The variety of English spoken in the USA has received the name of American English which has distinctive features of its own. Sometimes these varieties are called Americanisms and may be defi ned as words or set expressions peculiar to the English Language. As scientist G.B. Antrushina says, “Many Americanisms belong to colloquialisms and slang, that is to those shifting, changeable strata of the vocabulary which do not represent its stable or permanent bulk, the latter being the same in American and British speech” [Antrushina, 2004:264]. Many Americanisms easily penetrate into British speech, and, a result some of the distinctive characteristics of American English become erased. The American variant of the English Language differs from British English in pronunciation, some minor features of grammar, but chiefl y in vocabulary. There are some specifi c phonetic peculiarities: British English gives a broad sound [a:] to words like bath, dance the Americans pronounce these words softly as [ǽ ] like the word fl at. The diphthong [ou] exists in both languages, but in British English pronunciation the sound is much narrower. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary gives some other differences in pronunciation. In British English the consonant –r- is pronounced only before a vowel, for example, in red and bedroom. In all other cases the –r- is silent (car, learn, over). In American English the –r- is always pronounced.

In American English the –t- between vowels is pronounced as a soft d/d/, so that writer and rider sound similar, British English speakers usually pronounce the t as/t/. Differences in pronunciation of individual words are illustrated in the table.

                                         

Words	British	American
schedule	[  ſedju:l]	[skedju:l]
clerk	[kla:k  ]	[  klə:k]
issue	[  isſju:]	[isju:  ]
vase	[va:z  ]	[veiz  ]
lientenant	[  leftenent]	[  lju:tenent]
direction	[  direkſən]	[dairekſən  ]