Manifestations of identity and alterity in English: Between semantic divergence and structural convergence

Abstract

This article is an attempt to investigate the divergences in meaning of the variants of English spoken worldwide under the semantic and structural perspective. From the philosophical standpoint, the identity/alterity dichotomy and/or unity is applicable to the scope of this article in that structural convergence falls under the definition of identity, whereas the semantic divergence is defined by the philosophical category of alterity. It is well-known that due to several factors as geographical isolation, cultural identity, regional features, along with others, have led to the development of new connotations ranging from shades of meaning to utterly novel significances, which may puzzle both native speakers originating from other regions or the non-native speakers. One of the aims of the present article is to elucidate the different meanings ascribed to the same words or structures in relation to the variants of English spoken in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, and a special emphasis has been put on the underlying differences between British and American concepts that may lead to ambiguities, which subsequently may grow into misunderstandings. Another aspect that we have considered here is the translation into Romanian of sentences containing such structures with differing concepts depending on the region where it is used. The third focus of this paper is to provide meaningful recommendations to the translators and/or language learners on avoiding the translation traps and correctly get the message of the sentence where a regionalism has been in use, or on being able to timely identify the non-standard meaning of the word. Nevertheless, the multiplicity of meanings attributed to English structures worldwide (alterity) is thought of as an asset rather than a loophole not only by linguists who study the incongruent-pace evolution of English in different corners of the world, but by the native speakers as well. Incidentally, thinkers as Levinas, Castoriadis, and Baudrillard describe the alterity as a transcendent phenomenon stimulating diversity, and hence, progress.