History
RP has most in common with the dialects of South East Midlands, namely London, Oxford and Cambridge. By the end of the 15th century, "Standard English" was established in the City of London, though it did not begin to resemble RP until the late 19th century. The introduction of the term ''Received Pronunciation'' is usually credited to the British phonetician Daniel Jones. In the first edition of the ''Alternative names
Some linguists have used the term "RP" while expressing reservations about its suitability. The Cambridge-published ''English Pronouncing Dictionary'' (aimed at those learning English as a foreign language) uses the phrase "Sub-varieties
Faced with the difficulty of defining a single standard of RP, some researchers have tried to distinguish between sub-varieties: * proposed Conservative, General, and Advanced; "Conservative RP" referred to a traditional accent associated with older speakers with certain social backgrounds; General RP was considered neutral regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the speaker; and Advanced RP referred to speech of a younger generation of speakers. Later editions (e.g., Gimson 2008) use the terms General, Refined and Regional RP. In the latest revision of Gimson's book, the terms preferred are General British (GB), Conspicuous GB and Regional GB. * refers to "mainstream RP" and " U-RP"; he suggests that Gimson's categories of Conservative and Advanced RP referred to the U-RP of the old and young respectively. However, Wells stated, "It is difficult to separate stereotype from reality" with U-RP. Writing on his blog in February 2013, Wells wrote, "If only a very small percentage of English people speak RP, as Trudgill et al. claim, then the percentage speaking U-RP is vanishingly small" and "If I were redoing it today, I think I'd drop all mention of 'U-RP'". * Upton distinguishes between RP (which he equates with Wells's "mainstream RP"), Traditional RP (after Ramsaran 1990), and an even older version which he identifies with Cruttenden's "Refined RP". * An article on the website of theCharacteristics and status
Traditionally, Received Pronunciation has been associated with high social class. It was the "everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose men-folk adbeen educated at the great public boarding-schools" and which conveyed no information about that speaker's region of origin before attending the school. An 1891 teacher's handbook stated, “It is the business of educated people to speak so that no-one may be able to tell in what county their childhood was passed”. Nevertheless, in the 19th century some British prime ministers, such asUse
Media
In the early days of British broadcasting speakers of English origin almost universally used RP. The first director-general of theDictionaries
Most English dictionaries published in Britain (including theLanguage teaching
Pronunciation forms an essential component of language learning and teaching; a ''model accent'' is necessary for learners to aim at, and to act as a basis for description in textbooks and classroom materials. RP has been the traditional choice for teachers and learners ofPhonology
Consonants
Nasals andVowels
Examples of"Long" and "short" vowels
Many conventional descriptions of the RP vowel system group the non-diphthongal vowels into the categories "long" and "short". This should not be taken to mean that English has minimal pairs in which the only difference is vowel length. "Long" and "short" are convenient cover terms for a number of phonetic features. The long-short pairings shown above include also differences in vowel quality. The vowels called "long"Diphthongs and triphthongs
The centring diphthongs are gradually being eliminated in RP. The vowel (as in ''door'', ''boar'') had largely merged with by the Second World War, and the vowel (as in ''poor'', ''tour'') has more recently merged with as well among most speakers, although the sound is still found in conservative speakers, and in less common words such as ''boor''. See – merger. More recently has become a pure long vowel , as explained above. is increasingly pronounced as a monophthong , although without merging with any existing vowels. The diphthong is pronounced by some RP speakers in a noticeably different way when it occurs before , if that consonant is syllable-final and not followed by a vowel (the context in which is pronounced as a "dark l"). The realization of in this case begins with a more back, rounded and sometimes more open vowel quality; it may be transcribed as or . It is likely that the backness of the diphthong onset is the result ofBATH vowel
There are differing opinions as to whether in the BATHFrench words
John Wells has argued that, as educated British speakers often attempt to pronounce French names in a French way, there is a case for including (as in ''bon''), and and (as in ''vingt-et-un''), as marginal members of the RP vowel system. He also argues against including other French vowels on the grounds that not many British speakers succeed in distinguishing the vowels in ''bon'' and ''banc'', or in ''rue'' and ''roue''. However, the ''Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary'' draws a distinction between (there rendered as ) and the unrounded of ''banc'' for a total of four nasal vowels.Alternative notation
Not all reference sources use the same system of transcription.Historical variation
Like all accents, RP has changed with time. For example, sound recordings and films from the first half of the 20th century demonstrate that it was usual for speakers of RP to pronounce the sound, as in ''land'', with a vowel close to , so that ''land'' would sound similar to a present-day pronunciation of ''lend''. RP is sometimes known as the Queen's English, but recordings show that evenVowels and diphthongs
* Words such as , ''gone'', ''off'', ''often'', ''salt'' were pronounced with instead of , so that ''often'' and ''orphan'' wereConsonants
* For speakers of Received Pronunciation in the late 19th century, it was common for the consonant combination (as in ''which'', ''whistle'', ''whether'') to be realised as a voiceless labio-velar fricative (also transcribed ), as can still be heard in the 21st century in the speech of many speakers in Ireland, Scotland and parts of the US. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the phoneme has ceased to be a feature of RP, except in an exaggeratedly precise style of speaking ( the wine-whine merger). * There has been considerable growth inWord-specific changes
A number of cases can be identified where changes in the pronunciation of individual words, or small groups of words, have taken place. * The word ''Mass'' (referring to the religious ritual) was often pronounced /mɑːs/ in older versions of RP, but the word is now almost always /mæs/. * The indefinite article ''an'' was traditionally used before a sounded /h/ if immediately followed by an unstressed vowel, as in 'an hyaena.' This is now uncommon, especially in speech, and may be confined only to some of the more frequently used words, such as 'horrific' and 'historical.'Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (1989).Comparison with other varieties of English
* Like most other varieties of English outside Northern England, RP has undergone the ''foot''–''strut'' split (pairs ''nut''/''put'' differ). * RP is aSpoken specimen
The ''Phonemic Allophonic Orthographic The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveller came along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveller take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveller fold his cloak around him, and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shone out warmly, and immediately the traveller took off his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.
Notable speakers
The following people have been described as RP speakers: * The British Royal Family *See also
* Accents (psychology) *Notes and references
Bibliography
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