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. 2018 May 25;13(5):e0197741.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0197741. eCollection 2018.

Mapping the Americanization of English in space and time

Bruno Gonçalves  1 , Lucía Loureiro-Porto  2 , José J Ramasco  3 , David Sánchez  3
Affiliations

Mapping the Americanization of English in space and time

Bruno Gonçalves et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

As global political preeminence gradually shifted from the United Kingdom to the United States, so did the capacity to culturally influence the rest of the world. In this work, we analyze how the world-wide varieties of written English are evolving. We study both the spatial and temporal variations of vocabulary and spelling of English using a large corpus of geolocated tweets and the Google Books datasets corresponding to books published in the US and the UK. The advantage of our approach is that we can address both standard written language (Google Books) and the more colloquial forms of microblogging messages (Twitter). We find that American English is the dominant form of English outside the UK and that its influence is felt even within the UK borders. Finally, we analyze how this trend has evolved over time and the impact that some cultural events have had in shaping it.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. English tweets.
A heatmap showing the location of geolocated English tweets in our dataset that match our keywords.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Vocabulary.
The polarization ratio of each cell around the world according to the vocabulary used within each cell. The inset barplot is an histogram of the number of cells as a function of the ratio.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Europe.
Side by side comparison of the vocabulary (left) and spelling (right) results for countries in continental Europe. The tension between British spelling and American vocabulary is clearly visible by the shift towards lighter shades of blue and darker shades of red between the left and the right plots.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Spelling.
The polarization of each cell around the world according to the spelling used within each cell. The inset barplot is an histogram of the number of cells as a function of the ratio observed.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Countries.
Vocabulary and spelling polarization ratio by country.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Americanization of English over time.
Averaged polarization ratio of vocabulary and spelling for books published by US and UK publishing companies in the 1800 − 2010 period.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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