ANALYZE BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH ACCENTS

Accent refers to the way in which a speaker pronounces, and therefore refers to a variety which is phonetically and/or phonologically different from other varieties. Here are some general differences between British and American spellings:

·         Words ending in -or (American) -our (British) color, colour, humor, humour, flavor, flavour etc.

·         Words ending in -ize (American) -ise (British) recognize, recognise, patronize, patronise etc.

·         Words ending in -ze (American) – se (British) analyze, analyse , memorize , memorise etc.

·         Words ending in -er (American) -re (British) theater , theatre , center , centre etc.

·         Words ending in -ch or -k (American -que (British) check , cheque , bank , banque etc.

·         Words ending in -ll (American) -l (British) enroll , enrol , fulfill , fulfil , skillful , skilful etc.

·         Words ending in -ense (American) -enze (British) defense , defence , license , licence etc.

In this paper, the writers want to show and explain the analysis between two accents, British (RP) English and American English (GA) accent in English books courses for Senior High School.

For example (Look Ahead Book 2, page 78):

Rose: Morning, Eric.

Eric: Oh … hi, Rose, good morning. How are you today?

Rose: I feel better today, thanks. Ohm… Is today’s newspaper? Yeah, the one you are reading.

Eric: Yup!

Rose: Did you read that article in the paper about smoking? The person who wrote it must be crazy.

Eric: I don’t think so. I think the government should do everything it can to discourage people from smoking.

Rose: Maybe so. But a law banning cigarettes does no good.

Eric: What do you mean? In my opinion, though you can’t suddenly make smoking illegal but it is important for the government to establish law that prohibits smoking in public places like cinemas and hospitals.

Rose: Yes, that’s true. But I think people should be allowed to smoke on trains and buses. Don’t you think so?

Eric: Not at all. It’s awful sitting next to someone blowing smoke all over you, if you don’t smoke yourself.

Rose: Sure, I agree. But if you do smoke, and don’t forget, it isn’t a crime…

Eric: Well, that’s where the government can help. It should make “NO SMOKING” compartments on all trains, buses, and aerohttp://edufire.com/forums/1-the-fireside-chat/topics/637-differences-between-american-and-british-english-planes and there should be …..

….

For more information: The words that are colored by red are British accent.

And in page 141(Look Ahead Book 2), “A Farmer and His Three Sons”, we found a word “ADVICE” that actually it belongs to British English accent. Because as we know, American English accent use suffix –se in that word, “ADVISE”.

Another example that we found about different accent in the same book is in page 152, “The Tyrant who became a just Ruler”. In that article, we found a word “FAVORITES” that indicates American accent, but English British is always use –our in the word favorite, so it become “FAVOURITE”.

Absolutely, because we can’t hear, the words in this book are pronounced, so we just can compare the phonetic systems that probably occurred in different accents (RP/GA).

Words	RP	GA
water	[wɑ:tə]	[wɑ:tər]
bath	/ˈbæθ/	/ˈbɑːθ/
Can’t	[kɒ:nt]	[kænt]

Look Ahead Book 2, page 151.

In the other book, “Bahasa Inggris (Star Idola) written by Sudi Herminto”, we also found some different words in page 60. For example:

RP	GA
<ise>	Realize
<ise>	Penalize
<ise>	Vandalize
centre	-re (center)