Chapter 2: American English and British English Today - The Lexicon Flashcards
List some lexical difference between British English and US English.
- UK vs US
- lift vs elevator
- petrol vs gas
- phone box vs phone booth
- chemist’s vs pharmacy
- queue vs line
- jumper vs sweater
- tap vs faucet
- GP vs physician
- courgette vs zucchini
- aubergine vs eggplant
- rubbish vs trash
- sweets vs candy
- pavement vs sidewalk
List some common US phrases that differ from the British versions.
- US vs UK
- knock on wood vs touch wood
- to beat a dead horse vs to flog a dead horse
- to have a green thumb vs to have green fingers
- to hit the sack
- to be behind the 8 ball
What are the 3 different levels of the extent of lexical differences?
1st (smallest) = body parts, lexical field of light, manners, walking
2nd = nature (flora, fauna), negative emotions
3rd (largest) = pragmatic markers, idioms, slang, everyday vocabulary (food, car parts, clothes, institutions, new technology)
List 5 word categories that tend not to be subject to linguistic variation.
1) abstract words (to describe notions, concepts, things)
2) formal words
3) general/basic words that lie at the core of human experience e.g., ‘hand’ and ‘foot’ stay the same.
4) hypernyms
5) positive effects (sensations, emotions)
List 7 word categories that tend to be subject to linguistic variation.
1) concrete words
2) everyday vocabulary
3) slang
4) pragmatic markers (help to organise discourse, mark the speaker’s attitude etc.) e.g., you know, well, I mean, I don’t know.
5) words denoting specific ideas, things etc.
6) hyponyms
7) negative effects e.g., lots different words for being tired, drunk, sad, angry etc.
What are hypernyms and hyponyms? Give examples.
- definition = a hypernym describes a more-broad term, for example cutlery, or dog. A hyponym is a more specialised and specific word, for example: spoon would be a hyponym of cutlery and Labrador would be a hyponym of dog.
- extra example: hypernym = colour, hyponym = red, blue etc.
What are the 3 typologies of differences and give examples.
1) X and Y mean the same but differ formally e.g., to make a long story short (US) vs to cut a long story short (UK), sponge bath (US) vs bed bath (UK), where there’s smoke there’s fire (US) vs there’s no smoke without fire (UK), pudgy (US) vs podgy (UK), on the weekends (US) vs at the weekend (UK)
2) X and Y have the same form but differ in meaning:
- a) X and Y differ in connotation, in degree of formality or frequency, but the meaning remains the same e.g., autumn is also used in US, but seems more fancy; clever in UK vs US (more negative connotation)
- b) X and Y have slightly different meanings e.g., bathroom in UK vs in US, mean in UK vs US, pissed in UK vs US
- c) X and Y mean very different things today and can cause misunderstandings e.g., to wash up in UK vs in US.
3) X is exclusive to one variety and does not exist as a word in the other e.g., marmite, biro
What is mutual intelligibility?
When speakers of different varieties of language (more rarely different languages) can understand each other - can be defined as a ‘communicative success’ between two varieties or languages.
List 3 ways that mutual intelligibility (MI) cannot be so straightforward.
1) MI can be non-reciprocal e.g., Swiss Germans can understand Germans but not vice versa.
2) MI can be non-immediate and is variable e.g., upon first exposure, understanding is limited, but you get used to it over time.
3) What is the link between MI and ‘recognition’, ‘comprehensibility’ and ‘interpretability’?
