英语专业论文范文(7)
As for Canada, in the centuries from 1497 to 1776, the year of the US Declaration of Independence, farming, fishing and trading attracted English settlers along the Atlantic coast. After the American independence, the former loyalist supporters of Britain left the US for Canada because they found that their empire had gone and they had no future in the US. Many others followed suit because the land in Canada was very cheap at that time. So by the early years of the 18th century the population of Upper Canada had reached 100,000. Most were English speakers among them.
Later on, English was first brought to Australia by the British colonizers in 1770. Then in 1840, New Zealand also became a colony of Great Britain.
Although different countries had different situations of the spread, they had the origin of British English. However, Americans tried to seek their own identities in English and be different from British English in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical structure. Canadian English has a strong American accent. But it is interesting that many British people identify a Canadian accent as American while many Americans identify it as British. And Canadians themselves insist on not being identified with either group (Crystal 1997: 32). Australian English has more British accent since most settlers have British and Irish origins. However, with the influence of aboriginal languages and recent influence from American English, Australian English has been a variety with a very mixed linguistic character. In comparison with Australia, there has been a stronger sense of historical relationship with Britain, and a greater sympathy for British values and institutions in New Zealand. Besides, it has a growing sense of different from Australian English. And it adopts many Maori words into New Zealand English as well.
3.3.2Spread of English to the Caribbean
English was mainly brought to the Caribbean by the sailors who shipped black slaves from Africa, which started from the 16th century. The slaves were from different language backgrounds while most of the sailors spoke English. On the long voyage from Africa to the Caribbean, they used a kind of pidgin to communicate. This from of pidgin English continued to act as a means of communication between the black slaves and the landowners, and among the blacks themselves. The pidgin gradually developed into a Creole, which became the mother tongue of the slaves’ prestige variety throughout the area with the increasing British political influence.
