American English in a very broad Perspective Gunnel Tottie….pdfVIP

American English, in a very broad perspective Gunnel Tottie. 2002 . An Introduction to American English. Maiden, Mass . Oxford, UK : Blackwell REVIEW ARTICLE BY JOHA N ELSNESS In this very welcome new publication Gunnel Tottie sets out to pre- sent the American variety of the English language on its own terms, as she says . She reacts against what she sees as the prevailing ten- dency in textbooks intended for foreign learners : to take British English as the starting-point for the description of English, some- times noting particular American forms and constructions, in so far as they are noted at all, as a kin d of aberration . Totti e starts from the other end : her concern is with American English, but she make s frequent comparison with British English, which is the variety that many, perhaps most, of her potential readers will be most familiar with . In Tottie s new book there are no listings of Americanisms . Instead she uses the term Briticism to designate forms and constructions which occur in British but not in American English. In many way s the strong position of British, at the expense of American , English is an anomalou s situation . After all, the popula- tion of America - the Unite d States, that is — is many time s the size of the British population, and speakers of American English corre- spondingly more numerous . Today the Unite d States is the one and only undisputed superpower . For a long tim e now America has defi- nitely been a more powerful country than Britain, in political, eco- nomic an d military terms . American popular culture dominate s the world as no other culture has ever done: pe