forms. Awonusi (1994) aptly describes this phenomenon in Nigeria. What’s more, other countries, like China, face a similar situation. In China English for example, the most interesting manifestation of this triple scale is when a local English form establishes itself, and differs from both the established British English and American English forms. For example, you relax in a sitting room in Britain, a living room in America and a parlour in China; you fill in form in Britain, fill out a form in the US and fill a form in China. Phonology offers many more of such systematic contrasts.
In addition to problems of correctness discussed above, the divergences between American and British English raised problems of intelligibility that cannot be altogether overlooked.
Studies specifically measuring the intelligibility between American English and British English are not available to me at the moment. But others involving the intelligibility of the two varieties, from the point of view of the non-native speaker, do exist, and show that American English and British English do not have the same degree of intelligibility. For example, in Smith’s (1992) study conducted in America, a British English speaker (interacting with a Papua Guinean) is 70% understandable to non-native speakers while an American (interacting with an Indonesian is 90% undertandable). The rates of comprehensibility and interpretability in the same context are 90% and 60%, 10% and 30%, respectively.
Differences between American English and British English would have no major impact on intelligibility if they only concerned, for example, features in phonology like American English rhoticity, darkening of “l” across the board, the nasal twang, some word stress differences; in spelling like –ize, -or and –er discussed above; or in lexis items like vacation, movie, cab, schedule (for British English timetable), etc. But the various levels of analysis offer more serious, and very often, less known divergences. In phonology for example, a learner who is used to British English /dentist, kla:k, le3e/ (dentist, clerk, leisure) may not find (American English) /deni:st, kle:rk, li:3er/ intelligibe unless the context is very supportive. And when one bears in mind that processes yielding there differences affect a multitude of other words, one easily understands the risk of intelligibility failure.
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Lexis also offers very interesting cases. A user of British English who listens to or reads American English will face problems of intelligibility with words that do not exist in his/her own version like faucet (British English tap), janitor (caretaker), pitcher (jug), mortician (undertaker), realtor (estate agent), closet (cupboard), penitentiary [noun] (prison). He/she will also find words which exist in his/her variety, but have a different meaning. The difference in meaning may be negligible and not cause communication problems, as in American English vacation vs British English holidays, call (by phone) vs ring, schedule vs time; both members of these pairs, in particular, and many others, are now used in Britain, which further reduces the risk of communication failure. But major semantic differences sometimes exist, such as between (American English) first floor, second floor and British English ground floor, first floor, pants and trousers, gas and petrol, (from American English, 12th of February 1998). These extreme cases of divergence may cause communication problems or great embarrassment in some cases. Just imagine an American English speaker directing a British English speaker to the first or second floor, asking him/her for gas, asking him/her to show his/her pants, and you will agree that American English and British English are not “so overwhelmingly alike”, as claimed above.
Cases of communication failure (or potential failure) due to such lexico-semantic problems are reported by Modiano. They include American English round trip ticket vs British English return ticket, American English eraser vs British English rubber, and British English public school (vs its American English meaning).
Modiano requested a ticket to London but he was asked whether he wanted a
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