English the ‘language of survival and growth in the competitive world’. The main varieties of English have been classified according to their traditional historical and sociolinguistic bases. This presentation gives a description of the phonological system of British English and compares it to that of standard American English.

1. Comparison between phonological systems of
Standard BrE and Standard AE
Atula Ahuja

2.  Today, English is the official language of about
50 countries and the lingua franca of recent
times.
 It owes its roots to the three Germanic tribes,
the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, who
invaded Britain during the 5th century AD.
 The Germanic tribes spoke a language that later
developed into Old English and was spoken
between 450- 1100. Almost half of the
commonly used words in English find can be
traced back to Old English.

3.  William the conqueror invaded England in
1066.
 The language began to see changes again.
 These conquerors brought with them French,
which became the language of the royal court
and of the bourgeoisie.
 Between 1450- 1700, England witnessed “The
Great Vowel Shift, a curious linguistic
phenomenon,
 Emergence of London dialect standard due to
the arrival of printing press

4.  Today English has several dialects and
accents but there are only two main
varieties
◦ the Standard British English (BrE)
◦ Standard American English (AE).

5. Pure Vowels recognized by IPA
Vowel phonemes of RP

6. British English Diphthongs recognized by IPA
Diphthongs of RP
Closing Diphthongs glide
from an open vowel to a
close vowel , so there is
movement upwards.
Opening Diphthongs glide
from a close vowel to an
open vowel, and there is
movement downwards.

8.  Triphthongs are three vowel sounds
combined. The first sound glides from one
vowel to another . They are produced rapidly,
without interruption.
- aʊ + ə = aʊə/ as in hour
- aɪ + ə = /aɪə/ as in fire
- ɔɪ + ə = /ɔɪə/ as in employer

9.  ‘Weak forms’: Function words in English are
not stressed, thus called "weak forms“ and
pronounced with a schwa /ə/
◦ ‘/Əbaʊt/
 ‘Strong forms’: Used with content words and
are stressed.
◦ I would like some fish and chips /aɪ wʊd laɪk sʌm
fɪʃ ænd tʃɪps/

10.  KIT (ɪ) is weak when unstressed. It occurs in
unstressed vowels as in reverse, return, and
America.
 The vowel FOOT (ʊ) is weak when it is
unstressed. Such an instance is rare, e.g
particular.

11. “RP” – the accent of educated class in Britain
 Accent refers to the potentiality of a syllable to be stressed,
 “stress” refers to the actual stress
 In British English, there are several accents shaped by the
history and brought in by the invaders and settlers. However,
a very small percentage of the total population of Britain
actually speaks RP. (Hughes and Trudgill 1979)
 Intonation in British English uses the fall-rise pitch patterns
quite extensively. Saying a sentence with fall-rise intonation
implies that we mean differently from the literal meaning.
For example, 'yes' can mean 'maybe'

12.  Pronunciation differences
RP Vowels AE vowels
Fron
t
Central Back
Diphth
ongs
eɪ aɪ ɔɪ aʊ
ɪə eə ʊə
əʊ
Front Central Back
Diphth
ongs
æɪ ɑe oɪ æɔ
ɪə (ʊə)
əʊ

13.  Absence of the vowel that refers to RP /ɒ/ (hot), in General
American. /ɑ/ or /ɔ/ is used instead.
 In words such as ‘cot’- ‘caught’ a large number of American
speakers fail to distinguish /ɑ/ from /ɔ/
 General American does not have the centering diphthong
phonemes /ɪə/, /eə/, /ʊə/; in ‘fear’, ‘square’ and ‘sure’ it
has the combinations /ɪr/, /ɛr/, /ʊr/.
 The pronunciation of the long vowel “o” as in ‘boat’, ‘float’
differs in AE from RP :
 AE either uses pure [oː] or diphthongizes it as [oʊ], whereas
RP uses [əʊ] or so other variant.

14.  A significant number of words such as ‘bath’,
‘glass’, ‘half’ are pronounced as /æ/ in
General American, but /ɑː/ in RP.
vase - RP /va:z/ AE /veiz/
bath- RP /bɑːθ/ AE /bæθ/
glass- RP /glɑːs/ AE /glæs/
half- RP /hɑːf/ AE /hæf/

15.  Dropping of /j/: In most North American
accents, /j/ is dropped after all alveolar and
interdental consonant. Thus we see that
‘new’, ‘duke’, ‘Tuesday’ are pronounced
/nu:/, /du:k/, /ˈtu:zdeɪ/ and /tu:b/
 Pronunciation of
◦ ‘tomato’ in RP /təˈmɑːtəʊ/ - AE - / təˈmeɪˌtoʊ/
◦ ‘ basil’ in RP /ˈbæzl̩/ - AE- /ˈbeɪzl̩/

16. Rhotic (AE) Non- rhotic (BrEng)
Near /nɪəɹ/ /nɪə/
Square /skweɪɹ/ /skweə/
Cure /kjʊəɹ/ /kjʊə/
The presence of the rhotic and non-rhotic accent very
noticeable. With the exception of New York City and Boston,
American English is largely rhotic. RP is non-rhotic, which
means that the letter r is usually silent, unless it is followed by a
vowel. In AE /r/ is pronounced as retroflex approximant.

17.  Received Pronunciation came into play
only after war, at the end of the
eighteenth century. Before this time
the pronunciations were not different
from each other. There wasn’t a
pronunciation that was American,
which could be distinguished from the
English accent. (Burchfield 36,
Marckward and Quirk 61).

18.  Word stress comes at different places
in the same word:
◦ aluminium- RP /æljəˈmɪniəm / - AE
/əˈluːmənəm/
◦ garage- RP /ˈɡærɑːʒ/- AE /ɡəˈrɑːʒ/
◦ ballet RP /ˈbæleɪ/ - AE /bæˈleɪ/
◦ address RP / əˈdres/ AE / ˈæˌdres/
◦ advertisement RP /ədˈvɝːtəzmənt/ AE
/ædvˈt aɪzmənt/

19. Many words are exclusive to either language.
Some examples:
BrE AE
 anti-clockwise counter-clockwise
 autumn fall
 bill (restaurant) check
 biscuit cookie
 diversion detour

21.  Halliday, M.A.K. 1967. Intonation and Grammar in British
English, Mouton, The Hague.
 Harms, R T (1968) Introduction to phonological theory,
Prentice Hall
 Heinz, JG (1992) English Phonology: An Introduction,
Cambridge University Press
 Hirst, D., D, Cristo, A. 1992. Intonation Systems : A Survey of
Twenty Languages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
 John M. Anderson, C. Jones. (1977) Phonological structure
and the history of English, North-Holland Pub. Co
 Lass, R. (1976) English Phonology and Phonological Theory:
Synchronic and Diachronic Studies, Cambridge University
Press

22.  Manfred, Golrach.1988. New Englishes: New Studies in the
Varieties of English, John Benjamin’s Publishing Company.
 McArthur, Tom. 2002. Oxford Guide to World English, Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
 Mehmet, S. 2011. Applied English phonology, Oxford : Wiley-
Blackwell, Oxford
 Potter, Simeon. 1950. Our Language, Pelican Books, London
 http://web.ku.edu/~idea/dialectmap.htm
 Ted Power, English Language Learning and Teaching
(http://www.tedpower.co.uk)
 Wells, John. IPA transcription systems for English
(http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/ home/wells/ipa-english.htm

23. Thank you!