American and British English
Divided by a Common Language?

Is British English becoming more like American English? Paul Baker tracks the changes, trends and distinctions of both languages to answer this question.

Paul Baker (Author)

9781107088863, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 September 2017

276 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.8 cm, 0.52 kg

'American and British English: Divided by a Common Language provides a comprehensive, well-illustrated, and interesting description of how American and British English have changed from the 1930s through the 2000s, focusing on such topics as spelling differences, word frequency variations between the varieties, and the use of profanity and discourse markers.' Charles Meyer, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Is British English becoming more like American English? If so, why, and in what ways? This book compares examples of American and British language data from the 1930s, 1960s, 1990s and 2000s, to track the most important ways that both varieties are changing over time, and compares the extent to which they are following similar paths using a mixture of computer and human analysis. The analysis is carried out across several levels, including spelling differences (such as colour vs color), vocabulary (truck vs lorry), and a range of morphological, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic features. Baker explores the changing aspects of American and British society which help to explain the findings.

1. Introduction
2. Spelling differences
3. Letter sequences and affixation
4. Higher frequency words
5. Lower frequency words
6. Part of speech categories
7. Semantic categories
8. Swearing, identity and discourse markers
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Applied linguistics for ELT [EBAL], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF], Language: history & general works [CBX]