What is Received Pronunciation?
Received Pronunciation, known as RP for short, is considered as a ‘typically British’ social accent. Often referred to as ‘The Queen’s English’, ‘Oxford English’ or ‘BBC English’, RP is not to be confused with a dialect which uses non-standard grammatical structures and geographically-limited vocabulary. RP does not reveal a person’s geographic background, as much as it hints about the social or educational heritage of the speaker. Many common dictionaries use this accent as the basis for standard phonemic transcriptions. (See IPA)
Pronunciation as an ATTITUDE
Daniel Jones, the famous phonetician, used RP for his book An English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917) and he defined it as ‘received’ instead of ‘accepted’. He also used the term ‘Public School Pronunciation’ to describe the accent of public schools and universities of nineteenth-century Britain. The book attempted to define a pronunciation model which was used in a common social class, namely educated people in southern England. In a short time, the upper classes, attending boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and graduating from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, propagated this accent throughout the south-east Midlands (London, Oxford and Cambridge). Another important step towards recognition of RP as a standard accent was taken in 1922 when RP was adopted as the broadcasting standard of the BBC. This practice prevailed at the BBC up to recent times.
Which ACCENT?
Like any other accent, RP has also changed over the course of time. The voices associated with early BBC broadcasts, for instance, may sound extremely old-fashioned to listeners today. Just as RP is constantly evolving, so our attitude about the accent is changing. In learning English as a second language, many students feel considerable pressure to conform their accents to RP. In fact, RP is widely studied, described and frequently preferred to other accents. However, since virtually every English accent is taught in some place on the planet, RP has lost it’s primacy as the ‘only’ acceptable accent. Paradoxically, younger British RP speakers often go to great lengths to disguise their middle-class accent by incorporating regional features into their speech.
Nowadays, only a small percentage of British speakers use RP but it has an important role as a model for teaching pronunciation of English as a foreign language. One should realize that RP is chosen not because of some intrinsic quality or attribute that places it above other English accents, but simply because it can be used more effectively as a familiar model. In my opinion, RP represents a sort of centre of the spoken sphere of English. Given this position, an English learner can more easily understand the other accents which form spin-offs of the easily recognizable RP model. I wouldn’t say that the model phonemes of RP are any more or less difficult to produce for the foreign learner than other accents. However, when a student learns to master the RP sounds, the student is in a better position to comprehend other accents of the English language.
Let me HEAR more!
You can listen to some example phrases for the most important lexical sets of Received Pronunciation – you might call them “Signature Sounds,” as Paul Meier does.
Another subject of interest is the lexical changes in a topographical region. For example, the UK has a rich landscape of regional accents and dialects, each evidence of our society’ s continuity and change. If you would like to explore the diversity of spoken English in the second half of the twentieth century you can visit a wonderful site called ‘Sounds Familiar?‘.
Anthony Lombardi
Director and Founder
VirtuAule English Language System
www.virtuaule.com