Selected Lexical Differences Between British and American English

The dominant position of American culture in the world plays an important role in Americanisation of world Englishes. There there are only around 4,000 fairly frequent words in British English that either do not occur in American English at all, or are used in a different way. Taking into account how relatively few lexical differences there are between American and British English, the emphasis on the differences and the generally negative reaction to Americanisation of British English may seem rather exaggerated. However, in English speaking countries regional varieties play an important role in defining national identities. The influence of American English is, therefore, viewed as a threat to a defining aspect of their nationality. This book is a study of lexical consequences of the influence of American culture on selected British lexical units. Using corpus-supported approaches, selected lexical differences have been put to test to either prove or disprove the existence of lexical convergence. This analysis should shed some light on Americanisation of world Englishes and should be of use for specialists in the field of English Linguistics.