Application of the comparative method in studying American and British English by undergraduate students

1. Introduction

The relevance of this research stems from the need to overcome reductionism in teaching dialectal variability [1]. Aim: To identify the didactic potential of the comparative method for developing students:

• Systematic knowledge of AmE/BrE divergence (Example: Recognizing that "I've just arrived" (BrE) and "I just arrived" (AmE) represent grammatical choices).
• Skills in codifying linguistic differences (Example: Charting vowel variations like /æ/ in "bath" [BrE: /bɑːθ/ vs AmE: /bæθ/]).
• Bidialectal communicative competence [2, p. 45-59] (Example: Switching between "lift" (BrE) and "elevator" (AmE) contextually).

Hypothesis: Integrating contrastive analysis improves accuracy in identifying dialect markers by 30%.

2. Theoretical Foundations

The comparative method in dialectology is based on:

• Contrastive linguistics (Lado, 1957) (Example: Tense usage comparison in narratives).
• Language variability theory (Labov, 2006) (Example: Social stratification of rhoticity in New York speech).
• Metalinguistic awareness (Kecskes, 2020) [3] (Example: Students journaling about dialect switching).

Implemented through:

1. Parallel text analysis (Example: Comparing The Guardian and NY Times editorials).
2. Linguistic difference mapping (Example: Creating "dialect maps" of lexical variations).
3. Corpus studies [4] (Example: "shall/will" distribution in COCA and BNC).

Experimental confirmation: 78% students showed reduced code-switching interference [5] (Example: Fewer errors like "I took the lift to my flat" in AmE contexts).

3. Structural Levels of Analysis

3.1. Phonetic Level

Effective techniques:

Auditory analysis:

• BrE /tɒmɑːtəʊ/ (tomato) vs AmE /təˈmeɪtoʊ/.
• BrE /ˈʃedjuːl/ (schedule) vs AmE /ˈskedʒuːl/.

Spectrogram visualization [6] (Example: Formant patterns of BrE /ɒ/ vs AmE /ɑː/ in "hot").

Intonation contrast [7] (Example: Rising tones in BBC vs CNN questions).

3.2. Morphosyntactic Level

Work model:

1. Identifying oppositions: Have you got? (BrE) vs Do you have? (AmE) (Example: "Have you got a minute?" vs "Do you have a minute?").
2. Analyzing distribution (Example: Perfect tense usage in TED talks).
3. Generating examples [8] (Example: Dialogues using "I've eaten" (BrE) and "I ate" (AmE)).

3.3. Lexical-Semantic Level

Three-phase system:

1. Equivalents (lift-elevator) (Example: Matching exercises).
2. Partial correspondences (biscuit-cookie) (Example: Comparing UK/US product labels).
3. Culture-specific lexicon (state school-public school) [9] (Example: Analyzing education documents).

4. Practice-Oriented Tasks

Table

Classroom Activities

Results: 92% accuracy after 12-week training [10, p. 112-125] (Example: 45/50 markers identified correctly).

5. Curriculum Integration

Implementation model:

Year 1:

• Lectures: Historical origins of rhoticity.
• Workshops: Identifying "zed" (BrE) vs "zee" (AmE).

Years 2-3:

• Research: Prepositional differences ("in hospital" vs "in the hospital").
• Dialect mapping [11].

Year 4:

• Lesson plans on AmE/BrE differences.
• Media stereotype analysis [12].

6. Limitations and Solutions

Identified issues:

1. Hypercorrection (17%) (Example: Using "lorry" where "truck" is appropriate).
2. Register confusion (23%) (Example: Mixing "whilst" with "gonna").
3. Cognitive overload [13] (Example: Confusing "have got" vs "have").

Mitigation strategies:

• Graded introduction (Example: Starting with "autumn/fall").
• Productive differences focus (Example: Academic vocabulary).
• Visualization tools [14] (Example: Interactive dialect maps).

7. Conclusion

Key outcomes:

1. 34% increase in marker recognition (Example: 58% pre-test → 92% post-test).
2. Enhanced understanding (Example: Accurate comparison charts).
3. Improved research skills (Example: 85% corpus study success).

Future directions: Standardized testing (100-marker diagnostic) and digital simulators (VR dialect scenarios).