CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
When American and British people meet, the first obvious difference is their accent and the pronunciation of words. However, the major differences
probably lied in the choice of vocabulary differences, this shows how to treat the two varieties as two different languages. This research is divided into two
problems. The first part presents the noun vocabulary differences between British and American English words that have similar meanings, and also reports the
results of a survey among speakers of the two varieties to verify how well American and British speakers understand each other. The second part presents
the semantic properties by using the semantic features of componential analysis.
A. The similar meanings of different noun vocabularies between certain British and American English from Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary 1. The similarities meaning of different noun vocabularies between certain
British and American English
A thorough scanning of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, found a total of 52 words showing the differences of nouns between AmE and BrE
vocabularies which referred to the same things. All the data of different noun vocabularies had been categorized into each field, which consisted of 10 different
words in clothes, 6 different words in building, 10 different wordsin food, 6 different words in vehicle, 6 different words in home appliances, 4 different
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wordsin street objects, 2 different words in sport, 2 different words in occupation and 6 different words in parts of car.
a. “Clothing” Vocabulary
There are many differences between BrE and AmE related to clothing vocabulary. Table 4.1 below will present the data about the differences in clothing
vocabulary.
Tablet 4.1 Clothing Vocabulary Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary No
British English
No American
English Meaning
1CB Trousers
1CA Pants
a piece of clothing for your legs and the lower part of your body
2CB Pants
2CA Underwear
a small piece of clothing that you wear under your other clothes,
around the middle of your body to cover your bottom
3CB Dinner-
jacket 3CA
Tuxedo a black jacket worn by men in the
evening for formal occasions 4CB
Vest 4CA
Undershirt a piece of clothing that you wear
under your other clothes on the top part of your body
5CB Waistcoat
5CA Vest
a short piece of clothing with buttons down the front but no
sleeves, usually worn over a shirt and under a jacket, often forming
part of a man’s suit
The table above shows that there are 10 different words between British and American nouns that have the same meaning. First differences are American
pants which are British trousers. In England, pants referred to a piece of clothing that meant to cover the hip area down from waist and often reached down to
groin, which in American call it underwear. Americans prefer to call trousers pants and pants for them are underwear. If we talk about formal clothes there are 2