1、What were the major external causes of the development of American English?Abstract:America has taken up the relative top position in global military, economics and science area; this gives the American English objective effect and opportunities to be spread all over the world. As the politics, econ
2、omy, culture of America being developed, the life of American people have been greatly changed, thus American English is becoming to be with more and more individualisms, in daily life and social communication, it has been accepted and used by more and more people all over the world.Keywords: Americ
3、an English; Origination; Development; Individualisms. 1. IntroductionBased on the lasting prosperity of American in aspects of politics, economy, and culture, together with its deep effect in international society, American English is punching the whole world with different kinds of methods. In our
4、country, for a long time English education has been taking Britain English as the learning standard, students learn the Britain English standard pronunciation. However, in recent years, American English is affecting more and more, large quantities of files and documents from American teachers or sch
5、ools have proved this. Many scientific, economical books are also written in English. To research a language, we should do know its origination, because history molds and regulates language. This thesis, tries to analyze the external reasons for American English to be developed based on the main ind
6、ividualisms of it.2. The main individualisms of American English2.1. The creativity of American English.American English has maintained large quantities of special language that does now not exist in Britain English. Compared to present standard Britain English, American English can be ancient; its
7、ancient property can be reflected in the usage of characters. It maintained and refreshed some words that are not used in the present Britain English. Some words are now not used in present standard Britain English, but only limited to the local language, but in American English, they are still comm
8、on words. The sailor Columbus discovered this “new land”, with wide range and sufficient material, the local people obey the racial traditions and culture, the free and opened living environment molded American people as open minded and smart, thus American English can also be imaginative. At that t
9、ime, some Americans thought that a new word can be created by combining the phonotactics with new forms or just reform the letters. Thus they created many words that originally didnt exist. As well, they also use prefixes and suffixes to create new words freely, which to a great extent completed the
10、 American English vocabulary.2.2. American English is open and inclusive.The sufficient new words that exist in American English mainly appear in the talking of western boatmen, city entrepreneurs, salesmen and expedition members. In the whole colony period, the newly increased American English word
11、s can be mainly distributed into below 3 categories: The words that absorbed from the Indian language; The words of English compounded words and the foreign words. America is an opened country, English itself is also maintaining great opening property, in its process of being developed, and American
12、 English has bravely and actively absorbed the words from other races based on inheriting Britain English vocabulary while creating its own vocabulary. The foreign words melted into the American peoples oral language and written language, greatly amplified the English language culture and prompted t
13、he cultural combination. From the fact that American English widely absorbs foreign words, we can see that American people are always open-minded and dealing with concrete issues while compensating their weaknesses with the advantage from the exterior words. The members from emigrating country would
14、 maintain less exclusive thoughts, they wont try to refuse outer culture, this may be their strategies for actual development.The French colonists have owned wide range of lands in North America; there are 27% in the most common 5000 words in American English from their own races, 17% of them from L
15、atin language, 47% from French, and 9% from other languages. Thus we can see that French is also one of the main sources for American English vocabulary. During the long-term communication of American English and German, many Germany words are also absorbed. Every 4 of American people there would be
16、 1 Germany generation. Not less Germany culture individualisms have become the common individualisms of American culture. In recent years, China, have developed in aspects of economy, military, science and education, its synthetic country power has also been developed a lot, that means China is affe
17、cting greater and greater to each of the areas in the world, just like America ,become a big country that is enough to affect the whole world. The position of Chinese language is also elevated obviously, during the complicated communication between America and China, their languages are also affecti
18、ng each other, and American English again has absorbed large quantities of words from Chinese.2.3Resources of American vocabulary reflects the individualism of American people.Rapidly developing American society tries to lead the people to search new words about new things, new views and new minds w
19、ith different kinds of modes. If there arent existing words, they would just create it. If there are existing words, they would expand its sense. New words, new senses of American language are the consequence of the development of the American society and the combination of multi-culture, and this i
20、s the doomed consequent. The apperance and common usage of new words also reflect the quality of being good at innovation also shows that Americans are in favor of expedition. They are used to creating, In their eyes, nothing is impossible. Only if you can do it hard, you would succeed. There is a c
21、oncept of “American dream”, a kind of proud lead all the American people think that they can succeed once they can pay a great effort. This individualism gives the American people the habit to exaggerate in speaking, opposite to British people, who are always controlling themselves and being gentle.
22、2.4. The wide usage of slangs.Slangs are from the common lives of the people, which reflect the actual life, it comes from life, but its content is higher than life. Slangs are existing everywhere in the social lives of American society, thus, we wont feel strange to list the slangs as one of the in
23、dividualisms of American English. Slangs arent formal, not regulated, usually used oral language, limited only in special people group and occasions, which is full of rhetoric, intelligence, humor, concise, vivid, new and fashion. Slangs are from the low level of the society, to speak slangs can be
24、a method to release the pressure of the mood. The present American society is giving great pressure to the citizens; the present words are no longer enough for people to express their new minds and new feelings. Slangs are usually used by the young people, who are the representatives of new culture
25、and the main body to use language. American common people like to use phrases that are combined of 2 or 3 words, which can accurately and rapidly express their thoughts while being understood. Although sometimes people may think it as the reflection of being lack of senior education, and slangs have
26、 been considered as the patent for the common people, actually, the super stratum American people would also use slang sometimes just in order to add elements like humor, concise and strengthen their scenes. 3. The origination and development of American EnglishIn ancient times, English was brought
27、in by the England colonists from Britain to American mainland. The history of American English is I close relationship with the history of Americans colony history. In the early 16th-17th century, the Britain puritans started a fierce religious deforming and innovation action. Following it was perse
28、cuted cruelly by the England establishmentarian religion, thus part of the puritans decided to move to North America. In September 1620, the famous puritan leader Leland Bradford recruited 102 people and landed a wooden sailing which was 180 tons in weight and 27 meters in length-“May Flower” and st
29、arted their “Columbus typed” long adventure. After longer than 2 months, the “May Flower” reached the Cod Cape (The present Massachusetts state Provincetown), English was thus brought in to such a “new plain” which is wide and rich in materials. However, as the early contact with the local Indian pe
30、ople, the early emigrants felt more and more that they didnt have enough vocabulary to express the new things that they have seen, the consequent is that they searched and created many kinds of new vocabulary to describe the new and strange things in the communication with the local Indians. Thus, t
31、o borrow words from the local Indians became their best method to create new words. In the whole colonist period, the emigrants mainly absorbed the new words about the nature, such as mountains, rivers, lakes and so on. In more than 50 states in present American, there are at least 27 of them whose
32、name came from the Indian language.Ever since the beginning of the 17th century that the Britain puritans landed on the American plain, in a long time, there werent obvious difference from the American English and the Britain English. American English inherited the basic vocabulary and grammar struc
33、ture from the Britain English. Before the independence, American was once the colony for England, France, Span and so on. The foreign vocabulary that has entered American English couldnt be too much. After the independence of America, especially in the expanding period, large quantities of language
34、of other races were absorbed in American English. After the year 1776 in which America independent, some American scholars began to consider the location of American English, they thought that America should maintain the language of its own. In the year 1806, Webster formally pointed out the name of
35、 “American English”, this was considered as the important symbol for the formation of American English. In the year 1828, Webster edited the , which formally and systematically fixed American English vocabularys formation, senses and usages. Since then, in the world, there was the real concept of Am
36、erican English.After the Second World War, American fixed its relative top position in the world in military, economy and science areas, American English, as a kind of cultural output product in America, its effect and spreading range have also deeply entered each angle of the whole world.4. Conclus
37、ionHere, we can conclude that the external causes of the development of American English can be classified into many aspects; the first is the Indian local environment of the Indian language. This is the first element that affected the American English. The second is the language from other countrie
38、s, just like German, France, and China. American people are always ready to imitate, learn from others and create based on their present foundations. All these elements caused the great development of the present American English.Bibliography1Appel, R. & Muysken. Language Contact and Bilingualism M.
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