Post on 03-Apr-2018
transcript
The difference between
Canadian and British
English
Edited by
Elaine Gold and Janice McAlpine
Presented by Bernadett Szalai
Background, including demographic and geographical
information
Canada is the second largest nation in the world, occupying almost ten million square kilometers;
Culturally, Canada are diveded by several nations
Demographical backgrounds
Demographically, the population of 29,639,035
the population is geographically concentrated along the southern border. Most Canadians live within two hundred kilometres of the U.S.-Canadian border.
Canadians are highly urbanized but also overwhelmingly middle-class
Demographic information
Canada has an astounding number of „non-
official‟ languages as well
Mother Tongue
Canada
Québec Ontario
English
17,352,315 557040 7,965,225
English and non-official
language
219,860 15,045 114,275
Totals (English) 17,572,175 572,085 8,079,500
Phonology Canadian English (CE) forms one branch of North American English, but it has
distinctive phonological features:
CE has only one low back vowel phoneme where most other standard varieties of English have two. In most of the United States, for example, the words listed
below are distinguished from one another in this way
the phonological distinction does not exist in Canada, and the words in both lists have the same vowel. The vowel is usually (but not always) the unrounded [ ɑ ] so that cot and caught are both pronounced /kɑt/, don and Dawn both / dɑn /.
Canadian Raising (Chambers 1973)Pronouciation of wife, mice, right, house, couch, and about. Canadians pronounce the diphthongs in these words in a singular way, so that outsiders sometimes claim that they are saying, for example, aboot the hoose for „about the house.‟
[ ɑ ] [ɔ]
bobble bauble
Dotter daughter
Don
cot
dawn
caught
Syntax
CE conforms to wirld-wide standards;
Standard English grammar varies little from
country to country;
Nonstandard grammatical constructions in
CE they are usually not Canadian innovations
but carryovers from regional dialects in the
British Isles.
after + present participle is heard in Newfoundland
(Clarke 1997)
„Mary’s after telling us about it=Mary has recently finished
telling us”
ever exclamation
„Does John ever drive fast! and Is John ever stupid!”
‟cep‟fer complementizer (Chambers 1987)
phological reproduction of except for
„We could sit on the floor cep’fer the teacher would probably tell
us not to”
positive any more (Eitner 1949, Labov 1991b,
Murray 1993)
„John listens to rock a lot any more”
Canadian Spelling
Category
Usual
Usual British
Preference
American
Preference
Other Such
Examples
Some Shared
Spellings In Both
-our/-or colour color favour honour humour
labour
glamour
stupor
derivations of
our/or
colourful colorful favourite honourable
labouring
coloration
glamorous
Humorous laborious
-re/-er centre
center meage metre spectre
theatre
macabre timbre
-ce/-se defence
practise(v)
defense practice(v) licence(n) license(v)
practice(n)
stems in -l fulfil fulfill Enrol, expel Annul, compel
Install,
double/single
consonant before
inflections
equalled equaled imperilled signalled benefited focused
kidnapped outfitted
Canadian Spelling
Category
Usual
Usual
Bristish
American
Preference
Other Such Examples Some Shared
Spellings In Both
ise/ize criticise
(permitted))
criticize
(exclusive
advertise civilize
realize surprise
--yse/-yze analyse analyze paralyse
silent -e- judgement
moveable
(permitted)
judgment
acknowledgement ageing
liveable
lovable
-ae-/-e- anaesthesia anesthesia encyclopaedia aesthetics medieval
-oe-/-e- foetus fetus manoeuvre
Xion/-ction connexion connection
and inflection
-ogue -og analogue,
dialogue,
catalogue
dialog, catalog Analog(UK) Dialogue
(US)
Hyphens re-elect, re-
enter, re-
entry, re-
examine
reelect,
reenter,
reentry,
reexamine
counter-attack(UK)
counterattack (US)
Canadian vocabulary Canadianism
the native words and expressions of Canada
Inculdes the words and expressions borrowed form other languages, which do not appear in other varieties of English.
Landscape:the chutes, or saults, of the rivers, the muskeg of the hinterland, the buttes and parklands of the prairies, and the bluffs, or islands of trees, on the flat prairie are but a few
Trees and plants: cat spruce, Douglas fir, Manitoba maple, Sitka spruce, and tamarack; kinnikinnick, Labrador tea, Pembina berry, saskatoon and soapalallie.
Birds were discovered: Canada goose, fool hen, siwash duck, turkey vulture and whiskey jack.
Fish of all sorts: cisco, inconnu, maskinonge, kokanee, ouananiche, oolichan, tuladi and wendigo
Finally, political term such as M.P.P.:acclamation, and endorsation tell us something of the newly founded institutions
Vocabulary II. Canadian English is a mixture of American and
British English with an insignificant number of Canadianisms added.
Canadians borrow freely from both American and British English andappropriate it to suit their needs. The lexeme chesterfield is a par exemplar.
the interjection eh: „So eh? is Canadian, eh?” he interjection did not originate in Canada and is not peculiar to the English spoken in Canada. However, the frequency and the context in which it occurs in Canadian speech is remarkably different from both American and British native speakers
Words that differentiate Canadian
and American everyday speech
“Middle border” Canadian Midwest American
asphalt road blacktop
blinds shades
elastic band rubber ban
feather (corn) silk
sheaf bundle
tap faucet
tea party coffee party
veranda porch
Conclusions
Canadian English is still a subject of constant change;
Canadian English is the result of a number of contextual
factors that influenced its early formation;
It is a product of the cooperation and coexistence of
various groups of people from different nations;
The differences between native Canadian and British
and American speakers have never been so great that
communication was impossible;
However it is sufficient to distinguish these differences.