|
CANADIAN ENGLISH
Aim: to present the difference between Canadian, American and British variants of English
Watch videos (part 1 and 2) on the difference of vocabulary between American and Canadian English, and then find out the British equivalents for them.
Text for reading and analyzing.
The term “Canadian English” is first attested in a speech by Rev. A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglo-centric anti French attitude prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as “a corrupt dialect,” in comparison to the "proper" English spoken by immigrants from Britain.
Canadian English is the product of waves of settlers from Britain and France, and British and Irish immigration over a period of almost two centuries. It also is influenced in part by languages of the First Nations people, with some extra words from their languages being added into the vocabulary. The first large wave of permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, is from the original settlers from Britain, who claimed Canada as British territory. Another influence to the language was the influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the middle Atlantic states. The last wave that greatly influenced the language was from Britain and Ireland when people were encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by the governors of Canada, who were worried about anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Also, to a lesser extent, the language was somewhat more so influenced in pronounciation in the Maritimes to that of Hiberno English, due to the Irish Potato famine, which had massive emigration from Ireland to the Atlantic coast areas of Canada and The United States. Quite recently, people in Canada are preffering Americanized versions of some words, such as "Colour" being spelt as "Colour".
The aboriginal languages have added words to the Canadian English vocabulary, not found in other English dialects, (I.E. "Inuit") , and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada, which is why Canadian English contains words borrowed directly from French, not found in American or British English.
Canadian English is a "mother tongue" of approximately 24 million Canadians and more than 28 million are fluent in the language.
However, recent studies have shown that second generation Canadians (i.e. children born to immigrant parents in Canada) are adopting a language system that is natively Canadian, regardless of ethnic background. There is evidence to say that second generation Canadians of Anglo-Irish, Chinese, and Italian descent essentially share the same linguistic system. This homogeneity points towards the unifying force of shared open social networks and shared communities of practice. Exceptions to this trend are those extremely close-knit neighbourhoods, such as Montreal’s Italian and Jewish quarters. Traditionally, local speakers have not gone much beyond these groups, which has lead to the development of distinct linguistic features over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
One of the most interesting questions about Canadian English is why it is at all different from US English dialects. Given Canada’s proximity to the US and its close ties in terms of trade and business or its exposure to American media outlets, TV, radio and magazines, it is striking that US-Canadian differences persist.
Generally speaking, the linguistic features in the west (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia) are less diversified than in the east (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec), which has been settled for a century or more longer. The island of Newfoundland, which joined Canada only in 1949 after hundreds of years as a separate British colony, is the most distinctive linguistic community as compared to Standard Canadian English.
Relative similarity, or homogeneity, of dialects is a common denominator of regions that have been settled for relatively short periods of time. As time progresses, regional, and social dialects are being formed, examples of which include the distinctive neighbourhoods of Montreal. For Ontario westwards, relative linguistic homogeneity has been proposed since at least 1951. Incidentally, the concept is paired with the question of Canadian linguistic autonomy.
Canadian dialects are actually diverging from the American dialects that have experienced the shift, and this despite the high levels of interaction between the two countries.
Words are most accessible to speakers, and comments abound. Terms like washroom ‘public bathroom’, all-dressed pizza ‘pizza with all the available toppings on it’, garburator ‘in-sink garbage grinder’, parkade ‘car parking structure’ or the ubiquitous toque ‘woolen hat’ are easy to find and are sometimes used as ad-hoc identity markers in Canadian regions.
Historically speaking, about 70 percent of Canadianisms, which are defined as terms ‘native or of characteristic usage in Canada’, are comprised by noun compounds that are especially difficult to spot: for instance, butter and tart are ‘ordinary’ words, but butter tart ‘pastry shell with a filling of butter, eggs, sugar and raisins’ is a ‘type 1’ Canadianism. In the historical Canadian dictionary project, four basic types of Canadianisms are recognized: type 1: form origins in Canada; type 2: preserved in Canada; type 3: having undergone semantic change in Canada; and type 4: culturally significant terms. The Dictionary of Canadiansims on Historical Principles, first edition, lists about 10,000 Canadianisms from 1498 to 1965/6.
Canadian slang as a variation of substandard speech is obvious nowadays. The lexical constituent of Anglo-Canadian slang is very dissimilar. There can be singled out the following units:
•Units that are common for the American and Canadian Languages, North-Americanisms;
•Units, that have appeared and are still used in the USA, but that gradually get into Canadian language;
•Units that appeared and are used in Canada, but can be met in American language;
•Units that appeared and are used exceptionally in Canada.
They are: North-Americanisms:
These units appeared in the slang in XIX-XX centuries. They are different in their origin but are assimilated by Canadian and American languages.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
