Differences between American English and British English: A Challenge to TESOL

Author(s): Morton Benson

Source: TESOL Quarterly , Jun., 1989, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Jun., 1989), pp. 351-355
Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3587357

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THE FORUM

The TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or pr

TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any ar
remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly

Differences Between American Eng

and British English:
A Challenge to TESOL
MORTON BENSON
University of Pennsylvania

Until recently, British English (BE) was considere

model for learners of English in most countries of
including those in Eastern Europe. In the spring of 197
English-SerboCroatian Dictionary was being readied
tion in Yugoslavia, many feared that it would be r
Yugoslav teachers and learners, since it gave priority t
English (AE). The English Language Officer of th
Embassy in Belgrade organized a lecture tour to four k
cities so that I could reassure teachers and students of
consistent attention would also be paid in the new dict
features. In the fall of 1978, a week before the actual ap
the dictionary in bookstores, the Yugoslav publisher, Pr
full-page advertisement in the newspaper Politika, in
translation of an article from the London Observer, wh
out to the citizens of Great Britain that AE should be co
dominant variety of English. The purpose of printing t
article was to prepare the Yugoslav public for the shock
its largest publishing house put out a bilingual dict
described AE.
In the last 10 years, the status of AE among teachers and learners
of English has risen significantly in many countries. It can be said
that AE is now acknowledged to be a valid model for learners,
along with BE, in many countries (Benson, Benson, & Ilson, 1986b,
pp. 14-15). I lectured on the differences between AE and BE in May
1988 at the Foreign Language Institute in Belgrade and in
September 1988 at the Lenin Pedagogical Institute and the Maurice
Thorez Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow.

351

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Those specialists in English who attended the lectures-university-
level professors, secondary-school teachers, and advanced
students-were keenly interested in the topic. Although they had all
been trained essentially in BE, most recognized that AE is no longer
to be considered an "inferior" dialect, and they were eager to learn
more about it.
An integral part of the lectures mentioned above was a test on the
differences between AE and BE, based on The BBI Combinatory
Dictionary of English (Benson, Benson, & Ilson, 1986a). Only
around 20% of the items on the test were answered correctly by the
Yugoslavs and Soviets. These results were the same as those of a
similar test taken by Soviet and Hungarian English teachers in the
summer of 1987 at the University of Pennsylvania (Benson &
Benson, 1988, p. 344). In 1987 the test was also administered to 12
TESOL instructors who were native speakers of English-10
American, 1 British, and 1 South African (Benson, 1989). Their
performance was only slightly better than that of the nonnative
speakers: 24% of their answers were correct!
Here are two examples of differences that caused problems.
None of the American instructors knew that We cancelled our
membership of that organization is perfectly good BE. Eigh
marked it as unacceptable English; two marked it with a quest
mark. None of the American instructors knew that She recom-
mended me a good dictionary is correct BE. Nine marked it a
unacceptable; one marked it with a question mark.
My point is that if two world models for learners, AE and BE, ar
now recognized, TESOL programs should introduce work on th
differences between them. Some will undoubtedly object and poin
out that many ESL/EFL instructors who end up teaching
elementary and intermediate courses in the United States may nev
need to use this knowledge. However, many other instructors wil
teach English abroad or will teach English in the United States
students who have already studied the language abroad, presum
ably BE. (We must keep in mind that despite the gains made by A
in recent years, most learners who begin their study of the langua
outside of North America study BE.) It is vital that such instructor
acquire knowledge of how AE differs from BE.
It is encouraging that two references to this problem have
appeared recently on the pages of the TESOL Newsletter-those
Whiteson (1986) and Barnes (1987). Whiteson concludes that "w
have to accept that differences exist and have to do whatever
can to be knowledgeable about them" (p. 28). Barnes points to t
competition between BE and AE in Portugal.

352 TESOL QUARTERLY

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 Whiteson and Barnes discuss essentially AE and BE (although
Whiteson does refer to South African English). In another recent
discussion, Kachru (1988) radically expands the concept of English;
he divides the countries in which English is spoken into three circles:
The "Inner Circle" (in which English is used by most inhabitants as
a first language), the "Outer Circle" (in which English was spoken
by colonial rulers), and the "Expanding Circle" (in which English is
studied widely as a foreign language). Kachru calls for a change in
the methods of teaching English (p. 4). However, he offers no
specific suggestions.
I would like to propose specifically that TESOL programs in the
United States provide instruction on the differences between
standard AE and standard BE. TESOL programs in Great Britain
should do the same. As pointed out above, AE and BE are generally
recognized throughout the world to be the predominant varieties of
English. It would be at present impractical and unnecessary to
include in most TESOL programs the other varieties of English such
as Australian, Canadian, Indian, Irish, South African, and so on.
(Note, however, that Canadian English is close to AE and that the
others are close to BE.) It goes without saying that some American
TESOL programs may also find it desirable to include work on
dialectal varieties of AE.
Instruction should deal with the major orthographic, morpholog-
ical, syntactic, collocational, and lexical differences between the
two standards. Some of these differences have been covered by
various investigators in varying degrees of accuracy and
thoroughness, beginning a half century ago with the work of
Mencken. A recent attempt to describe the differences is found in
Benson et al. (1986b, pp. 14-174). Instruction should certainly stress
that features peculiar to one variety are not to be considered
"incorrect" English. It goes without saying that a student who uses
a BE feature in an American setting should be informed of that fact
and should be told what the possible consequences may be. It is also
obvious that the training of future ESL/EFL instructors will have to
be developed so as, for example, to treat differences between AE
and BE at the level of discourse.
Orthographic differences are numerous; many are well known. It
would be hoped that in the future, a student born in Jamaica and
educated in Great Britain would not have the spelling colour
marked as incorrect in a composition written at a state university in
the United States. (This incident was reported to me by the student.)
Morphological differences are few but can cause trouble.
American instructors should not correct the following verb forms
often used in BE: The suit fitted him perfectly, She leant (rhyming

THE FORUM 353

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with bent) forward, We learnt the poem by heart, He quitted his
job, and so on.
Syntactic and collocational differences can be jarring but should
be accepted. Here are several examples of constructions used in BE:
She sent it him, The company are promoting their new type of
computer, The workers agreed the plan, Our firm has done a deal
with a French company, He has earache, The police are always in
the firing line, That gave him a new lease of life.
Lexical differences are the most numerous and complicated.
Recent analyses of these differences are far more sophisticated than
the simplistic lists of the past, which tended to indicate that
monosemous (having only one meaning) item x in AE invariably
equaled monosemous item y in BE. One example of lexicological
complexity is the relationship between baggage (traditionally
considered to be AE) and luggage (traditionally considered to be
BE) (Benson et al., 1986b, pp. 34-35). Earlier analyses did not
include culturally bound items such as AE garage sale, the Ivy
League, revenue sharing, welcome wagon, and so on, and BE A-
levels, front bench, giro, tied house, and so on.
It should be emphasized that AE and BE are constantly
influencing each other. The traditional influence of literature and
the press has been intensified in recent decades by jet travel,
satellite communications, television, and films. Furthermore, the
international press services like Reuters and International News
Service diffuse AE and BE items worldwide, without a distinct pro-
nunciation to identify their provenance.
Thus, we can understand why learners of English are at times
confused. The time has come to prepare American ESL/EFL
instructors to cope with the two major varieties of standard English.
This means, in practical terms, that American instructors should be
trained to recognize and comprehend the major features of BE.
Such training will enable them to achieve the goal of TESOL-the
teaching of World English.
U

REFERENCES

Barnes, G. (1987). British vs. American English: Report from a

ground. TESOL Newsletter, 21(6), 9.
Benson, M. (1978). English-SerboCroatian dictionary. Belgrade: Pros
(Revised 1984, updated 1989)

354 TESOL QUARTERLY

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Benson, M. (1989). The structure of the collocational dictionary.
International Journal of Lexicography, 2, 1-14.
Benson, M., & Benson, E. (1988). Trying out a new dictionary. TESOL
Quarterly, 22, 340-345.
Benson, M., Benson, E., & Ilson, R. (1986a). The BBI combinatory
dictionary of English: A guide to word combinations. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Benson, M., Benson, E., & Ilson, R. (1986b). The lexicographic description
of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kachru, B. B. (1988). Teaching world English. ERIC/CLL News Bulletin,
12(1), 1, 3-4.
Whiteson, V. (1986). The case for international English. TESOL
Newsletter, 20(3), 28.

Comments on Bernard Spolsky's

"Bridging the Gap: A General Theory
of Second Language Learning"
A Reader Reacts ...

MARGARET E. SOKOLIK
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In his recent TESOL Quarterly article (Vol. 22, No. 3,

1988), Bernard Spolsky brings to the TESOL audience so
latest modeling approaches available from the field o
intelligence. Although Spolsky provides a valuable servi
senting paradigms that have been used in theoretical m
other fields, he does not accomplish his goal without co
different types of models.
Spolsky introduces three types of models. He stat
forthcoming model of second language acquisition is a p
model. I will not comment on this here, since a full exp
his preference model had not yet been published at the t
writing.
The second model, an expert system, is introduced as a metaphor
for his theory of preferences. Expert systems, as he explains (p. 389),
are computer models created to imitate certain decision-making or
problem-solving algorithms used by humans. In this sense, his
metaphor may be a bit confusing: To say that human behavior is

THE FORUM 355

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