Pronunciation Differences between British English and American English

Pronunciation Differences between British English
and American English

One of the main difficulties a foreigner student may face when learning English pronunciation
is the remarkable variety of accents. Like many other languages spoken in such a vast
territory and by so many people, spoken English presents wide variation in pronunciation.
In spite of that wide variation, three standard pronunciations are distinguished:
(1) The Received Pronunciation, also called Oxford English or BBC English, is the standard pronunciation of British English;
(2) The General American is the accent considered as standard in North America, and as such it is the pronunciation heard in most of American films, TV series, and national news;
(3) The General Australian is the English spoken in Australia.

However, this three main accents should be interpreted as broad categories, for the English
language has a great and rich diversity of varieties .
Many students are confused as to appreciate the difference between accents, and they
often speak with a mixed of accents perplexing somewhat a native speaker. The purpose
of this article is to study the main differences between British English, as represented by
Received Pronunciation (RP), and American English, as represented by General American
(GA). This study should help students to correct their pronunciation, be consistent with
their accent, and acquire a new pronunciation with fewer traces of their native language.
Although our standpoint here is primarily phonetic, British and American English have
also been studied from a social and historical standpoint ,
 We chose the IPA symbols because they are a standard in sound description and ensure accuracy. If the reader is not familiar with the IPA symbols and their meaning,
Returning to the main differences between British English and American English, they
can be summarized as follows.
1. The presence of rhotic accent.
2. Differences in vowel pronunciation. The most relevant ones are change of diphthong
[@U], change of [6], change of [æ], and change of [ju:].
3. Differences in consonant pronunciation. This mainly involves the different pronunciations
of letter t.
4. Change of stress. This comprises the change of stress in French loanwords, and certain
suffixes such as -ate and -atory.
5. Differences in articulation. American English has a clear tendency to pronounce unstressed
syllables where British English does not show such a disposition.