英國孩子愛用美式英語

The future of written English will owe more to Hollywood films than Dickens or Shakespeare， if the findings of a study into children's writing are anything to go by.

Researchers who looked at the entries to a national competition found that their written work was littered with American English， exclamation marks and references to celebrities. They were increasingly using American words such as garbage， trash can， sidewalk， candy， sneakers， soda， cranky and flashlight.

The writings， written by pupils aged 7 to 13， show how fairy cakes are referred to as cupcakes and a dinner jacket has become a tuxedo. “Smart” is now often used for “clever” and “cranky” for “irritable”.

Celebrity culture also has a powerful influence on children’s work， with Simon Cowell and Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi among the famous names cropping up repeatedly.

Pupils are let down by basic spelling， punctuation and grammar， according to the study by Oxford University Press， which looked at the entries to BBC Radio 2’s “500 Words” competition. Children stumbled over simple spellings such as “does” and “clothes” and are unable to use the past tense correctly， often saying “rised” instead of “rose” or “thinked” instead of “thought”.

Researchers also found that punctuation was underused， especially semicolons and speech marks. Some did not know how to use capital letters. However， exclamation marks were overused. Researchers found 35，171 examples in total， with some young writers using five at a time.

Popular US works such as the vampire novels and films are thought to be fuelling the increasing use of American vocabulary and spelling.

Modern technology was also influential. Out of almost 300 references to “blackberry”， nearly half referred to mobile phones.

如果一項對兒童作文的研究結果可靠的話，那么比起狄更斯或莎士比亞的影響，書面英語的未來受好萊塢電影的影響更大。

研究人員閱讀了英國作文比賽的參賽作品后發現，這些書面作品中到處都是美式英語、感嘆號和名人的名字。作文中越來越多地使用美式英語詞匯，如：garbage（垃圾）、trash can（垃圾桶）、sidewalk（人行道）、candy（糖果）、sneakers（運動鞋）、soda（蘇打水）、cranky（暴躁不安的）和flashlight（手電筒）。

這些作文是由7歲至13歲的小學生寫的，從中可見小學生們用“fairy cake”（仙女蛋糕）來指代“cupcake”（紙杯蛋糕），晚禮服的說法也從“tuxedo”變成了“dinner jacket”。“smart”取代英式英語“clever”，“cranky”取代“irritable”（易怒的）。

名人文化對兒童作文也有強大的影響力。“真人秀”評委西蒙·考威爾和阿根廷足球運動員里奧內爾·梅西都是反復出現的名人名字。

牛津大學出版社查看了英國廣播公司第二電臺舉辦的“500單詞”作文比賽的參賽作品后發現，小學生們在基本拼寫、標點和語法上很有問題。孩子們總是弄錯一些簡單的拼寫，如“does”和“clothes”；許多孩子不能準確使用過去時態，常常把“rose”拼成“rised”，把“thought”拼成“thinked”。

研究人員還發現，許多標點該用的時候沒有用，尤其是分號和引號。有些孩子不知如何應用大寫字母。然而，感嘆號卻被過度使用。據研究人員統計，濫用感嘆號的情況總共出現了35，171次，有些小作者一次用了5個感嘆號。

熱門美國作品，如關于吸血鬼的小說和電影，促使孩子們越來越多地使用美式英語詞匯和拼寫方法。

現代科技對英語也有影響。在這些作文中，“blackberry”一詞出現了近300次，其中近一半指的是黑莓手機。

Vocabulary

entry：參賽結果

refer to as：被稱為；被認為

crop up：突然出現

punctuation：標點符號的使用

stumble over：給……絆倒

semicolon：分號

vampire：吸血鬼

fuel：給……加油