National Pronunciation Standard in the UK is RP

(Received Pronunciation)

It has long been believed that RP is a social marker, a prestige accent of an Englishman. In the 19^th century “received” was understood in the sense of “accepted in the best society”. The speech of aristocracy and the court phonetically was that of the London area. Then it lost its local characteristics and was finally fixed as a ruling-class accent, often referred to as “King’s English”. It was also the accent taught at public schools. With the spread of education cultured people not belonging to the upper classes were eager to modify their accent in the direction of social standards.

Now RP is a genuinely regionless accent within Britain; i.e. if speakers have it you cannot tell which area of Britain they come from; which is not the case for any other type of British accents. It is fair to mention, however, that only 3-5 % of the population of English speak RP. British phoneticians (Ch. Barber, A.C.Gimson) estimate that nowadays RP is not homogeneous. A.C. Gimson suggests that it is convenient to distinguish three main types within it:

1. The conservative RP forms, used by the older generation, by certain profession or social groups;

2. The general RP forms, most commonly in use by the BBC;

3. The advanced RP forms, mainly used by young people of exclusive social groups – mostly of the upper classes, but also for prestige value, in certain professional circles.

 

This last type of RP reflects the tendencies typical of changes in pronunciation. Some of its features may be results of temporary fashion; some are adopted as a norm and described in the latest textbooks. Many native speakers of English, especially teachers of English and professors of colleges and universities (particularly from the South and South- East of England) have accents closely resembling RP but not identical to it. P.Trudgill and J.Hannah call it Near-RP southern. So various types of StandardEnglish pronunciation may be summarized as follows: Conservative RP, General RP, Advanced RP and Near-RP southern.

 

 

Changes in the Standard

As was stated above, changes in the standard may be traced in the speech of the younger generation of native RP speakers. These changes may affect all the features of articulation of vowel and consonant phonemes and also the prosodic system of the language. Considerable changes are observed in the sound system of the present-day English, which are the most remarkable since the well-known Great Vowel Shift in the Middle English period of the language development.

Changes of Vowel Quality

1. According to the stability of articulation.

1) historically long vowels [i:], [u:] have become diphthongized and are often called diphthongoids.

2) A tendency for some diphthongs to become shorter like pure vowels.

* [ei] in final position, where the glide is very slight: [tə` dei], [sei], [mei].

* [ai], [au] [ə]: Conservative RP: [tauə], [faiə]

General RP: [taə], [faə]

Advanced RP: [tɑ:], [fɑ:]

2. According to the horizontal and vertical movements of the tongue. The general tendency is marked by centering of both front and back vowels:

· the nuclei [ai], [au] tend to be more back;

· [æ] is often replaced by [ɒ] by younger speakers: [hæv] – [h ɒv], [ænd] – [ɒnd].

· [ou] is replaced by [əu]

Conservative RP:[sou], [foun], [nout];

General RP: [səu, [fəu], [nəut];

This tendency is so strong that the transcription symbol has been recently changed in many British books.

* [ʌ], [u] are considerably fronted in the Advanced RP: but [bʌt] – [bət], good

[gud] – [gəd].

Combinative changes.

· Сhanges in [j+u:], [l+u:]. Words like suit, student, super may be pronounced either [sju:t] or [su:t], [stju:dənt] or [stu:dnt], [sju:pə] or [su:pə]

· Changes of [ɔ:] to [ɒ] before [f, s, θ ] the pronunciation of the word loss

[lɔ:s] is replaced by [l ɒ s]. Words like salt and fault may be pronounced with [ɔ:].

4. Changes in length. There is a strong tendency for the so-called short vowels to be lengthened.

· the lengthening of [i] is often heard in big, his, is; of [u] in good; [ʌ] in come.

· [e, æ] are frequently lengthened in yes, bed, men, said, sad, bad.