Lexicology

Lexicology, as a branch of Linguistics, its interrelation with mankind development, historical and cultural, it is an unique imprint of cultural characteristics. Lexicology analysis is the approach that can be probed into features of unexplored areas, it has gradually become indispensable for readers or learners to comprehensivelyunderstand the civilization behind words.

The occurrence of all languages are over time and vary according to place and social culture setting. As to the origin of British and American English it can be tracked back to the formation of history differences and multinational languages. From this perspective, the results mainly shows differences in vocabularies utility, as a tool of connection between human and this world, lexical has also become a medium of cultural communication. By studying lexical differences between British and American English, it belongs to historical and culturallinguistics, with special emphasis on the majordeterminant of history and culture on lexical usage, focusing on the content and effect.The functions of “basic” of the lexical study are prominent.

Today, with the development of deepening researchof lexicology, its utility has altered to be plainer than before, the approach of using different words and phrases still penetrates people’s daily life and the motivations behind lexical differences is gains popularity and is under the limelight over time.

The study will focus on historical background and sociocultural factors, lexical analysis concerning cultural and equips people with a systematic method of studying social and anthropological sciences and recognizing cultural linguistic. In foreign countries, scholars study the essence of lexicology process and cultural. Peter Strevens(1972) states the significance of two main families of varieties, a British and an American familywhich lays a solid foundation on analyzing lexical features in discloses. Similarly, another term from C.M.Millward and defined in one dictionary and corpus which describes language distinguished from other forms of the same  language by pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary, it may be regional, social or occupational. What’s more, comparative analysis of lexical appears to reflect a changing reality in sociocultural.

Not only have foreign scholars probed into the potential reasons behind lexical differences of British and American English, but also Chinese scholars perform researches and arrive at reams of motivations concerning cultural diversity in lexicology.

A brief mention of the study of Qiu Lingmin(2009) is after British colonists immigrated to the United States, due to the geographical environment, political independence and other potential reasons, a regional English variant gradually formed and commonly used in the world is British and American English. Under the impact of Renaissance, English language had an undergone enormous changes, Guo Chunli(2007) analyzes lexical utility from the perspectives of regional, society and history. A good case made for improve the research of Wang Hongjun(1999) which in-depth analysis of the causes of changes in English words from a historical perspective.

In brief, historical influence is in the production of English variants, but this not an utter difference, and with the development of society, the two variants also influence and penetrate each other.

This paper will inspect the differences between British and American English in terms of their lexical features. In this way, it is axiomatic that conclusions can be further drawn regarding the comparison between two history and culture, and will be a force for good as to the lexical research on British and American English.