past time. The others refer to the present time, despite containing the same nominally "past" form of the verb, lived. This incongruity between past morphology and non-past time is made more salient by the use of adverbs:

If you called her right now, you wouldn't get her because she's not at home.

If you asked me tomorrow, I would say yes.

This phenomenon is also reflected in the use of nominally past tense morphology alongside present tense morphology, which appears in either implied context or the paraphrased version of the sentence with nominal past tense morphology:

If I had a car, I would come pick you up. (Implied: I don't have a car; present tense)

How did you know I was here?

(implied: I'm here now; present tense)

He talks to me as if I were a child. (implied: I'm not a child; present tense)

What did you say your name was? (Jespersen, 1924, p. 294)

(temporally equivalent: What is your name? present tense)

I was hoping you could help me.

(temporally equivalent: I'm hoping you can help me; present tense) Could I ask you question?

(answer: Yes, you certainly can; present tense)

Jespersen (1954) refers to these uses of past morphology as "tenses of the imagination" and writes that "verbal forms which are primarily used to indicate past time are often used without that temporal import to denote unreality, impossibility, improbability or non-fulfillment" (p. 112). Davidsen-Nielsen (1990) points out that using past morphology to denote "unreality" is an epistemic usage, i.e., clearly modal (p. 170). Iatridou (2000) proposes that "past" is not actually the primary meaning of the morphology that usually goes by that name, but rather that "past" is simply one manifestation of its semantics.

Time

Critical to the analysis of modal past is an understanding of both the form of tense morphology and the various notions of time as they are represented in English. English tense morphology corresponds to a binary system of past and non-past, signaled by verb inflections. Notional time, on the other hand, comprises past, present, and future, as well as relative pasts and futures. Notional time can be indicated many ways: periphrastically, through markers such as will and be going to; with adverb phrases of time, habituality, or punctuality; with verbal inflections such as -ed and -s; with aspectual morphology; through lexical sub-categorization, i.e., eventive (run) vs. stative (be); and simply through implied context. Jespersen (1924, p. 257) organizes notional time according to the following diagram:

Since the present is a point, it "has no dimensions and cannot be divided" (Jespersen, p. 256). The future and past, on the other hand, stretch infinitely in each direction and are sub-divided into distinctions of anterior and posterior time: anterior past, posterior past, anterior future, posterior future.

Anterior time, the past relative to another time, is formally represented in English by the perfect aspect. In the sentence, I had been in Istanbul for two months before I found that great kebab restaurant, the "having been in Istanbul" is past relative to the "finding of that great kebab restaurant." It is the past of a past - an anterior past, marked by combining past morphology with perfect aspect. Likewise, anterior future is rendered by combining the future marker will with the perfect: By the time I leave Istanbul next June, I will have eaten lots of kebab. This mechanism also shows up in the present perfect, which connects past and present time. It is important to differentiate anterior past and remote past, which exists in some languages.1 Remote past is a deictic designation, marking past as remote from the time of speaking, whereas anterior past is a relative designation which simply marks one past as occurring before another.

Notional past, then, can be represented in English both by inflectional past morphology and by the perfect aspect. An important feature of the perfect-as-marker-of-past is that the perfect can be used to mark temporal past only, never modal past. This will be illustrated in the following sections on modal auxiliaries and hypothetical conditionals, where the perfect aspect plays an important temporal role. Inflectional past, on the other hand, is generally ambiguous between a temporal and a modal reading. Whether a particular instance of inflectional past morphology represents temporal past or modal past depends on contextual elements. This ambiguity is demonstrated in the examples below, in the past morphology of had:

If he had a car... then why did he ride his bike everywhere? (temporal) if he had a car... then he wouldn't have to ride his bike everywhere. (modal)

Modal Auxiliaries

In order to understand how the phenomenon of modal past relates to modal auxiliaries, we need to first understand the nature of modal auxiliaries, define what is meant by "root" and "epistemic" meanings, and clarify the relationship between various modal auxiliaries. Modal auxiliaries are polysemous; in any given instance, the meaning of a modal auxiliary will fall into one of (at least) two categories. As Traugott (1989) observes, there is considerable diversity of opinion among linguists regarding the classification of modal auxiliaries and description of their meanings. Traugott claims that when a modal auxiliary exhibits epistemic meaning, it expresses "knowledge and belief about possibilities, [and] probabilities..." (p. 32). Her definition is derived from that of Palmer, and by extension those of Lyons and Jespersen, and is widely accepted among linguists (Traugott, p.32). Epistemic modality therefore deals with the degree to which a given proposition is, was, or will be an actual fact. Nearly all2 modal auxiliaries have epistemic meaning, though of course not in all discourse contexts.

She must study hard; she always gets as. (epistemic meaning of must).

It is widely acknowledged by historical linguists that the modal auxiliaries of modern English are reflexes of forms that were once used as main verbs with root meanings and that these meanings predated their development of epistemic meanings (Traugott, 1989, p. 36). These root meanings are still expressed by today's modal auxiliaries must, shall, ought to, had better, should, may, might, can, and could. It should be noted that while the modal auxiliary will still signals volition in some cases, it has also developed a different meaning - that of futurity or consequentiality.

Gradually, the modal auxiliaries developed epistemic meanings in addition to their root meanings, resulting in the polysemy noted above. Because of their origin as main verbs, many modal auxiliaries still bear tense inflections. However, the process of grammaticalization has altered the function of these inflections, often causing modality to win out over tense. Four pairs of modal auxiliaries exhibit this historical tense relationship:

The modal auxiliaries must and ought to are each descended from the past form of an Old English verb of which there are no present form reflexes in modern English.4 Likewise, had better appears to be a reflex of a past form for which there is no present construction in current use. The distinction between these three modal auxiliaries and those with both present and past forms (in the chart above) is crucial. Although must, ought to, and had better look as if they contain past morphology due to their / t / and / d / suffixes, their usage in modern English indicates otherwise. These three forms by themselves never exhibit either temporal past or modal past meaning and cannot be used in a past time context. Their alveolar stop endings represent a vestigial inflectional morphology which reveals their historical origins but has no grammatical semantic import in Modern English. The past meaning they once carried has since been neutralized. The following pair of sentences clearly shows this incompatibility with past meaning:

He go to the bank today.

He go to the bank yesterday.

To place must, ought to, and had better in a past time context, it is necessary to combine them with the perfect; it is the perfect morphology which provides the necessary temporal past meaning:

He have gone to the bank yesterday.

Must is from OE motan (be permitted); ought to is from OE agan (preterit ahte) (possess) (Moore and Knott, 1962)

must ought to had have gone to the bank yesterday.

Must is from OE motan (be permitted); ought to is from OE agan (preterit ahte) (possess) (Moore and Knott, 1962)

Must ought to had better

*must *ought to *had better

Must ought to had better

*must *ought to *had better

Note, however, that the past meaning provided by the perfect in such examples can only be a temporal past. To verify this, consider that the verb phrase must have gone necessarily indicates past time, and cannot be used with any present time adverb or other indicator of non-past temporality:

*He must have gone to the bank right now.

Further, must have gone is not the modal past of must go - it does not indicate that "the going" is more hypothetical, less likely, or less real than in its non-past version; rather it simply places it in a past time context. In contrast to must, ought to, and had better, which contain vestigial / t / and / d / endings which no longer signal past semantics, would, could, and might retain fully active past morphology. This means that they exhibit either temporal past or modal past meaning in all contexts, just like lexical verb forms such as lived. In the case of modal auxiliaries, whether the past meaning in a given instance is modal or temporal depends on whether the auxiliary is being used for its epistemic or for its root semantics. When employed in the context of their root semantics would and could have a temporal past meaning:

When I was a child, I could run really fast. (past time ability)

He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1953. He would later become president. (future in past time)

In the first example, could is the temporal past of can in the sense of "ability." The use of would in the second example is best described as future-in-the-past; it is the temporal past of the future marker will. Thus, the past morphology modal auxiliary forms would, could, and might represent temporal past when used in a root sense, and modal past when used in an epistemic sense.

Whereas temporal past places an action in past time, modal past places an action in the domain of the hypothetical. This differentiation makes good sense when one considers the historical origin of the modal auxiliaries. It is their root semantics that most closely resemble their former selves as lexical, or main verbs, with past and present time distinctions, whereas their epistemic semantics - the result of grammaticalization - bring them into the domain of modality, where the distinction is one of asserted propositions vs. hypothetical propositions.

There remains one modal auxiliary which does not fit neatly into either the group of those with vestigial / t / and / d / endings or the group with active past morphology. The modal in question is should. Although in some contexts should behaves as if it is the morphologically past counterpart to shall, its uses also often confound the pattern of would, could, and might and more closely align with that of must, ought to, and had better. Consider:

You shall do it.

You should do it.

In these two examples, the first sentence implies obligation whereas the second is more an offer of advice. The second sentence, with should, is epistemic ally weaker, less assertive than the first, and therefore may be analyzed as the modal past of the sentence with shall. In this context, should seem to have genuine past morphology as the past form of shall. However, in other contexts, should is clearly not the past form of shall, and seems incompatible with a temporal past meaning.

Today, I shall go to the bank.

*Yesterday, I should go to the bank.

Yesterday, I should have gone to the bank.

In the third of these sentences, the temporal past meaning derives from use of the perfect, and should seems to belong in the same category as must, ought to, and had better, with a vestigial / d / ending rather than active past morphology. I suspect that this patterning of should is linked to the fact that, at least in American English, its present form shall is now seldom used. Without shall as a present form counterpart, should will likely lose any remaining past meaning and become, like must, ought to, and had better, a purely present form.

A final note on modal auxiliaries is the divergent, or dual root semantics of shall / should. Following its Old English ancestor sculan, this modal auxiliary pair maintains in some contexts the semantics of obligation or necessity, as in if it's a matter that concerns him, you should tell him about it, while in other contexts, the pair mirrors will / would as a marker of futurity. This can be seen in sentences such as we shall see and I shall do as I please. Generally, it is should that maintains the semantics of obligation/necessity, while shall functions more as an alternative marker of futurity (except in legal language - a linguistically conservative preserve). Perkins (1982) writes that shall, as it occurs in modern English, is essentially "a suppletive form of will" used for more formal contexts and in cases where the addressee's disposition is referenced, such as in shall I go? (p. 264). This semantic discontinuity between shall and should likely also contributes to the partial loss of should as a past form of shall. Would, also, in occasional archaic usage, exhibit a similar duality of root semantics by conveying the meaning of "volition" in addition to its more usual root semantics as future-in-the-past.

Modal Past in Hypothetical Conditionals

As has been discussed in the previous section, the past morphology that we see in would, could, might, and should relative to will, can, may, and shall often signifies a modal past relationship rather than a temporal past relationship. This is true for all epistemic uses of would, could, might, and should. In such cases, past morphology has the effect of weakening epistemic force, of making the epistemic claim more remote or less direct. This affects of weakened epistemic force plays an important role in many contexts where modal auxiliaries are used. One of the most common of these is the case of hypothetical conditional sentences. Conditional sentences can be sub-classified as follows: those dealing with real possibilities, and those dealing with hypothetical possibilities. Real conditionals such as if it rains, we'll go to the movies contain propositions that are either neutral or positive with regard to actualization; they do not cast doubt on the likelihood of actualization or the reality of the proposition expressed in the protasis (if it rains). Perhaps it will rain, and perhaps it won't -- the above statement makes no claim for either outcome. By contrast, hypothetical conditionals are those which deal with imaginary situations, whose propositions are specifically marked as being in some way removed from reality, non-actual. Hypothetical conditionals can be set in present, future, or past time:

a. If I knew how to cook, we wouldn't eat out so often. (present time)

b. If I won the lottery, I would buy a new house. (future time5)

c. If she had told me she was a vegetarian, I wouldn't have made steak for dinner. (past time)

Linguists sometimes refer to these kinds of sentences as "counterfactual" conditionals, or break them into categories of "counterfactual," and "future less vivid," (Iatridou, 2000). And it is true that we often interpret the meaning of such sentences as "contrary to fact" when they deal with present and past time propositions, and as "unlikely to occur" when they deal with future time propositions. However, these interpretations are not inherently part of the semantics of the past morphology, but rather are derived from the pragmatic context of the sentence. When I say if I won the lottery, it's quite possible that I haven't even bought a lottery ticket, in which case my winning is not just unlikely, but impossible. Similarly, we might say if John were coming to the party tomorrow knowing full well that it isn't possible for John to come, implying a meaning that is counterfactual rather than just unlikely.

Yet "counterfactual" is also an inaccurate description of the underlying semantics of modal past morphology. Consider the following example: If the butler had done it [and he may have], we would have found exactly the clues we did in fact find (attributed to Comrie, 1986 and Harder, 1989, as cited in Davidsen-Nielsen, 1990, p. 180). An inspector investigating a murder case might proclaim the above sentence and subsequently conclude that the butler did, in fact, do it. Thus even a past time hypothetical conditional may express a proposition that is actually true or factual, in that it matches the real world facts of the situation. The semantic import of a hypothetical conditional is merely that it represents a proposition as an imagined possibility; it is an "imaginative representation" of a proposition (Field's term in describing what he calls "the subjunctive," 1925, p. 30). Hypothetical conditionals are thus a coherent category comprising any and all those conditional sentences which express a proposition as a hypothetical reality, regardless of whether that proposition is factual or counterfactual, likely or unlikely to actualize.

Hypothetical conditionals are formally distinguished from real conditionals by the presence of modal past morphology in both the protasis (the if clause) and in the apodosis (the "result" clause). In addition, the modal past in the apodosis clause must be expressed by a modal auxiliary. Hypothetical conditionals are thus modally distinct from real conditionals, which contain only temporal past morphology (or no past morphology). As previously mentioned, hypothetical conditionals may be set in either past or non-past time. Non-past time hypothetical conditionals contain only modal past morphology whereas past time hypothetical conditionals contain both modal and temporal past morphology. Thus, non-past time hypothetical conditionals exhibit one instance of "past" (modal past), whereas past time hypothetical conditionals exhibit two instances of "past" (one modal past and one temporal past). Compare:

Non-past time:

If I were in Istanbul right now, I would go to that kebab restaurant for lunch.

1 PAST 1 PAST

Past time:

If I had been in Istanbul yesterday, I would have gone to that kebab restaurant.

2 PASTs 2 PASTs

Here it is appropriate to recall that the perfect construction also functions as a marker of past under certain circumstances, and only of temporal past. In the case of past time hypothetical conditionals, rather than signaling an anterior past, the "double past" of the past perfect functions as simply two distinct instances of past morphology (Iatridou, 2000). Ippolito (2002) concurs with the claim that in many cases, the past perfect is the "morphological realization of two pasts in the same clause" (p. 36). Thus, in past time hypothetical conditionals, the inflectional layer of past morphology is the modal past (had), while the aspectual layer, provided by the perfect aspect (been), is the temporal past.

In addition to modal past, the other distinctive feature of hypothetical conditionals in modern English is that they always employ a modal auxiliary to carry the modal past morphology of the apodosis clause. Since of all the modal auxiliaries, only would, could, and might have active past morphology, only these three may appear in the apodosis of a hypothetical conditional. These three modals thus often perform a role that other modal auxiliaries never do; they alone are available to convey the semantics of modal past. It should be noted that in some dialects, should also belongs in this group; in these cases should functions as a variant of would.