Реферат: The main variants of the English language
government
leader
AE
apartment
subway
truck
sidewalk
can-opener
administration
editorial
faculty
teaching staff
From such lists one may infer that the words in the left column are the equivalents of those given in the right column and used on the other side of the Atlantic. But the matter is not as simple as that.
These pairs present quite different cases.
It is only in some rare cases like tin-opener—can-opener or fishmonger—fish-dealer that the members of such pairs are semantically equivalent.
In pairs like government—administration, leader—editorial only one lexical semantic variant of one of the members is locally-marked. Thus in the first pair the lexical semantic variant of administration—'the executive officials of a government' is an Americanism, in the second pair the word leader in the meaning of 'leading article in a newspaper' is a Briticism.
In some cases a notion may have two synonymous designations used on both sides of the Atlantic ocean, but one of them is more frequent in Britain, the other—in the USA. Thus in the pairs post—mail, timetable—schedule, notice—bulletin the first word is more frequent in Britain, the second—in America. So the difference here lies only in word-frequency.
Most locally-marked lexical units belong to partial Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., that is they are typical of this or that variant only in one or some of their meanings. Within the semantic structure of such words one may often find meanings belonging to general English, Americanisms and Briticisms, e.g., in the word pavement, the meaning 'street or road covered with stone, asphalt, concrete, etc is an Americanism, the meaning 'paved path for pedestrians at the side of the road' is a Briticism (the corresponding American expression is sidewalk), the other two meanings 'the covering of the floor made of flat blocks of wood, stone, etc.' and 'soil' (geol.) are general English. Very often the meanings that belong to general English are common and neutral, central, direct, while the Americanisms are colloquial, marginal and figurative, e.g. shoulder—general English—'the joint connecting the arm or forelimb with the body', Americanism—'either edge of a road or highway'.
There are also some full Briticisms, Americanisms. For example, the words fortnight, pillar-box are full Briticisms, campus, mailboy are full Americanisms, outback, backblocks are full Australianisms.
These may be subdivided into lexical units denoting some realia that have no counterparts elsewhere (such as the Americanism junior high school) and those denoting phenomena observable in other English-speaking countries but expressed there in a different way (e.g. campus is defined in British dictionaries as 'grounds of a school or college'). The number of lexical units denoting some realia having no counterparts in the other English-speaking countries is considerable in each variant. To these we may refer, for example, lexical units pertaining to such spheres of life as flora and fauna (e.g. AuE kangaroo, kaola, dingo, gum-tree), names of schools of learning (e.g. junior high school and senior high school in AE or composite high school in CnE), names of things of everyday life, often connected with peculiar national conditions, traditions and customs (e.g. AuE boomerang, AE drug-store, CnE float-house). But it is not the lexical units of this kind that can be considered distinguishing features of this or that variant. As the lexical units are the only means of expressing the notions in question in the English language some of them have become common property of the entire English-speaking community (as, e.g., drug-store, lightning rod, super-market, baby-sitter that extended from AE, or the hockey terms that originated in Canada (body-check, red-line, puck-carrier, etc.); others have even become international (as the former Americanisms motel, lynch, abolitionist, radio, cybernetics, telephone, anesthesia, or the former Australianisms dingo, kangaroo and cockatoo).
The numerous locally-marked slangisms, professionalisms and dialectisms cannot be considered distinguishing features either, since they do not belong to the literary language.
Less obvious, yet not less important, are the regional differences of another kind, the so-called derivational variants of words, having the same root and identical in lexical meaning though differing in derivational affixes (e.g. BE acclimate—AE acclimatize, BE aluminium—AE aluminum).
Sometimes the derivational variation embraces several words of the same word-cluster. Compare, for example, the derivatives of race (division of mankind) in British and American English:
BE racial/racialist a, racialist n, racialism n
AE racist a, racist n, racialism/racism n
When speaking about the territorial lexical divergences it is not sufficient to bring into comparison separate words, it is necessary to compare lexico-semantic groups of words or synonymic sets, to study the relations within these groups and sets, because on the one hand a different number of members in a lexico-semantic group is connected with a different semantic structure of its members, on the other hand even insignificant modifications in the semantic structure of a word bring about tangible difference in the structure of the lexico-semantic group to which the word belongs.
For example, the British and Australian variants have different sets of words denoting inland areas: only inland is common to both, besides BE has interior, remote, etc., AuE has bush, outback, backblocks, back of beyond, back of Bourke and many others.
Accordingly, the semantic structure of the word bush and its position in the two variants are altogether different: in BE it has one central meaning ('shrub') and several derived ones, some of which are now obsolete, in AuE it has two semantic centres ('wood' and 'inland areas') that embrace five main and four derived meanings.