It is quite natural for a teacher of English to be approached by his or her students with such a question like: “What’s the difference between British and American English?” Some teachers may get through the point straight away with clear examples and complete explanation while others may linger, taking some time to figure it out. It is simple for EFL learners to find this linguistic area still a mystery which needs solving, through the help of their teachers. Hence, it is quite vital for the teachers to possess an insight of the divergence mentioned so that they can guide those young minds to the light.
Since English is spoken as a mother tongue by some 400 million people, as an everyday second language by tens of millions more, and as a fluent foreign language by further millions, the English used by all these people is far from uniform. Before we take a closer look into the language of both sides of the Atlantic, it is better for us to define what exactly standard English is.
Linguistically, standard English is considered by its speakers to be formally used in broadcasting and almost all publication. Acquisition of standard English is a large part of what we understand as education in the English speaking world. (Trask 1999: 289-290). In Britain, standard English has been assumed to required Received Pronunciation (RP), but it can be spoken with a variety of accents. Phonetic transcriptions of British English in dictionaries are usually based on RP. As for American English, despite a large variety of dialects, General American English (GAE) has been assumed to be one that is closest to be a standard. (Crowther 1999: 15) With this agreement, the point will be explained through three familiar questions.