Essay from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies – Linguistics, , language: English, abstract: The purpose of this essay is to give a detailed examination of some of the most significant features at which American English and British English diverge.
Despite having the vast majority of linguistic forms in common, American English (Am E) and British English (Br E), which are regarded as the two major varieties of the English language, differ in numerable points. For better understanding and easier comparison, the General American accent (Gen Am), which ‘is used by two thirds of the American population’, is used as a representative for the American English variety (Allerton 2002:16). The same function is applied to the Received Pronunciation (RP), because, although it is only spoken by circa three per cent of the population in England, it is the ‘most widely understood’ and ‘most thoroughly described’ accent in Britain (Hughes/Trudgill, 1996:4).