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Varieties of English

english

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29 views3 pages

Varieties of English

english

Uploaded by

sosiotprinters
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Varieties of English

BLA 4209

1. By use of examples, distinguish between British and American English.

British English

-Was spoken in Britain.

It is more formal but not homogenous. There are three types of British English namely

1. Conservative English
2. Adopted standard pronunciation of BBC English
3. Advanced English- quite modified and most influenced by other dialects

American English

It underwent a lot of changes due to influence from the Indian people who had settled in.

The difference between British and American English are notable in:

1. Phonetics

2. Vocabulary

3. Grammar

-American English has a lot of lexical differences with British English as a result of cultural
differences.

-Difference in climate nature, features everyday life and political system of the US gave rise to
many new words and phrases that are not widely used in the U.K for example: drugstore,
moose

-American English too had differences in spellings for example:

British English American English


Programme Program
Cheque Check
Colour Color
Centre Center
There is difference in vocabulary for example

British English Lorry-truck-boo t (trunk of a car)

American (English truck-trunk)

2. What are the characteristics of Kenyan English? Use examples in each case.

-Kenyan English was introduced to Kenya by the British colonialist. It was introduced to schools
as the official language. It has the following characteristics

1. Grammar- It lacks articles that are translated to English. For example:

1. I ate egg

2. Give me burger

3. The students have gone to office

2. Prepositions - Most Kenyan languages tend to have fewer prepositions and this leads to some
of them being deleted from the constructions from English

Examples: i) Pour me some porridge

ii) I prefer bread than sweet potato.

3. Pluralization of uncountable nouns- some uncountable nouns are changed into plural for
example: datas, furnitures, salts, soils

4. Gender- Most Kenyan languages lack feminine and masculine gender so you can’t distinguish
which gender is talked of.

This leads to total confusion. For example Joseph loved her mother very much

5. Vocabulary - Kenyan English has borrowed some words from indigenous languages. These
include: jembe, Sukuma wiki, shamba, Chapati
3. Using examples, discuss the factors that cause language variation in Society

Language variation within a society can be influenced by several factors, these factors lead to
differences in pronunciation, grammar and even dialects

These factors include the following

language variety can be determined by class;

1. Social class- refers to –any group of people who are of the same level in terms of
wealth, influence and status. People can be grouped into 4 classes. These are
a) The lower class- consist of poor people in the society
b) The working class – consist of the working poor
c) The middle class-consist of people with white collar jobs
d) The upper class – consist of people who have more money than they need
2. Language varieties as determined by sex – gender affects in terms of speakers. The
most common dialects are regional dialect.
3. Ethnicity and cultural identity – people of different ethnic group have different dialect
thus pronunciation may differ. Ethnic groups within a society may maintain their own
language and dialect.
4. Education and literacy – formal education can standardize language usage to adhere to
specific grammar rules and vocabulary. Those with higher education may tend to use
their language different from low education
5. Age – difference ages tend to differ in language, the youth may have their different way
of pronunciation of some words.

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