Compare-and-Contrast Essay on American English, Indian English and Nigerian English

For so long the written form of American English, British English and English spoken in African specifically Nigeria found in textbooks, journals and newspapers seem to have a little variation in their indispensable features. Formal written English seems to exist across the three continents and it is commonly referred to as standard English CITATION Bec17 \l 1033 (Bieswanger, 2017). However, the spoken form of English in the three continents varies considerably in terms of the prevailing accents in the respective societal setting. This essay is a discussion on the comparison of American English, Indian English and Nigerian English as representatives of their respective continents.

The objective of the topic is to determine the phonological and sociolinguistic differences among American English, Indian English, and Nigerian English. The English spoken in these states have various dialects within themselves for instance; American English has regional dialects that archetypally reflect some elements of the main immigrants in a specific region CITATION Wol15 \l 1033 (Schilling, 2015). Indian English is very different from American English since the Indians were colonized by England and adopted the British English. The difference is not only in the phonology but also an accent since the Indian intrinsic languages are essentially syllable-timed, like French. Most of the Indian English speakers speak with a syllabic rhythm hence they accentuate all the syllables of long words in English or place stress accent at the wrong syllables CITATION Cow17 \l 1033 (Pande, 2017). The Nigerian English is also different from the other two in pronunciation and the intentional grammatical errors they commit to suit their cultural and social environment.

How to measure the difference in accent among the English spoken in these continents require analyzing how some common English words are pronounced in these regions. The media, such a television can be used to benchmark the disparities. How news anchors from media houses across these continents can clearly show differences in the way they read the news in English. The best method to use to measure the difference in the three continents is by using Middle English dialect map. This shows all dielects were geographically bound and many regional dielects today such as the Black Country in West Midlands can trace the history of their dialects back to the middle English dielects. This wold be an appropriate way to understand the origin of the different accent and comprehensively compare them.References

Bieswanger, B. &. (2017). Introduction to English Linguistics. London: Springer.

Pande, C. &. (2017). Phonetic convergence towards American English by Indian agents in international service encounters. New York: English World-Wide.

Schilling,W.7.(20171).American English: Dialects and Variations: New York: Jonh Wiley and Sons.