A comparison between British English and American English, with special emphasis on collective nouns
| Autor: | Álvarez Alonso, Nohelia |
|---|---|
| Přispěvatelé: | Acuña Fariña, Juan Carlos, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Facultade de Filoloxía |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Inglés estadounidense
Investigación::57 Lingüística::5705 Lingüística sincrónica::570501 Lingüística comparada [Materias] Investigación::57 Lingüística::5705 Lingüística sincrónica::570513 Sintaxis análisis sintáctico [Materias] Inglés británico Variación na lingua inglesa Investigación::57 Lingüística::5703 Geografía lingüística [Materias] Nomes colectivos ingleses |
| Popis: | Traballo Fin de Grao en Lingua e Literatura Inglesas. Curso 2018-2019 This dissertation, entitled "A comparison between British English and American English, with special emphasis on collective nouns" deals, as the title describes, with a comparison between British English and American English, the two most influential varieties of the English language, in the domain of grammar. To be more accurate, I will deal with the treatment of collective nouns in both varieties. This dissertation will be organized in four different parts, being each one divided as well in smaller section. In the first part, I will make an introduction to the topics of this paper. I will start, in the first section, establishing a brief presentation of both varieties and a characterization of them by making a small comparison between them. The second section will be focused on our domain of analysis, the grammar of English. I will pay attention to important terms that will help us later in this paper to understand the aim of our study, the grammar of collective nouns. In the second part, I will focus on our domain of study by defining and explaining the noun phrase (NP), revising the structure and the most important terms and points. After this, in the second section of this second part, I am going to deal with the agreement between the NP and the VP in the English grammar, what linguists say about the concordance between the subject and the verb form that must be used. In the third part of this dissertation, the object of study is going to be a more specific concept in our domain of study: the noun. As an introduction to this point, I will revise the countability of nouns, the different types of nouns that we can find in the English grammar in terms of number. Then, I will focus my attention on collective nouns and on the different views that we can find in some of the main English grammars, trying to explain why British English prefers the use of a plural verb while American English uses the singular in the same situation. Does it mean that British people see trees while Americans see a forest? Is it an issue of perception/conception of reality? In my attempt to explain this, I will need to revise as well what the Whorfian perspective says about the connection between language and conceptualization/ thought/ perception. In the fourth part of this essay, I will run some interviews with native speakers of British English and American English where I will ask them to complete a questionnaire containing some of the most problematic sentences with collective nouns, to see if the theoretical level aligns with the practical level. I will finish this dissertation by establishing the most important conclusions I take from the whole paper and I will revise and propose, if needed, any further topic for investigation. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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