The Americanisation of British English
An Investigation by Lewis Pearce
When I was at college, my favourite subject was English Language. It helped that I had one of my favourite tutors teaching me, but still, learning about the history of our language and how to analyse work and those around us was a great interest of mine. As part of my coursework, I had to do an experiment, and I chose how British English is being Americanised due to technology and television and whether age or sex could further affect your usage. I rediscovered this work recently, and whilst I don’t want to toot my own horn, I think it is pretty good. Therefore, I thought I would share it with you all. I may not have picked English Language at university, but I always find it an interesting and thought-provoking area of discourse.
The Experiment
My investigation concerned the amount of Americanisms in common usage in the British Language, and whether age or sex could affect this usage. The reason why I chose this investigation was after my family argued with me about the pronunciation of the word “mayor”, with my pronunciation being the American “ei” vowel sound (like in “play”) instead of the British “ər” vowel sound (like in “serve”). Whilst the factors of age and sex were my central aim, I also looked to see if American media, such as television shows and films, could have a background effect on the usage; in today’s society, most technological innovations happen in America. Although many journalists, including Matthew Engel, report this phenomenon as bad, linguists such as Paul Baker argue that they only serve to enrich our language.
The Categories
I conducted my experiment using a quiz format, with four rounds relating to the four main areas of investigation. I felt like this style was the least imposing and most informative for my study, but I did foresee that this may cause potential issues, such as people choosing what they believed was correct, as opposed to what their preferred response was. In an effort to mitigate this, I emphasised the informality of the quiz to my subjects, and held regular conversation during the test to make them more relaxed.
The first section of my test was the pronunciation section, due to my interest in this area stemming from my family correcting my pronunciation. The main distinction between the two forms of English is the vowel sounds used, so this was what I was looking at. I created a list of twenty five words, and got the candidates to read the list as quick as possible to see what their instinct would be. The five words I was testing were: lieutenant; envelope; mayor; privacy; schedule.
Next was the spelling section, again another confusing and muddled subject. This involved the slightly differing variations of the spellings of certain words. These Americanisms originated from Noah Webster’s first American dictionary in 1806, a man who wanted to create an independence of culture for Americans following the War for Independence. For this section, I included both spellings separated by a forward slash, and made sure to mix up the order in which the Americanisms appeared. The five words I looked at were analyse (analyze), licence (license), counsellor (counselor), programme (program) and litre (liter).
Vocabulary was my next target of analysis. These are ideas for which the British and Americans have different terms for. This has been discussed in novelist Kingsley Amis’ book ‘the King’s English’, where he states “American Influence is busily eroding a valuable once firm distinction in British speech and writing.”. The way I conducted this part of my investigation was to include an image of the contentious vocabulary, and a brief description in case the image was not clear. The words I looked to analyse were: lift (elevator); boot (trunk); railway station (train station); windscreen (windshield); suncream (sunscreen).
Finally, there were grammar differences to inspect. This is more how we speak and the use of apostrophes and other things. The Fowler Brothers predicted the state of British English and the invasion of Americanisms in 1906, stating “There is a real danger of our literature’s being Americanised, and that not merely in details of vocabulary — which are all that we are here directly concerned with — but in its general tone.” My test was to write a sentence using the American and British forms, and get the participants to read out both to see what felt more natural. The words I was looking at in this section included shall and needn’t.
The Results
In my pronunciation section, the first word I analysed was “lieutenant”, and I was looking for which first syllable people used when pronouncing it. The word comes from Latin, with “locum” meaning ‘in place of’, and “teneris” meaning ‘standing’, and the word gradually evolved to “leuf” and “tenant” in French. The British eventually took the word, pronouncing “leuf” as “lef”, and Americans took it in its literal form, hence why the British Variant of ‘lɛfˈtɛnənt’ (lef-tenant) is different to the American Variant of ‘luːˈtɛnənt’ (loo-tenant). Out of my 6 Under 25 participants, 2 out of the 6 produced the British pronunciation, compared to 3/6 in the other two categories.
One particular word people struggled with was “schedule”. The British variety of pronunciation is ‘ʃɛdjuːl’ (shed-yool), whereas the prevalent American pronunciation is ‘skɛdʒuːl’ (skedzh-ool). In the Under 25 category, no participants used the British form, and often didn’t realise another form was available. The two sexes in my research achieved equal results, with both achieving an average of 2.11/5.
During the spelling section, the one which threw every age group off was the word “analyse”. The British form (“analyse”) and American form (“analyze”) are easy to confuse, and remarkably, this was the only word which wasn’t always spelt correctly. Again, it fitted in with the average scores, with the worst being the Over 50’s.
All participants improved on the last round of pronunciation. Under 25’s achieved an average score of 4.66/5, whilst over 25–50’s had an average of 4.825/5 and Over 50’s had an average score of 4.33. In terms of sex, females had the higher average spelling score of 4.77, whilst males were behind with a mean score of 4.44.
WIth my vocabulary test, Under 25’s dipped in form from the last round, with an average score of 3.5/5, matching that of the Over 50’s. Again, the 25–50 category was the strongest, receiving an average score of 3.83/5 per person. Between the two groups of females and males, there wasn’t much of a difference. Females achieved an average score of 3.66/5, whilst males achieved the average score of 3.55/5.
A word from the round which produced the most intriguing result was ‘lift’. The British take (‘lift’) and the American take (‘elevator’) were, to me, quite easily confused. However, not a single person in my study said the American variety of ‘elevator’, and this was the word that people took the least amount of time to write down in this section. Another term which caused more concern was ‘railway station’. The British way (‘railway station’) and the American way (‘train station’) divided people, with 2/3 of candidates saying the American variety.
In the grammar round, the Under 25 participants were the weakest group, achieving an average of 3/5 in the final test. The other two groups achieved slightly better results, averaging 3.16/5. When looking at sex, women again edge their male counterparts, with an average rating of 3.33/5, and males averaging a score of 2.88/5.
Conclusions
Overall, looking at the results in regards to sex, the female participants achieved equal or higher of what the male contestants had. There may be a lot of outliers in respect of the differences noted, such as the average intelligence of the females to their male counterparts, as well as their upbringing and education levels. However, interestingly, whilst no participants selected their favourite film as a British one, more female participants chose a British TV show, which supports my hypothesis.
Examining the ages of the participants, Under 25s received the lowest marks, whilst also watching the most American media. Only 2 of the 6 Under 25s test subjects selected a British TV show, which was Peaky Blinders, and as previously stated, none chose a favourite British film. This can affect younger generations, who have yet to commence sociolinguistic maturation and whose language is still moulding. Over 50s and the 25–50 categories gained higher marks, and chose more British media, such as Monty Python and Only Fools and Horses, which supports my reasoning.
However, upon further analysis of my investigation, I discovered other external factors which affected people’s answers. During the spelling portion of the test, many stated they were “easy”, but why might that be? One potential reason behind this may be that, as children, we are taught in school the basic spellings of the English Language, and we tend to read British articles and books which reinforce these ideas. We learn these spellings early on in our lives, and are taught to view negatively other forms of spelling, which is why we can spot them so easily. In contrast, we are never really taught the pronunciations we should use, and we pick these up from peers or the media we consume.
In my vocabulary test, the use of “railway station” was less than that of the American cousin, “train station”. This may be due to the fact that people refer to the actual form of transport of a train rather than the track which it resides on. It may also be due to class issues, with certain individuals, when asked why they said “train station” over “railway station”, said that the British form seemed “too formal” and “wouldn’t be something that they would catch themselves saying a lot”. This idea was also prevalent in the grammar portion, with many choosing American terms over the standard English option. So, it may be ignorance, but may also be to retain their identity. It can also be affected by your dialect and maybe possibly due to familect, depending on individual circumstances.
