Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, sometimes defined as the "educated spoken English of southeastern England." It is a dialect of English English often taught to non-native speakers, used as the standard for English in most books on general phonology and phonetics, and represented in the pronunciation schemes of most British dictionaries.
According to Fowler's Modern English Usage (1965), the term is "the Received Pronunciation." Earlier, Received Pronunciation was sometimes referred to as BBC English (as it was traditionally used by the BBC). This term remains in use today, though less frequently than in past decades, as many other accents are now to be heard on the BBC.
Many Britons abroad modify their accent to make their pronunciation closer to Received Pronunciation, in order to be better understood than if they were using their usual accent. They may also modify their vocabulary and grammar to be closer to Standard English, for the same reason. However in recent decades there has also been a counter tendency, with many people asserting the value of other regional and class accents, and many younger members of the groups which traditionally used Received Pronunciation moving away from it to varying degrees.
Changing status of Received Pronunciation
Traditionally, Received Pronunciation is the accent of English which is "the everyday speech of families of Southern English persons whose menfolk have been educated at the great public boarding schools" (Daniel Jones, English Pronouncing Dictionary, 1926—he had earlier called it "Public School Pronunciation"), and which conveys no information about that speaker's region of origin prior to attending the school. For many years, the use of Received Pronunciation was considered a mark of education. It was standard practice until around the 1950s for university students with regional accents to modify their speech to be closer to RP. As a result, at a time when only around five percent of the population attended universities, elitist notions sprang up around it and those who used it may have considered those who did not to be less educated than themselves.
There was some truth in this, as historically most of the best British educational institutions (Oxford, Cambridge, many public schools) were located in England, so those who were educated there would pick up the accents of their peers. There have always been exceptions: for example, the Edinburgh accent had a similar cachet.
However, from the 1970s onwards, attitudes towards Received Pronunciation have been slowly changing. One of the primary catalysts for this was the influence in the 1960s of Labour prime minister Harold Wilson. Unusually for a prime minister, he spoke with a strong Yorkshire accent, exaggerated, some said, to appeal to the working classes his party represented. As a result of the trend begun by Wilson and others in the 1960s, the accents of the English regions and of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are today more likely to be considered to be on a par with Received Pronunciation, which by the turn of the century was only spoken by around three percent of the population. BBC reporters no longer need to, and often do not, use Received Pronunciation.
The form of RP has itself changed over the past decades. Sound recordings and films from the first half of the 20th century demonstrate that it was standard to pronounce the /æ/ sound, as in land, with a vowel close to [ɛ], so that land could sound similar to lend. RP is sometimes known as the Queen's English, but recordings show that even the Queen has changed her pronunciation over the past 50 years, no longer using a [ɛ]-like vowel in words like land.
The ongoing spread of Estuary English from the London metropolitan area through the whole South-East leads some people to believe that this will take the place of Received Pronunciation as the "Standard English" of the future. There are, however, important factors that militate against this, including the perceived inferior status and alleged lower intelligibility of Estuary English, which is characterised by the dropping of consonants, and use of the glottal stop.
The closest equivalent in the United States is General American, although this is rhotic rather than non-rhotic. Until the post-World War II era, some American actors and announcers used the now defunct Mid-Atlantic accent, which has been completely supplanted by General American, and among newsreaders by the Standard Midwestern accent.
Phonology
Consonants
A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below
The phoneme /ʍ/ is present in the speech only of those people who have not undergone the wine-whine merger.
Vowels
The vowel phonemes of Received Pronunciation are shown in the following tables:
Examples: /ɪ/ in kit and mirror, /ʊ/ in foot and put, /ɛ/ in dress and merry, /ʌ/ in strut and curry, /æ/ in trap and marry, /ɒ/ in lot and orange, /ə/ in the second syllable of sofa.
Examples: /iː/ in fleece, /uː/ in goose, /ɜː/ in nurse and bird, /ɔː/ in north and thought, /ɑː/ in father and start.
| Diphthongs |
Second component close front |
Second component close back |
Second component central |
| First component close front |
|
|
ɪə |
| First component is mid-open front |
eɪ |
|
ɛə |
| First component is mid-central |
|
əʊ |
|
| First component is open |
aɪ |
aʊ |
|
| First component is back and rounded |
ɔɪ |
|
ʊə |
Examples: /ɪə/ in near and theatre, /eɪ/ in face, /ɛə/ in square and Mary, /əʊ/ in goat, /aɪ/ in price, /aʊ/ in mouth, /ɔɪ/ in choice, /ʊə/ in cure.
There are also the triphthongs /aɪə/ as in fire and /aʊə/ as in tower.
There are some variations in transcription. In particular
- /æ/ as in trap is often written /a/.
- /ɛ/ as in dress is often written /e/.
- /ɜː/ as in nurse is sometimes written /əː/.
- /aɪ/ as in price is sometimes written /ʌɪ/.
- /ɛə/ as in square is sometimes written /eə/, and is also sometimes treated as a long monophthong /ɛː/.
Characteristics
- RP is a non-rhotic accent, meaning /r/ does not occur unless followed immediately by a vowel.
- Unlike northern English English and most forms of American English, RP is a broad A accent, so words like bath and chance appear with /ɑː/ and not /æ/.
- The /t/ phoneme in words like butter is usually not flapped (as in most forms of American English) or realised as a glottal stop (as in some other forms of English English, including Cockney).
- Unlike many other varieties of English English, there is no h-dropping in words like head.
- RP does not have yod dropping after /n/, /t/ and /d/. Hence, for example, new, tune and dune are pronounced /njuː/, /tjuːn/ and /djuːn/ rather than /nuː/, /tuːn/ and /duːn/. This contrasts with many East Anglian and East Midland varieties of English English and with most forms of American English.
Historical variation
Some old-fashioned forms of RP have some variations in their phonology.
- Words like off, cloth, gone can be pronounced with /ɔː/ instead of /ɒ/. See lot-cloth split.
- The horse-hoarse merger may not have occurred, with an extra diphthong /ɔə/ appearing in words such as hoarse, force, mourning.
See also
