英语属于美式还是英式(一)
中文摘要
英语属于美式还是英式？一个关于两种不同形式的英语辩论在未来将会引起很大争议。 作为其它英语国家(加拿大英语,澳大利亚英语,新西兰英语和南非英语)的父系语言，英式英语和美式英语，是今天英语世界里主要的两种英语形式。虽然这两种语言在不久的将来的范围、类型和这两种形式英语的矛盾可能的影响如何已经说过太多,我们对这个问题的争吵还没有结束。本文从美式英语的发展和普及来解释它们历史和背景，另外还从语音、词汇和语法来做相比较。在课堂上,对于老师和学生来讲, 关于这两种形式的英语的认识是非常重要的,但往往它们都要被作出选择,到底哪一种才是正确的。本文通过一些相关方面的专家的实例和他们所说过的话，来权释美式英语和英式英语的区别。
Key words: British English，American English[关键词] 英式英语、美式英语中文译文英语属于美式还是英式作者：未知 译者：钟利婷
1，一个关于两种不同形式的英语辩论在未来将会引起很大争议，以下是我的一些观点：
2，作为其它英语国家(加拿大英语,澳大利亚英语,新西兰英语和南非英语)的父系语言，英式英语和美式英语，是今天英语世界里主要的两种英语形式。虽然这两种语言在不久的将来的范围、类型及这两种形式英语的矛盾可能的影响如何已经说过太多,我们对这个问题的争吵还没有结束。
3，美式英语的发展和普及
4，在美式英语被引入后新世界的一段时间里，它仍被认为是不标准的英语。Kahane先生指出，在18世纪80年代的一些人看来，美式英语是“失败者”和农民的语言，一个“绅士”是不会说这种英语的。从双语的观点来看，英国英语是居支配地位的语言，并且和威望及纯粹主义联系在一起。对权威的信仰或者说是英式英语的优越，一直维持到20世纪初，尤其是在前英国帝国或在英国领域的影响。因此，据报道，在中国教师和学校的教科书参考和推荐英式发音作为参考模型，以及标准的英国语法，拼写和词汇。英式英语也被鼓励和接受作为一些主要的官方考试标准，例如,官方的全国大学英语考试， 英语专业学生考试。在其他国家也可以发现类似的情况，比如在非洲,西非的入学考试委员会和联合招生和录取委员会都以英式英语作为标准英语。类似的报道在开罗也有，早在1984年，一些大学生,如果他们使用美式英语而不是英式的话，他们得到的分数就会较低。Modiano写道,在欧洲，“我们发现教师们，英国人以及该国工作的原住民，他们都会接受英式英语而蔑视美式英语。”
5，然而上述态度只不过是早已过去的英国霸主地位时期最后的影响力。根据坎贝尔和其他人的观点,追溯到第二次世界大战之后的几十年，美式英语就开始明显占主导地位。这时正好是美国军事和科技力量崛起和大英帝国衰退的时期，这对推动美式英语的发展起了很大的作用。从那时起，美式英语的不断影响世界的每个角落。
6，美国人一直是其全球化背后的推动力。Modiano在报道上说，虽说受英国的专业英语教师的影响，但欧洲人“受大规模美式英语的支配”，很多学生对美式英语更感兴趣。坎贝尔所举的受美式英语的影响的例子，就有欧洲、亚洲和俄罗斯的年轻人在日常对话中会使用美式英语，甚至他们中大部人之前都有接受英式英语的教育。在巴西, 人们需要美式英语课程，而不是英式英语课程。这是因为美式英语正浸润着前身是英式英语影响的领土。例如；尼日利亚、埃及、泰国，更有力地渗透于拉丁美洲，日本和韩国。甚至今天的英国广播公司(BBC)，以前只使用英国英语播音员，现在也增加了美式英语的播音员，特别是在韩国，广播的美式英语尤受偏爱。
7，据坎贝尔的估计，大约350万英语母语人士就有70%的人说美国版本的英语。事实上，两大主要母语英语国家的人口更有说服力:美国人口约达2.6亿人，英国人只有约55万。这似乎对美国英语更有利。
8，过去几十年已经见证了美国对这个星球不断增加的政治统治。这种状况是在共产主义的倒退的80年代后期进一步加强的，导致美国在前社会主义领土上渗透和巩固了其位置。
9，1962年由肯尼迪总统创办的“和平工作团”，一直是美国人移民到第三世界国家不同地方的主要根源。和平志愿者致力于医学领域，农业生产中，在英语语言教学中起到非常重要的作用，在他们归国后，美国英语在当地产生了相当大的影响。英国的严格的移民法，加上英国人的冷漠的态度，导致了来自第三世界国家的学生和人们转移到世界各地去寻找生存的地方——美国。这个因素造成的连锁反应导致更多的移民来到美国。因为人们都抱着这样一种观点，他们更愿意从住在美国的朋友和亲戚那里寻找帮助。美国近来颁布了一项这样政策，每年以签证“招聘”50,000新移民到美国，这样就增强了人们试图移民来到美国的欲望。长期大量的迁移，对于移民者的本土英语被美国化这个现象是显而易见的，移民者回国之后仍继和他们家乡的朋友和亲戚小聚，有很多人最终还是回到美国并定居下来。
10，以上的故事只是一种已经成长起来并威胁母语主体地位的英语语言的宝宝版本，这种现象在其他地方可能几乎没有见到过。既不是和法国法语有关的加拿大，比利时或者瑞士法语的这种情况，也不是和西班牙或葡萄牙的西班牙语或葡萄牙语有关的拉丁美洲西班牙语或葡萄牙语这个例子，而是各有特色。说英语语言的人，尤其是英语学习者,现在面临着两种相对语言的共存管理任务。然而，他们并不一帆风顺。
12，当演讲者和作家都熟悉这两种语言时，并且可以很容易地找到他们自己的语言形式和另一种语言形式相对应得特点时，英式和美式英语两者之间的差异并不重要。但是当倾听者和读者不熟悉这两种语言形式时，困惑就产生了,尴尬或纯粹的不理解在许多日常情况下就随之而来。
13，在课堂上，对于老师和学生来讲，关于这两种形式的英语的认识是非常重要的,但往往它们都要被作出选择，到底哪一种才是正确的。如果老师和学生们都知道“fiber” 和 “fibre”, “transportation” 和 “transport”，“proctor” 和“invigilator”，“barette”和 “hairslide”，“faucet”和“tap”， “fall” 和“autumn”，“five years back” 和“five years ago”，“Monday through Friday”和“Monday to Friday”，“a half meter” 和“half a metre” 这些美式和英式英语的特点，而且两者之间的差异能够被接受，自然教授和学习这两个过程将会毫不受阻碍。但戏剧性的是,特别是在测试这种情况下，当学生考卷上出现的了一种英语语言形式，只熟悉另一种英语语言形式的老师就会不明白.这时学生的考卷就会受到不公正的评判。
14，据观察，许多美式英语范畴的变化在某些情况下是完全违反英国英语语法的。例如,住宿变成了可数名词(例如，Good accommodations are rare)；一些不规则动词变成了规则动词(snuck out for British English sneaked out)；有些不及物动词变成及物动词（e.g. The plane departed New York; We protested the salary cuts）；有些及物动词变成不及物动词(e.g. I visited with my friends for British English I visited my friends)；某些形容词是可以被用来作为副词(e.g. It’s real nice)。其他违反英式英语句法的例子在用法中也有，如：“A is different than B”在than前没有使用应该要用的-er /more or less，在“Susan wants out”一句中（to go）完全被省略；在“like I said”句中的“like”换作是英式英语的话应用“as”引导从句； 在“I want for you to go”，句中插入了一个介词“for”，在“He looked out the window”，中删除了介词“of”.在 “He just left”中尽管过去的动作与现在有关，但没有用到现在完成时，等等。
15，一项非正式调查最近在一群工作已久的英语老师中进行，结果表明，尽管他们宣称他们欣然接受美式英语，但他们会认为上述的美式英语用法是不正确的。他们都知道美式英语是 –or 代替 –our (e.g. color)，-ize 代替 –ise，center写成centre，这些类似的小的和常见的差异。
16，在一些国家里, 像前英帝国那样, 它能够使多种类型的英语本土化,并且建立了属于自己的有权威的本土化英语标准, 但是多重化标准这个问题却日益严重。在那里,美式英语的入侵,增加了英式英语和地方英语已经存在的冲突和竞争。Awonusi(1994)准确地描述了在尼日利亚的这种现象。更重要的是,其他国家,比如中国,面对一个类似的情况。就拿中国英语作为例子, 这种三方占据的情形, 它最有趣的地方是, 什么时候本地英语被确立，什么时候本地英语会有别于英式和美式英语。
17，除了对上面问题正确性讨论外，英美两国之间的所提出的清晰度问题的分歧，也不能完全忽视。
18，在这个时候对美式英语和英式英语的清晰度进行具体测量的研究，对我来说是不可行的。但是其他人从非以英语为母语的人这个角度来看，这两种语言品种的清晰度确实存在，并表明美式英语和英式英语没有相同程度的清晰度。例如,在史密斯 (1992) 在美国进行的研究表明，一个讲英式英语的人和巴布几内亚人互动，这个巴布几内亚人能理解70%。然而一个讲美式英语的人与一个印度尼西亚人进行交流，则有90%的内容能被理解。可理解性和可解析性率在同一语境下分别是90%和60%，10%和30%。
19，如果他们只关心语音特证，美式英语和英式英语之间的差异对清晰度没有大的影响，例如，像美国英语rhoticity、鼻音、有些单词的重读音差异；上面提到的-ize， -or和-er的拼写；或词汇如vacation,，movie，cab,，schedule (英国英语时间表)等。但不同层次的分析让分歧更为严重，并常常鲜为人知。
20，词汇也提供了非常有趣的例子。一个讲英式英语的人听或读美国英语将会面临的词汇清晰度的问题，因为这些词汇在他自己的意识里是不存在的，像faucet (英式英语 tap)，janitor (caretaker)，pitcher (jug)，mortician (undertaker)，realtor (estate agent)，closet (cupboard)，penitentiary [名词] (prison)。他/她还会发现有些存在他们字典中的词，在这里却有不同的含义。意义的差异微不足道并不造成沟通问题，就像美式英语的和英式英语的vacation和holidays，call (by phone)和 ring，schedule 和time；这几对意思相同的词，还有许多这样的同义异形词，现在英国已经普及使用，从而降低了沟通失败的风险。但是主要的语义差别有时也存在，例如first floor，second floor（美式英语）和ground floor，first floor（英式英语），pants 和 trousers，gas 和 petrol。这些极端例子的分歧在某些情况下，可能会导致交际问题的尴尬。想象一下一个讲美式英语的人指引一个讲英式英语的人到the first 或 second floor，向他/她要gas，要求他/她给他/她的pants，你会同意,美式英语和英式英语并不是像上面说的那样“压倒性的相似”。
21，据Modiano报道，沟通失败的情况 (或潜在的失败)是由于词汇语义的问题所引起的。它们包括美式英语中的round trip ticket（往返机票）和英式英语中的return ticket（回程机票），美式英语eraser和英式英语rubber（橡皮擦），英式英语中public school和它在美式英语中的意思的对比。
22，Modiano要一张去伦敦机票时，他却被问到他是否想要一张return ticket。解释说return ticket意味着一张从伦敦返回他现在旅行的地方的票，Modiano回答道，“你怎么能指望我到那儿呢？”至于英式英语的rubber,笔者发现,在美式英语中是一个俚语“安全套”，它的使用在某些情境中可能会引起尴尬。Modiano继续发现英式英语中使用的rubber，在美国不知道它是eraser的意思。关于public school（公立学校），Modiano通过对比指出,在英式英语中它意味着私营机构，在美式英语中它的意思是“公共基金拥有和运作的学校”。
23，对美式英语和英式英语的竞争和共存状况，最好的应对方法是将美式英语和英式英语进行统一。这个解决方案表明改变一种或各种各样的语言的自然变化过程，几乎不成功了。另外一个问题是,即使该方案是可能的，以美式英语的方向的统一，是人口、技术、政治、商业和相关媒体的统一。就像以上的分析；事实上,绝大多数的预测，包括David Crystal都预测未来美式英语将会主导地位。赞成以英式英语方向的统一，是因为绝大多数的字典和英语语言教学材料是英式英语。另一个论点是一种情感和象征感觉，毕竟是英式英语是英语的母语。
24，对于受美式英语与英式英语的熏陶和混杂，Modiano解决方案是Mid-Atlantic，在欧洲，越来越多的人说MID-ATLANTIC，因此其在欧洲应将取代英国英语作为教育标准。根据“The Americanization of Euro-English”的作者所言，Mid-Altantic是“鼓励中立的发音发音的一种变化和基于以对话者为依据的参照的词汇”。Modiano的论据的唯一问题是，他详细的说明了Mid-Atlantic英语被广泛使用的原因，但没有构成结实的架构，也没有对其进行多样性特征的讨论和作出具体的措辞。
25，因缺乏能保证可以解决这个问题的方案,笔者建议，英语课程应广泛包括美式英语和英式英语的对比分析，以消除把英语作为第二语言来学习的学习者的困惑。
English Language: American or British1、A quarrel about how great would the differences between the two kinds of English be in the future caused vehement argument and the following is my point of view
2、Being the paternal language of the other native Englishes (Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and South African English), British English and American English today are the two main English languages of the English-speaking world. Although too many has already been said over how the scope, the types, and the possible effects of the inconsistency between the two kinds will be in the future, the quarrel on the issue has not come to an end at all.
3、The development and popularity of American English
5、However the above attitudes are nothing but the last influence of a long-gone period of British supremacy. According to Campbell and others, the beginning of a distinct lead of American English can be traced to the decades after World War II. This coincides with the simultaneous rise of the US as a military and technological power and the decline of the British Empire, which drove many to American English. And from then on, American English has continuously sent its influence to every corner of the planet.
6、Britain made English an international language in the nineteenth century with its imperialism power, but Americans have been the driving force behind its globalization in the twentieth century. Modiano reports that, despite the influence of expert English teachers from Britain, Europeans “are subjected to a massive amount of American English”, which many students are much more interested in. Campbell’s examples of the influence of American English include the fact that young people in Europe, Asia and Russia use it in daily conversation, even when many of them have been taught British English. In Brazil, people demand for courses in American style rather than British. This is because American English is infiltrating the territories formerly known to be the territory of British English influence。 for example, Nigeria, Egypt, Thailand, and more forcefully penetrating Latin America, Japan, and south Korea. Today even the BBC, which has long used British English speaking announcers exclusively, now added American announcers in its broadcasts, especially in programs that go to countries like South Korea, where American English is favored.
7、According to Campbell’s estimate, 70% of the roughly 350 million native English speakers speak the American version of English. In fact, the populations of the two leading mother tongue English countries are even more suggestive: The United States has a population of about 260 million while there is only about 55 million in Britain. This seemingly gives the American English much more advantage.
8、The last few decades have witnessed an ever-increasing political domination of America on the planet. This status was further reinforced in the late 1980s by the fall of communism, which resulted in the US penetrating and consolidating its position in formerly socialist territories.
9、The Peace Corps, founded by President J.F. Kennedy in 1962, has been a major cause of emigration of Americans to various parts of the Third World. The Peace Corps volunteers have been working in the medical sector, in agriculture, and very significantly in English language teaching, leaving considerable influence of American English after their returning back. The strict immigration laws of Britain, coupled with the alleged inhospitality of the British, have of late diverted to America students and people from various parts of the world seeking a substitute place — the United States. The chain reaction of this factor has resulted in much more migration to the US. For people hold the sense that they tend to find help from friends and relatives living in the States. The recent policy, enacted by the US, of the visa program to “recruit” 50,000 new immigrants to the States each year has added to the attempt to migrant to the US. The long-term reaction of the large migration to the States on the Americanization of English in native countries of the immigrants is obvious; the immigrants continue to communicate with their friends and relatives back in their homeland, and many eventually come back and settle.
10、Told above is the story of the baby version of a English language that has grown and is threatening to shake the domination of the mother language. This phenomenon could hardly been seen elsewhere. Neither the case with Canadian, Belgian or Swiss French in relation to the French of France, nor with Latin American Spanish or Portuguese in relation to the Spanish or Portuguese of Spain or Portugal, respectively. The speaker, and especially the learner, of English is now faced with the task of managing the co-existence of the two competing languages. They are, however, not problem-free.
11、It is over simplified to say, like M. Mathews in the introduction above, that American English and British English are “so overwhelmingly alike” or, like Quirk equally cited above, that “even in matters of pronunciation, it is difficult to find many British and American absolute distinctions”. It really depends here on what quantity Quirk considers to be many. Already, the list of pronunciation differences that he and Marckwardt themselves give affects hundreds of words, which can be considered to be major, by any standard. Qualitatively, too, the differences are important. Learners all over the world will surely agree with me, for example, that the following differences are quite confusing: British English ant[i], mult[i]; sem[i]; do[sail], fu[tail]; l[e]sure, fer[tail], [lef]tenant, g[o]t, p[o]tter vs American English ant[ai]-, mult[ai], sem[ai]; do[sl], fer[tl]; l[i:]sure, [lu]tenant, g[a:]t, p[a:]tter. And there are many other such contrasts, In lexis and grammer, we can also find many distinct contrasts with an obvious incidence on communication, as will be shown later.
12、Differences between American and British English do not matter when the speaker or writer is familiar with the two codes and can easily find in his/her own variety correspondences to features from the other variety. But confusion, embarrassment or sheer incomprehension will arise in many daily-life situations when the listener or reader who is not familiar with the other variety.
13、Knowledge of the two varieties is equally important in the classroom for the students and teachers where a decision often has to be made about what form is correct. If the teacher and students know that fiber and fibre, transportation and transport, proctor and invigilator, barette and hairslide, faucet and tap, fall and autumn, five years back and five years ago, Monday through Friday and Monday to Friday, a half meter and half a metre are features of American and British English, Respectively, the teaching and the learning process can proceed unhampered, if it is agreed that the two varieties are accepted. But it is dramatic, especially in a testing situation, when features used from one variety by the student are not known by the teacher/tester, familiar only with the other variety. The student will then be unjustly penalized.
14、Many American changes of categories observed in some cases are in outright violation of British English grammar. For example, accommodation becomes countable (e.g. Good accommodations are rare); some irregular verbs become regular (e.g. broadcasted, shined); some regular verbs become irregular (snuck out for British English sneaked out); some intransitive verbs become transitive (e.g. The plane departed New York; We protested the salary cuts); some transitive verbs become intransitive (e.g. I visited with my friends for British English I visited my friends): some adjectives may be used as adverbs (e.g. It’s real nice). Other major violations of British English syntax are seen in usages such as: A is different than B, where than is used without the corresponding –er/more or less required for comparatives; in Susan wants out, where a whole verb and its preceding particle (to go) are omitted; in like I said where like, instead of British English as, introduces a clause; in I want for you to go, where there is a major intrusion of a preposition; in He looked out the window, where there is a major deletion of a preposition; in He just left, where, despite the clear fact that a past action has some relevance to the present, the present perfect is not used. And so on.
15、An informal survey recently carried out among teachers of English who had been working for long, showed that, although they declared that they readily accepted American English, they would consider the above American English usages, and many more as incorrect. All they know of American English is –or for –our (e.g. color), -ize for ise, center for centre and similar minor and common differences.
16、The problem of multiple standards is aggravated in countries like those of the former British Empire where indigenized varieties of English have already established themselves athoritively as local standards. There, the intrusion of American English adds to the already existing conflict and competition between British English and the local forms. Awonusi (1994) aptly describes this phenomenon in Nigeria. What’s more, other countries, like China, face a similar situation. In China English for example, the most interesting manifestation of this triple scale is when a local English form establishes itself, and differs from both the established British English and American English forms.
17、In addition to problems of correctness discussed above, the divergences between American and British English raised problems of intelligibility that cannot be altogether overlooked.
18、Studies specifically measuring the intelligibility between American English and British English are not available to me at the moment. But others involving the intelligibility of the two varieties, from the point of view of the non-native speaker, do exist, and show that American English and British English do not have the same degree of intelligibility. For example, in Smith’s (1992) study conducted in America, a British English speaker (interacting with a Papua Guinean) is 70% understandable to non-native speakers while an American (interacting with an Indonesian is 90% undertandable). The rates of comprehensibility and interpretability in the same context are 90% and 60%, 10% and 30%, respectively.
19、Differences between American English and British English would have no major impact on intelligibility if they only concerned, for example, features in phonology like American English rhoticity, darkening of “l” across the board, the nasal twang, some word stress differences; in spelling like –ize, -or and –er discussed above; or in lexis items like vacation, movie, cab, schedule (for British English timetable), etc. But the various levels of analysis offer more serious, and very often, less known divergences.
20、Lexis also offers very interesting cases. A user of British English who listens to or reads American English will face problems of intelligibility with words that do not exist in his/her own version like faucet (British English tap), janitor (caretaker), pitcher (jug), mortician (undertaker), realtor (estate agent), closet (cupboard), penitentiary [noun] (prison). He/she will also find words which exist in his/her variety, but have a different meaning. The difference in meaning may be negligible and not cause communication problems, as in American English vacation vs British English holidays, call (by phone) vs ring, schedule vs time; both members of these pairs, in particular, and many others, are now used in Britain, which further reduces the risk of communication failure. But major semantic differences sometimes exist, such as between (American English) first floor, second floor and British English ground floor, first floor, pants and trousers, gas and petrol, (from American English, 12th of February 1998). These extreme cases of divergence may cause communication problems or great embarrassment in some cases. Just imagine an American English speaker directing a British English speaker to the first or second floor, asking him/her for gas, asking him/her to show his/her pants, and you will agree that American English and British English are not “so overwhelmingly alike”, as claimed above.
21、Cases of communication failure (or potential failure) due to such lexico-semantic problems are reported by Modiano. They include American English round trip ticket vs British English return ticket, American English eraser vs British English rubber, and British English public school (vs its American English meaning).
22、Modiano requested a ticket to London but he was asked whether he wanted a return ticket. Interpreting return ticket as meaning a ticket from London to the place from which he was travelling, Modiano replied, “How do you expect me to get there?” As for British English rubber, the author found that in American English it is an American slang for the word condom and its use in some contexts may cause embarrassment. Modiano go on noticed that the British English use of Rubber rather than eraser is unknown in the US. Concerning public school, Modiano points out the contrast in British English where it means privately owned institutions and in American English where it means “schools owned and operated with public funds”.
23、The best thing to deal with the situation of co-existence, or competition, of American English and British English would be some kind of harmonization. This solution, which suggests changing the natural course of a language or language variety, had hardly been succeeded. The other question is even if this solution were possible, the harmonization in the direction of American English are demographic, technological, political, commercial, and media-related, as analyzed above; in fact, most predictions, including that of David Crystal, are that English in future will be American-dominated. Arguments for harmonization in the direction of British English include the fact that the majority of dictionaries and English Language Teaching materials outside the US are British English–dominated. The other argument is of an emotional and symbolic feeling and mixed with the sense that British English is after all the mother variety.
24、Modiano’s solution to the exposure to, and mixing of, American English and British English is that Mid-Atlantic, spoken in increasing numbers by Europeans. Should replace British English as the educational standard in Europe. According to the author of “The Americanization of Euro-English”, Mid-Atlantic is “a variety that encourages neutral pronunciation and a vocabulary based on the interlocutor’s frame of reference’. The only problem in Modiano’s argument is that he carefully explains the reasons for Mid-Atlantic English to be used, and what does not constitute Mid-Atlantic, but fails to discuss in concrete terms some detailed characteristics of this variety.
25、For lacking in a guaranteed solution to the problem, I suggested that courses in contrastive analysis of American English and British English should be widely included in English Lessons to wipe out the confusion of those who learn English as a second language.