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General American (abbreviated as GA or GenAm) is an umbrella variety of American English—a continuum of accents〔—commonly attributed to a majority of Americans and popularly perceived, among Americans, as lacking any notably regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics.〔 Due to the prevalence of a General American sound system throughout the United States, General American is sometimes, though controversially, known as Standard American English.〔〔 Standard Canadian English closely aligns to General American speech,〔 especially rather than England's Received Pronunciation in every situation where General American and Received Pronunciation differ. The precise definition and usefulness of "General American" continues to be debated, and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness.〔 ==History, definition, and dialectology== The term "General American" was first disseminated by American English scholar George Philip Krapp, who, in 1925, described it as "Western" but "not local in character."〔 In 1930, American linguist John Samuel Kenyon, who largely popularized the term, considered it equivalent to the speech of "the North," or "Northern American," but, in 1934, "Western and Midwestern." By the 1940s, a common definition for General American was any American English accent that excluded the regionally distinct sounds of the American South, Eastern New England, and New York City; by the 1960s, this further came to exclude the regional sounds of the Mid-Atlantic region and Western Pennsylvania. By the 2000s, American sociolinguist William Labov concluded that, if any sound system could be recognized as "General American," it would essentially be a convergence of those features shared among Western American English, Midland American English, and Standard Canadian English. Now typically regarded as falling under the General American umbrella are the dialects of the American West,〔 Western New England, and perhaps much of the American Midland and Canada.〔 Once in the earlier 20th century but no longer now included are the dialects of the Mid-Atlantic United States,〔 the Inland North,〔 and Western Pennsylvania. Dialects that have never been included are those of Eastern New England, New York City, and the American South. Anglicist William A. Kretzchmar, Jr. explains in a 2004 article that Due to the prestige and prescription potentially associated with a "General" variety of American speech, Kretzchmar prefers the term Standard American English, claiming it describes a level of pronunciation "employed by educated speakers in formal settings," while still being variable within the U.S. from place to place, and even from speaker to speaker. However, this term is also problematic, since "''Standard English'' may be taken to reflect conformance to a set of rules, but its meaning commonly gets bound up with social ideas about how one's character and education are displayed in one's speech."〔 The term Standard North American English, in an effort to incorporate Canadian speakers under the continuum, has also been very recently suggested by sociolinguist Charles Boberg.〔Boberg, Charles (2004). "(Standard Canadian English )." In Raymond Hickey. ''Standards of English: Codified Varieties Around the World''. Cambridge University Press. p. 159.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「General American」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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