Differences in British and American Pronunciation of Personal Names

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to find out and analyze differences in the pronunciation of personal names of famous people and expand the existing ideas about the phonetic dichotomy of British and American English. The main research method used in the article is the comparison between British and American English phonetic differences together with their phonological representations. The study starts with the description of the shift in the articulatory base in American English. The difference between the American pronunciation standard (GA (General American accent) / American Network English) and the British one (RP (Received Pronunciation) / BBC English) include a number of features: the British version is characterized by a strong adjunction of the consonant to the previous vowel, it has a predominance of closed syllables while American English is open-syllabic; in the American standard there is no very clear opposition between monophthongs and diphthongs as in the British version. The analyzed examples of personal names demonstrate differences in the pronunciation of vowels, a change of a vowel into a diphthong or vice versa. As for the consonants, the presence of the rhotic accent in American English is one of the most noticeable pronunciation differences in personal names. The appearance of rhotacism may involve a change of a diphthong into a vowel and a stress shift. The change of stress is a common alteration and has numerous examples. Some examples of names with different sounding on both sides of the Atlantic do not follow any standard pattern. The article will make English language learners have a better realization of the varieties between British and American English and will help them use either of the two variants more consciously and accurately. Finally, the paper calls for further research concerning differences in pronunciation of other groups of proper names such as brand names and geographical names.