Spoken Standard Language Essay

English is considered the international language so often called “the language of communication”. One of the reasons is English gets ranked first in the easiest languages in the world, because its four aspects among six ones including verb conjugation, irregular verbs, noun and adjectival forms and written versus spoken forms that belong to grammar are easier than other languages like French, Spanish, German, Greek, etc. (see Lia Nigro, TOEIC USA Team) (1), even that according to Robert McCrum et al. (1992), English "… has a grammar of great simplicity" (2). Nevertheless, English has no standard form, therefore, non- native English learners have plenty of difficulties in encountering different English accents and dialects, typically between

In other words, the term “accent” which consists of the features of pronunciation that distinguish where a speaker comes from, regionally or socially (George Yule, 2006, 2010) (3) indicates how widely various the so- called standard language is used in spoken style between American English and British English. Spoken standard language is often found in the most of sound mass media such as: BBC, CNN, VOA, films, programs/ programmes, etc. According to Martyn Francis Wakelin, pronunciation is the notable difference of accents and is identified as Received Pronunciation (RP), also addressed Oxford English, the Queen's English or BBC English, which refers to the standard pronunciation of British English and General American (GA), which is often recognized as the standard pronunciation of American English. The distinction of pronunciation in British and American English are accessed via the shift of vowels and consonants.

In terms of consonant, first of all, Paco Gómez demonstrates that (5), the existence of rhotic accent which is produced as a retroflex approximant (as cited in John C. Wells, 2000) is one of the most remarkable distinctions between British and American accent, since British English becomes non- rhotic when letter ‘r’ is in a monosyllabic and after a vowel or at the end of words, whereas rhotic accent only occurs in American