Pronunciation peculiarities of American English (AE) and British English (BE) Выполнила студентка 2-го курса Иванова Юлия

American pronunciation means General American (GA) pronunciation American pronunciation means General American (GA) pronunciation. This is the pronunciation used by educated Americans, on television and on radio. It is described in dictionaries of American English.

General American pronunciation is rhotic, which means that the letter r is always pronounced.

Received Pronunciation (RP) is the pronunciation of the British upper class (the Queen's English)

"Normal" Britons usually speak with their local accents, which are often quite different from RP, and can be very hard to understand to untrained ears. Sometimes cities that are only 20 km apart have very different accents.

car tower Inform First red foreign print RP is non-rhotic, which means that the letter r is usually "silent", unless it is followed by a vowel. car tower Inform First r is silent (r is not followed by a vowel) red foreign print r is pronounced (r is followed by a vowel)

R is also pronounced at the end of a word, if the next word starts with a vowel: number eight far away

Most RP speakers also insert an r in phrases like: the idea(r) of Africa(r) and Asia

Pronunciation of “o” Americans do not have this vowel, instead pronouncing the same words using the “ah” vowel, [ɑ], with the lips unrounded and the tongue back but more relaxed. In Britain, the “o” vowel, [ɒ], in words like dog, hod, pot, is pronounced with rounded lips and the tongue back in the mouth.

Many “or” words in Britain such as paw, saw, talk, all, bought, launch, taught, port are pronounced in America using the “ah” vowel, [ɑ].

Pronunciation of “a” Words with “a” followed by [f] [θ] [s] [nt] [ns] [ntʃ] [nd] [mp] (laugh, path, grass, plant, dance, branch, demand, sample) have [æ] in American Words with “a” followed by [f] [θ] [s] [nt] [ns] [ntʃ] [nd] [mp] (laugh, path, grass, plant, dance, branch, demand, sample) have [ɑ:] in southern British

In Britain, where class structure is strong, people are more acute to vowel enunciation and, often unconsciously, preserve many pronunciations that would otherwise be unnecessary.

In American vowels are not always as sharp as in Britain In American vowels are not always as sharp as in Britain. You get the impression that vowels are closer to neutral (schwa), so that Mary and merry are pronounced identically, and marry and merry sound identical. In cases where these both occur, marry merry Mary sounds like merry merry merry.

latter and butter sounds more like ladder and budder “d”, “t” in American latter and butter sounds more like ladder and budder twenty and dentist can sound like twenny and Dennis.

Rhotic “r” in American, non-rhotic “r” in British Rhotic speakers will pronounce “ r” in barn, park, cart, fart, whereas non-rhotic speakers won’t.

Words losing the “y” in American Yod dropping occurs in GAm after all alveolar consonants, including /t/, /d/, /θ/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /l/; i.e. historic /ju:/ (from spellings u, ue, eu, ew), is pronounced /u:/ in a stressed syllable.

In contrast, RP speakers: always retain /j/ after /n/: e.g. new is RP /nju:/, GAm /nu:/; retain or coalesce it after /t/, /d/: e.g. due is RP /dju:/ or /dʒu:/, GAm /du:/; retain or drop it after /θ/, /l/: e.g. allude is RP /ə’lju:d/ or (as GAm) /ə’lu:d/; retain, coalesce or drop it after /s/, /z/: e.g. assume is RP /ə’sju:m/ or /ə’ʃu:m/, or (as GAm) /ə’su:m/; In some words where /j/ has been coalesced in GAm, it may be retained in RP: e.g. issue is RP /’ɪsju:/ or (as GAm) /’ɪʃu:/

Stress Britons stress the first vowel in ballet, cafe (& other borrowed French words), Americans the second, but they often stress the first vowel in cigarette, police, and research.

Reductions British towns ending in -ham, -wich, -cester, -mouth are fully pronounced in America but reduced in Britain to -[əm] -[ɪdʒ], -[stə], -[məθ] (e.g. Birmingham, Norwich, Gloucester, Portsmouth).