TERRITORIAL VARIABILITY OF AMERICAN ENGLISH IN SOCIOCULTURAL AND PRAGMACOGNITIVE ASPECTS

Abstract

The article is devoted to social and territorial variability of American English. The linguistic changes and their reasons from the position of sociolinguistics, pragmatic and cognitive linguistics are examined and the close relationship between language and society are underlined. The article corresponds to the General tendency of modern linguistics – the transition from the «internal» linguistics to the external, anthropological linguistics which examines the concept of the language in close connection with the person’s thinking, his spiritual-practical activity. As the most important means of communication the language is examined as a component of communicative activities; as a key way of transforming the world, communication and interpersonal adjustment the language is analyzed as a means of encourage people to certain actions, to the fixing social relations. The language is shown as a socio-cultural phenomenon that reflects the mass thinking, which reacts to all changes and innovations that occur in the world. The tendency towards the preservation of national specific, for the preservation and development of cultural identity is considered. The strengthening of the positions of territorial and social dialects is examined. The role of the accent as an important indicator of the speaker, which provides cultural diversity of the American States is underlined.