Global Journal of English Language Teaching

English is a global lingua franca, and American English (AmE) is its most widely used variety. Most aspects of 21st-century communication are shaped by AmE, making its mastery indispensable. Many learners, however, favor British English and its dictionaries, thereby studying AmE through a British lexicographical lens. This study investigated six popular British dictionaries to examine their representations of American pronunciation and the global implications. Using mixed methods framed in Chomsky’s Generative Phonology, Zgusta’s Metalexicography, and Kachru’s World Englishes, the study purposively analyzed dictionary screenshots, relevant tables, and graphical figures. Findings reveal that the Oxford Dictionary of English, which diverges most, uses vertical strokes (| |) instead of slashes (/ /) and capitalized digraphs in its respelling system; Collins Dictionary encloses phonemes in round brackets and marks stress with an underscore (_); the Cambridge Dictionary alone, which aligns most closely with General American (GA), uses GA symbols such as /t̬/ for the flapped /t/ and /ɚ/, /ɝː/ for rhoticized vowels; the Oxford English Dictionary uniquely uses the symbol /ɛ/ for the pet-vowel; and the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary represents the American goat-vowel with the British phoneme /əʊ/. Globally, these inconsistencies in transcriptional norms complicate teaching, affect communicative clarity, weaken standardization efforts, impact digital technologies, and shape sociolinguistic identities. The study recommends collaborative guidelines to harmonize conventions and urges educators to adopt reliable norms. Given the research gap, future studies may investigate how American dictionaries apply GA symbols in representing American English pronunciation and prosody.