英美文化差异 英文论文

2012-13学年第1学期2011级英美概况试题

姓名董译之学号2011141090 班级英语112 成绩_______

The Difference between England and America Abstract: the paper is to show the difference between American and English in several aspects, such as geographical location, cultural environment and the most important part, the language.

1.Geographical Location

The geographic location of the United Kingdom and the United States are different, one in European continent, one continent of the America. The United Kingdom, after a long period of development, has been very wealthy, so they are decent and conservative. But at the beginning of the United States, the United States is in a completely unfamiliar and barren continent, the first settlers were called pioneers, so they have to have the courage to take risks. If they do not have the spirit of adventure, they will not be able to survive, not to mention development, the hard environment eventually made the American spirit. In addition, the difference of European culture and American cultural contributes to the difference of the two countries. English suffers from the influence from other European countries, like France, Germany, but American was influenced by the culture of the other countries in American continent as well as the native Indian.

2.Culture Environment

Britain is a traditional European country with long historical tradition continuity, and there had been a hierarchy in British society for a long time. And in UK there always has been a monarchy. So, the British likes to remember past times and old acquaintances, tends to be conservative, and behaves like a gentleman. All these need culture accumulation, and these character and qualities can’t be made if the country is without a long history. However, the U.S. is precisely without a very profound historical accumulation and is a young country. So, the Americans dare to innovate and stress emphasis on personal value. On the other hand, in the United States, there are not a lot of constrains. They feel free to make bold innovations.

In addition, there is a great difference in the population composition of the two countries. The United States is a nation of immigrants, people comes from all countries and regions in the world. So, the culture of the United States shows different characteristics. People in American can accept and absorb all the culture factors all over the world. U.S. attitude toward foreign cultures is an open. However, comparing to the United States, the structure of the UK population appears to be simplex.

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Although, American and England are all English speaking countries, they all have its own kind of English after a long time, and we call them British English and American English.

3.1Pronunciation

British English is conservative and rigorous. In many cases, there is no correspondence between the pronunciation and spelling, and British are willing to follow the rule in this way to show their kind of recognition and respect for their language. However, Americans have another concept. They do everything under the precondition of convenience, and they tend to follow the regular pronunciation rather than irregular pronunciation in British English. Americans change the irregular pronunciations in British English into regular ones.

For example: in English, the word forehead pronounces [fo: rid], but in American, [fo: rhed]. The word medicine, British read it [medsin], the letter i is not pronounced, and American English read [medisin]. Even some regular pronounced words also change, because of the Americans undisciplined, lazy style.

3.2spelling

The way of spelling in American English is more concise and practical than that in British English, they would ignore the letter in writing if the letter was not pronounced, which makes words short and easy to spell.

Take an example, if the letter L ending in a word was not unstressed syllable, American people seldom end the word with double L, such as councillor, American will spell councilor instead, and traveler instead of traverller, and so on. Some words in American English end with –ter, such as center-centre, meter-metre. In British English words end with –our are changed into –or in American English, like labour-labor, honour-honor, colour-color.

3.3Vocabulary

The differences between British English and American English also exist in their vocabulary, such as, the Americans used the apartment, and the British flat, Americans say the first floor, and the British the ground floor; public school in British English means private school which kids come from affluent families can afford, but the public schools in American English is a school run by government. Eating the dessert after dinner in American English means all kinds of food, but only fruit in British English. The trouser in American English is pants, whereas, pants means underwear in British English. The word check in American English is bank note in British English.

4.Table Manner

At table, the British people pays special attention to table manners, such as, they shouldn’t talk at table, shouldn’t beat tableware as well. They have a strict requirement on how to use knives and forks. While Americans on the relatively few occasions will do so, they like fast and convenient food, they do not require delicate or luxury dinner but they pay more attention to popular food. American favorite food is known as KFC, McDonald's and pizza hut, the junk food. This diet keeps the