Differences Between English And American Accent

American versus British


Introduction

On this “short” phonetics and phonology course we can confirm one thing for sure and that is; the sounds and the letters in English don't coincide. Probably there are more sounds in than the letters and actually that is the case. The thing is there are 26 letters on the alphabet and the number of sounds increases to 40 or maybe a bit more; depending onthe accent.

So, on this paper we’re going to try to explain the main differences between the transcription systems and pronunciation patterns of British and American accents or dialects, which should help or clear any doubt it could appear in students of English phonetics.

But, first of all, we are going to talk a bit of the history happened in relation to these two kinds of English so thateveryone can learn a little more about what it joined them and drew apart one of another.



History between American and British English

Many years ago, during colonial times, speakers of British English considered American English as a mere corruption of their own language. That was then, but actually, American English speakers obviously do not consider their language like that, ratherthey define it as one of the many types of English that differs from the others because it has always been changing over time, due to the interaction with the immigrants who constantly came from other lands and spoke different languages.

Today British and American English still differ from each other because American English has been shaped by its history as we have mentioned above. Although,British Enlgish has been changing as well, but in different ways from its American equivalent. In British some changes have been produced while in American they have remained unchanging. This could make American English seem a bit archaic from the British perspective. For instance, some Americans preserve pronunciations that British speakers have lost, like pronouncing the initial vowel sounds ineither and neither like the first sound found in kite. And of course some of the British vocabulary has shifted as well. In other cases, British English has remained the same while the American usage has changed.



British English

Now we will explain the features of the English spoken in Britain (generally) such as its evolution over time, its kind and rules of vowels, consonants anddiphthong in order to know how this language is structured.


Main Differences

The most important difference between transcriptions in British and American English is that the Americans tend to base their system, their phonetic system on the orthography and not in the phonetic symbols.

However, there are some authors, which are American, that use diacritical marks* as well as diagraphs*, sostudents will have to investigate or enquire this kind of knowledge this in order to distinguish an American accent.

For example, on the transcription of this symbol /th/ for the pronunciation in thunder can only be interpreted as “pronounce this sound as it is usually pronounced when the spelling is th”.

And actually that seems to be the correct way, but no, it’s not exactly. This shows us thatAmerican dictionaries are native-speaker oriented. So this could be a bad idea if you really want to pronounce that “in the exact or precise way”. And that is the BIG problem with people who is trying to study and difference both of them.

Anyway, this time let’s show the difference between the /th/ sound on thunder and, for example, on the word this. In American dictionaries, we’ve found that,usually the problem is solved by underlining or putting bold-typing or italicizing one of the two symbols, so that makes the difference.

BUT in British transcriptions the thing changes radically, because they are based not in diagraphs like Americans, but on the (IPA) International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. As so, the whole system of vowel symbols is completely different, with hardly any...