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Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent of British English regarded as the standard one, carrying the highest social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 20th century.Template:Sfnp<ref name=":0" /> It is also commonly referred to as the Queen's English or King's English. The study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation, while other features of standard British English, such as vocabulary, grammar, and style, are not considered.

Language scholars have long disagreed on RP's exact definition, how geographically neutral it is, how many speakers there are, the nature and classification of its sub-varieties, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard, how the accent has changed over time, and even its name.Template:Sfnp Furthermore, RP has changed to such a degree over the last century that many of its early 20th-century traditions of transcription and analysis have become outdated or are no longer considered evidence-based by linguists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Standard Southern British English (SSBE) is a label some linguists use for the variety that gradually evolved from RP in the late 20th century and replaced it as the commonplace standard variety of Southern England,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while others now simply use SSBE and RP as synonyms.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Still, the older traditions of RP analysis continue to be commonly taught and used, for instance in language education and comparative linguistics, and RP remains a popular umbrella term in British society.

History

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In the first edition of the British phonetician Daniel Jones's English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917), he named the accent "Public School Pronunciation"; for the second edition in 1926 he wrote: "In what follows I call it Received Pronunciation, for want of a better term".Template:Sfnp However, the term had been used much earlier by P. S. Du Ponceau in 1818Template:Sfnp and the Oxford English Dictionary cites quotations back to about 1710.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A similar term, received standard, was coined by Henry C. K. Wyld in 1927.Template:Sfnp The early phonetician Alexander John Ellis used both terms interchangeably, but with a much broader definition than Jones's, saying, "There is no such thing as a uniform educated pron. of English, and rp. and rs. is a variable quantity differing from individual to individual, although all its varieties are 'received', understood and mainly unnoticed".Template:Sfnp

Although a form of Standard English had been established in the City of London by the end of the 15th century, it did not begin to resemble RP until the late 19th century.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp RP has most in common with the dialects of what has been termed the South East Midlands, in particular the Golden Triangle of universities, namely London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the public schools that fed them, such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby.<ref name='Robinson'>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1922, the BBC selected RP as its broadcasting standard, citing its being widely understood globally as a reason.<ref name='Robinson' />

According to Fowler's Modern English Usage (1965), "the correct term is 'the Received Pronunciation'. The word 'received' conveys its original meaning of 'accepted' or 'approved', as in 'received wisdom'."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Alternative names

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Some linguists have used the term "RP" while expressing reservations about its suitability.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp The Cambridge-published English Pronouncing Dictionary (aimed at those learning English as a foreign language) uses the phrase "BBC Pronunciation", on the basis that the name "Received Pronunciation" is "archaic" and that BBC News presenters no longer suggest high social class and privilege to their listeners.Template:Sfnp Other writers have also used the name "BBC Pronunciation".Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp The term 'The Queen's English' has also been used by some writers.<ref name='Robinson'/>

The phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis frequently criticised the name "Received Pronunciation" in his blog: he has called it "invidious",<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a "ridiculously archaic, parochial and question-begging term"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and noted that American scholars find the term "quite curious".<ref name=jwl>Template:Cite web</ref> He used the term "General British" (to parallel "General American") in his 1970s publication of A Concise Pronouncing Dictionary of American and British English<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and in subsequent publications.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The name "General British" is adopted in the latest revision of Gimson's Pronunciation of English.Template:Sfnp Beverley Collins and Inger Mees use the term "Non-Regional Pronunciation" for what is often otherwise called RP, and reserve the term "Received Pronunciation" for the "upper-class speech of the twentieth century".Template:Sfnp Received Pronunciation has sometimes been called "Oxford English", as it used to be the accent of most members of the University of Oxford.<ref name='Robinson'/> The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association uses the name "Standard Southern British". Page 4 reads:

Template:Blockquote

Sub-varieties

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Faced with the difficulty of defining a single standard of RP, some researchers have tried to distinguish between sub-varieties:

  • Template:Harvtxt 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.Template:Sfnp 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.Template:Sfnp
  • Template:Harvtxt 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.Template:Sfnp 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'".<ref>"exotic spices", John Wells's phonetic blog, 28 February 2013</ref>
  • 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".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • An article on the website of the British Library refers to Conservative, Mainstream and Contemporary RP.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Prevalence and perceptions

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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 [had] been educated at the great public boarding-schools"Template:Sfnp 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".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Nevertheless, in the 19th century some British prime ministers, such as William Ewart Gladstone, still spoke with some regional features.<ref>Gladstone's speech was the subject of a book The Best English. A claim for the superiority of Received Standard EnglishTemplate:Dead link, together with notes on Mr. Gladstone's pronunciation, H.C. Kennedy, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1934.</ref>

Opinions differ over the proportion of Britons who speak RP. Trudgill estimated 3% in 1974,<ref name="trudgillestimate">Template:Cite web</ref> but that rough estimate has been questioned by J. Windsor Lewis.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Upton notes higher estimates of 5% (Romaine, 2000) and 10% (Wells, 1982) but refers to these as "guesstimates" not based on robust research.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The claim that RP is non-regional is disputed, since it is most commonly found in London and the southeast of England. It is defined in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the South of England",Template:Sfnp and alternative names such as "Standard Southern British" have been used.Template:Sfnp Despite RP's historic high social prestige in Britain,Template:Sfnp being seen as the accent of those with power, money, and influence, it may be perceived negatively by some as being associated with undeserved, or accidental, privilege<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfnp and as a symbol of the southeast's political power in Britain.Template:Sfnp Based on a 1997 survey, Jane Stuart-Smith wrote, "RP has little status in Glasgow, and is regarded with hostility in some quarters".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A 2007 survey found that residents of Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to dislike RP.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It is shunned by some with left-wing political views, who may be proud of having accents more typical of the working classes.Template:Sfnp

Since the Second World War, and increasingly since the 1960s, a wider acceptance of regional English varieties has taken hold in education and public life.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Nonetheless, surveys from 1969 to 2022 consistently show that RP is perceived as the most prestigious accent of English in the United Kingdom. In 2022, 25% of British adults reported being mocked for their regional accent at work, and 46% in social situations.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>

Use

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Media

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In the early days of British broadcasting, speakers of English origin almost universally used RP. The first director-general of the BBC, Lord Reith, encouraged the use of a 'BBC accent' because it was a "style or quality of English which would not be laughed at in any part of the country". He distinguished the BBC accent from the 'Oxford accent', to which he was "vehemently opposed".<ref>Template:Citation</ref> In 1926 the BBC established an Advisory Committee on Spoken English with distinguished experts, including Daniel Jones, to advise on the correct pronunciation and other aspects of broadcast language. The Committee proved unsuccessful and was dissolved after the Second World War.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> While the BBC did advise its speakers on pronunciation, there was never a formalised official BBC pronunciation standard.<ref>Sangster, Catherine, 'The BBC, its Pronunciation Unit and 'BBC English' in Roach, P., Setter, J. and Esling, J. (eds) Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing Dictionary, 4th Edition, Cambridge University Press, pp. xxviii-xxix</ref> A notable departure from the use of RP came with the Yorkshire-born newsreader Wilfred Pickles during the Second World War; his accent allowing listeners to more clearly distinguish BBC broadcasts from German propaganda, though Pickles had modified his accent to be closer to RP.<ref>Discussed in Template:Harvtxt, but even then Pickles modified his speech towards RP when reading the news.</ref><ref>Zoe Thornton, The Pickles Experiment – a Yorkshire man reading the news, Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society 2012, pp. 4–19.</ref> Since the Second World War RP has played a much smaller role in broadcast speech. RP remains the accent most often heard in the speech of announcers and newsreaders on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, and in some TV channels, but non-RP accents are now more widely encountered.<ref> Template:Cite book </ref>

Dictionaries

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Most English dictionaries published in Britain (including the Oxford English Dictionary) now give phonetically transcribed RP pronunciations for all words. Pronunciation dictionaries represent a special class of dictionary giving a wide range of possible pronunciations: British pronunciation dictionaries are all based on RP, though not necessarily using that name. Daniel Jones transcribed RP pronunciations of words and names in the English Pronouncing Dictionary. Cambridge University Press continues to publish this title, as of 1997 edited by Peter Roach. Two other pronunciation dictionaries are in common use: the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary,Template:Sfnp compiled by John C. Wells (using the name "Received Pronunciation"), and Clive Upton's Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English,Template:Sfnp (now republished as The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Language teaching

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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 of British English.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, the choice of pronunciation model is difficult, and the adoption of RP is in many ways problematic.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfnp

Phonology

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Consonants

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Consonant phonemesTemplate:Sfnp
Labial Dental Alveolar Post-
alveolar 		Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Stop Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Affricate Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Fricative Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Approximant Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link

Nasals and liquids (Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA) may be syllabic in unstressed syllables.Template:Sfnp The consonant Template:IPA in RP is generally a postalveolar approximant,Template:Sfnp which would normally be expressed with the sign Template:IPA in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but the sign Template:IPA is nonetheless traditionally used for RP in most of the literature on the topic.

Voiceless plosives (Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA) are aspirated at the beginning of a syllable, unless a completely unstressed vowel follows. (For example, the Template:IPA is aspirated in "impasse", with primary stress on "-passe", but not "compass", where "-pass" has no stress.) Aspiration does not occur when Template:IPA precedes in the same syllable, as in "spot" or "stop". When a sonorant Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or Template:IPA follows, this aspiration is indicated by partial devoicing of the sonorant.Template:Sfnp Template:IPA is a fricative when devoiced.Template:Sfnp

Syllable final Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA may be either preceded by a glottal stop (glottal reinforcement) or, in the case of Template:IPA, fully replaced by a glottal stop, especially before a syllabic nasal (bitten Template:IPA).Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp The glottal stop may be realised as creaky voice; thus, an alternative phonetic transcription of attempt Template:IPA could be Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp

As in other varieties of English, voiced plosives (Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA) are partly or even fully devoiced at utterance boundaries or adjacent to voiceless consonants. The voicing distinction between voiced and voiceless sounds is reinforced by a number of other differences, with the result that the two of consonants can clearly be distinguished even in the presence of devoicing of voiced sounds:

  • Aspiration of voiceless consonants syllable-initially
  • Glottal reinforcement of /p, t, k, tʃ/ syllable-finally
  • Shortening of vowels before voiceless consonants

As a result, some authors prefer to use the terms fortis and lenis<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> in place of voiceless and voiced. However, the latter are traditional and in more frequent usage.

The voiced dental fricative (Template:IPA) is more often a weak dental plosive; the sequence Template:IPA is often realised as Template:IPA (a long dental nasal).Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Template:IPA has velarised allophone (Template:IPA) in the syllable rhyme.Template:Sfnp Template:IPA becomes voiced (Template:IPA) between voiced sounds.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Vowels

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File:RP English monophthongs chart.svg
Monophthongs of a fairly conservative variety of RP. From Template:Harvtxt
File:Modern General British monophthong chart.svg
Monophthongs of a modern variety of RP. Adapted from Template:Harvtxt
File:Ranges of RP and GA English weak vowels.svg
Ranges of the weak vowels in RP and GA. From Template:Harvtxt
File:RP English allophones on a vowel chart.svg
Allophones of some RP monophthongs, from Template:Harvcoltxt. The red ones occur before dark Template:IPA,<ref>Template:Harvcoltxt</ref> and the blue one occurs before velars.<ref>Template:Harvcoltxt</ref>
Monophthongs ("Short")
Front Central Back
Template:Small Template:Small
Close Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Mid Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Open Template:IPA link

Examples of short vowels: Template:IPA in kit, mirror and rabbit, Template:IPA in foot and cook, Template:IPA in dress and merry, Template:IPA in strut and curry, Template:IPA in trap and marry, Template:IPA in lot and orange, Template:IPA in ago and sofa.

Monophthongs ("Long")
Front Central Back
Close Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Mid Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Open Template:IPA link

Examples of long vowels: Template:IPA in fleece, Template:IPA in goose, Template:IPA in bear, Template:IPA in nurse and furry, Template:IPA in north, force and thought, Template:IPA in father and start.

The long mid front vowel Template:IPA is elsewhere transcribed with the traditional symbols Template:Angbr IPA. The predominant realisation in contemporary RP is monophthongal.Template:Sfnp

"Long" and "short" vowels

[edit]

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 RP 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" high vowels in RP Template:IPA and Template:IPA are slightly diphthongized, and are often narrowly transcribed in phonetic literature as diphthongs Template:IPA and Template:IPA.Template:SfnpTemplate:Efn The starting point of the diphthongal Template:IPA can be either close to Template:IPA or a more centralised and even unrounded Template:IPA, and its narrow transcriptions could be either Template:IPA or Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp

Vowels may be phonologically long or short (i.e. belong to the long or the short group of vowel phonemes) but their length is influenced by their context: in particular, they are shortened if a voiceless (fortis) consonant follows in the syllable, so that, for example, the vowel in bat Template:IPA is shorter than the vowel in bad Template:IPA. The process is known as pre-fortis clipping. Thus phonologically short vowels in one context can be phonetically longer than phonologically long vowels in another context.Template:Sfnp For example, the vowel called "long" Template:IPA in reach Template:IPA (which ends with a voiceless consonant) may be shorter than the vowel called "short" Template:IPA in the word ridge Template:IPA (which ends with a voiced consonant). Wiik,Template:Sfnp cited in Template:Harvcol, published durations of English vowels with a mean value of 172 ms for short vowels before voiced consonants but a mean value of 165 ms for long vowels preceding voiceless consonants.Template:Sfnp

In natural speech, the plosives Template:IPA and Template:IPA often have no audible release utterance-finally, and voiced consonants are partly or completely devoiced (as in Template:IPA); thus the perceptual distinction between pairs of words such as bad and bat, or seed and seat rests mostly on vowel length (though the presence or absence of glottal reinforcement provides an additional cue).Template:Sfnp

Unstressed vowels are both shorter and more centralised than stressed ones. In unstressed syllables occurring before vowels and in final position, contrasts between long and short high vowels are neutralised and short Template:IPA and Template:IPA occur (e.g. happy Template:IPA, throughout Template:IPA).Template:Sfnp The neutralisation is common throughout many English dialects, though the phonetic realisation of e.g. Template:IPA rather than Template:IPA (a phenomenon called happy-tensing) is not as universal.

According to phonetician Jane Setter, the typical pronunciation of the short variant of Template:IPA is a weakly rounded near-close near-back rounded vowel Template:IPAblink.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Diphthongs and triphthongs

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File:RP English diphthongs chart.svg
Diphthongs of RP. From Template:Harvtxt
File:Cruttenden closing diphthongs.svg
Closing diphthongs of RP (with the diphthongal realisations of Template:IPA and Template:IPA). Adapted from Template:Harvtxt
File:Cruttenden centring diphthongs.svg
Centring diphthongs of RP. Adapted from Template:Harvtxt
Diphthong Example
Closing
Template:IPA Template:Audio Template:IPA bay
Template:IPA Template:Audio Template:IPA buy
Template:IPA Template:Audio Template:IPA boy
Template:IPA Template:Audio Template:IPA beau
Template:IPA Template:IPA bough
Centring
Template:IPA Template:Audio Template:IPA beer
Template:IPA Template:IPA boor

The centring diphthongs are gradually being eliminated in RP. The vowel Template:IPA (as in door, boar) had largely merged with Template:IPA by the Second World War, and the vowel Template:IPA (as in poor, tour) has more recently merged with Template:IPA as well among most speakers,Template:Sfnp although the sound Template:IPA is still found in conservative speakers, and in less common words such as boor. See [[Cure–force merger|Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2 merger]]. More recently Template:IPA has become a pure long vowel Template:IPA, as explained above. Template:IPA is increasingly pronounced as a monophthong Template:IPA, although without merging with any existing vowels.Template:Sfnp

The diphthong Template:IPA is pronounced by some RP speakers in a noticeably different way when it occurs before Template:IPA, if that consonant is syllable-final and not followed by a vowel (the context in which Template:IPA is pronounced as a "dark l"). The realisation of Template:IPA in this case begins with a more back, rounded and sometimes more open vowel quality; it may be transcribed as Template:IPA or Template:IPA. It is likely that the backness of the diphthong onset is the result of allophonic variation caused by the raising of the back of the tongue for the Template:IPA. If the speaker has "l-vocalization" the Template:IPA is realised as a back rounded vowel, which again is likely to cause backing and rounding in a preceding vowel as coarticulation effects. This phenomenon has been discussed in several blogs by John C. Wells.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the recording included in this article the phrase "fold his cloak" contains examples of the Template:IPA diphthong in the two different contexts. The onset of the pre-Template:IPA diphthong in "fold" is slightly more back and rounded than that in "cloak".

RP also possesses the triphthongs Template:IPA as in tire, Template:IPA as in tower, Template:IPA as in lower, Template:IPA as in layer and Template:IPA as in loyal. There are different possible realisations of these items: in slow, careful speech they may be pronounced as two syllables with three distinct vowel qualities in succession, or as a monosyllabic triphthong. In more casual speech the middle vowel may be considerably reduced, by a process known as smoothing, and in an extreme form of this process the triphthong may even be reduced to a single long vowel.Template:Sfnp In such a case the difference between Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA in tower, tire, and tar may be neutralised with all three units realised as Template:IPA or Template:IPA. This type of smoothing is known as the tower–tire, tower–tar and tire–tar mergers.

TriphthongsTemplate:Sfnp
As two syllables Triphthong Loss of mid-element Further simplified as Example
Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA tire
Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA tower
Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA lower
Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA layer
Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA Template:IPA loyal

BATH vowel

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Template:See also There are differing opinions as to whether Template:IPA in the BATH lexical set can be considered RP. The pronunciations with Template:IPA are invariably accepted as RP.Template:Sfnp The English Pronouncing Dictionary does not admit Template:IPA in BATH words and the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary lists them with a § marker of non-RP status.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> John Wells wrote in a blog entry on 16 March 2012 that when growing up in the north of England he used Template:IPA in "bath" and "glass", and considers this the only acceptable phoneme in RP.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Others have argued that Template:IPA is too categorical in the north of England to be excluded. Clive Upton believes that Template:IPA in these words must be considered within RP and has called the opposing view "south-centric".Template:Sfnp Upton's Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English gives both variants for BATH words. A. F. Gupta's survey of mostly middle-class students found that Template:IPA was used by almost everyone who was from clearly north of the isogloss for BATH words. She wrote, "There is no justification for the claims by Wells and Mugglestone that this is a sociolinguistic variable in the north, though it is a sociolinguistic variable on the areas on the border [the isogloss between north and south]".Template:Sfnp In a study of speech in West Yorkshire, K. M. Petyt wrote that "the amount of Template:IPA usage is too low to correlate meaningfully with the usual factors", having found only two speakers (both having attended boarding schools in the south) who consistently used Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp

Jack Windsor Lewis has noted that the Oxford Dictionary's position has changed several times on whether to include short Template:IPA within its prescribed pronunciation.<ref>Point 18 in Template:Cite web</ref> The BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names uses only Template:IPA, but its author, Graham Pointon, has stated on his blog that he finds both variants to be acceptable in place names.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Some research has concluded that many people in the North of England have a dislike of the Template:IPA vowel in BATH words. A. F. Gupta wrote, "Many of the northerners were noticeably hostile to Template:IPA, describing it as 'comical', 'snobbish', 'pompous' or even 'for morons'."Template:Sfnp On the subject, K. M. Petyt wrote that several respondents "positively said that they did not prefer the long-vowel form or that they really detested it or even that it was incorrect".Template:Sfnp Mark Newbrook has assigned this phenomenon the name "conscious rejection", and has cited the Template:Sc2 vowel as "the main instance of conscious rejection of RP" in his research in West Wirral.Template:Sfnp

French words

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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 Template:IPA (as in Template:Lang), and Template:IPA and Template:IPA (as in Template:Lang), as marginal members of the RP vowel system.Template:Sfnp He also argues against including other French vowels on the grounds that not many British speakers succeed in distinguishing the vowels in Template:Lang and Template:Lang, or in Template:Lang and Template:Lang.Template:Sfnp However, the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary draws a distinction between Template:IPA (there rendered as Template:IPA) and the unrounded Template:IPA of Template:Lang for a total of four nasal vowels.Template:Sfnp

Alternative notations

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Not all reference sources use the same system of transcription. Clive Upton devised a modified system for the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993), changing five symbols from the traditional Gimson system, and this is now used in many other Oxford University Press dictionaries; the differences are shown in the table below.

Upton's reform
Example word Traditional symbol Upton's reform symbol
dress Template:IPA Template:IPA
trap Template:IPA Template:IPA
nurse Template:IPA Template:IPA
square Template:IPA Template:IPA
price Template:IPA Template:IPA

Linguist Geoff Lindsey has argued that the system of transcription for RP has become outdated and has proposed a new system (which he calls Standard Southern British, or SSB) as a replacement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Lindsey's system is as follows—differences between it and standard transcription are depicted with the traditional transcription in parentheses.

Lindsey's monophthongs and diphthongs
Short Long (triggering r-liaison) +j diphthong +w diphthong
Template:IPA (æ) Template:IPA Template:IPA (aɪ) Template:IPA (aʊ)
Template:IPA (e) Template:IPA (ɛə) Template:IPA (eɪ)
Template:IPA Template:IPA (ɪə) Template:IPA (iː)
Template:IPA (ɒ) Template:IPA (ɔː) Template:IPA (ɔɪ)
Template:IPA (ʊ) Template:IPA (ʊə) Template:IPA (uː)
Template:IPA Template:IPA (ɜː) Template:IPA (əʊ)
Template:IPA

Historical variation

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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 Template:IPA sound, as in land, with a vowel close to Template:IPA, 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 even Queen Elizabeth II shifted her pronunciation over the course of her reign, ceasing to use an Template:IPA-like vowel in words like land.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The change in RP may be observed in the home of "BBC English". The BBC accent of the 1950s is distinctly different from today's: a news report from the 1950s is recognisable as such, and a mock-1950s BBC voice is used for comic effect in programmes wishing to satirise 1950s social attitudes such as the Harry Enfield Show and its "Mr. Cholmondley-Warner" sketches.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref><ref name="Robinson, Jonnie 2019" />

File:RP vowel movement.png
A comparison of the formant values of Template:IPA for older (black) and younger (light blue) RP speakers. From Template:Harvtxt

A few illustrative examples of changes in RP during the 20th century and early 21st are given below. A more comprehensive list (using the name "General British" in place of "RP") is given in Gimson's Pronunciation of English.Template:Sfnp

Vowels and diphthongs

[edit]
Keyword Older RP Traditional

RP

Modern

RP

commA ə
lettER
TRAP æ a
BATH ɑ̟ː
PALM
START
LOT ɒ ɔ
CLOTH ɔː o̞ː
THOUGHT o̞ː
NORTH
FORCE (ɔə~)ɔː
STRUT ʌ̈ ɐ ɐ~ʌ̈~ɑ̈
FOOT ʊ ɵ
GOOSE uː ʊu̟ ʊ̈ʉ~ɪ̈ɨ
CURE ʊə o̞ː
DRESS e̞ ɛ
KIT ɪ ɪ̞
happY ɪi
FLEECE iː ɪi
NEAR ɪə ɪə~ɪː
NURSE əː~ɜː
FACE e̞ɪ ɛɪ
SQUARE ɛə ɛː
GOAT ö̞ʊ əʊ əʉ
PRICE aɪ äɪ ɑ̟ɪ
MOUTH äʊ ɑ̟ʊ aʊ
CHOICE ɔɪ ɔ̝ɪ oɪ

Consonants

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  • For speakers of Received Pronunciation in the late 19th century, it was common for the consonant combination Template:Angbr (as in which, whistle, whether) to be realised as a voiceless labio-velar fricative Template:IPA (also transcribed Template:IPA), 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 Template:IPA phoneme has ceased to be a feature of RP, except in an exaggeratedly precise style of speaking (the wine-whine merger).Template:Sfnp
  • There has been considerable growth in glottalisation in RP, most commonly in the form of glottal reinforcement. This has been noted by writers on RP since quite early in the 20th century.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Ward notes pronunciations such as [njuːʔtrəl] for neutral and [reʔkləs] for reckless. Glottalization of /tʃ/ is widespread in present-day RP when at the end of a stressed syllable, as in butcher [bʊʔtʃə].<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • The realisation of /r/ as a tap or flap [ɾ] has largely disappeared from RP, though it can be heard in films and broadcasts from the first half of the 20th century. The word very was frequently pronounced [veɾɪ]. The same sound, however, is sometimes pronounced as an allophone of /t/ when it occurs intervocalically after a stressed syllable – the "flapped /t/" that is familiar in American English. Phonetically, this sounds more like /d/, and this pronunciation is sometimes known as /t/-voicing.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Word-specific changes

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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.'<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.'<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="simpson">Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (Second ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Comparison with other varieties of English

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Spoken specimen

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Template:Listen

The Journal of the International Phonetic Association regularly publishes "Illustrations of the IPA" which present an outline of the phonetics of a particular language or accent. It is usual to base the description on a recording of the traditional story of the North Wind and the Sun. There is an IPA illustration of British English (Received Pronunciation).

The female speaker is described as having been born in 1953 and educated at Oxford University. To accompany the recording there are three transcriptions: orthographic, phonemic and allophonic.

Phonemic

Template:IPA

Allophonic

Template:IPA

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.Template:Sfnp

Notable speakers

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File:Sir David Attenborough BBC Radio4 Desert Island Discs 29 Jan 2012 b01b8yy0.flac
David Attenborough's voice
File:Gyles Brandreth BBC Radio4 Desert Island Discs 14 January 2011 b00x8f2l.flac
Gyles Brandreth's voice
File:Stephen Fry voice.flac
Stephen Fry's voice

The following people have been described as RP speakers:

See also

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Notes

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Template:Notelist

References

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Template:Reflist

Bibliography

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Template:Refbegin

Template:Refend

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Sources of regular comment on RP

Audio files

Template:English dialects by continent Template:Language phonologies

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