A. RP (Received Pronunciation)

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 505.

It has long been believed that RP is a social marker, a pres­tige accent of an Englishman. In the nineteenth 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.

We may definitely state now that RP is a genuinely region-less 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 per cent of the population of England speak RP. British phoneticians (Ch. Barber

(44), A. C. Gimson (57), A. Hughes and P. Trudgill (61) estimate that nowadays RP is not homogeneous. A. C. Gimson suggests that it is convenient to distinguish three main types within it: "the conservative RP forms, used by the older generation, and, traditionally, by certain profession or social groups; the general RP forms, most commonly in use and typified by the pronuncia­tion adopted by the BBC, and 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" (57, p. 88).

This last type of RP reflects the tendencies typical of changes in pronunciation. It is the most "effected and exaggerated varie­ty" of the accent. Some of its features may be results of tempo­rary fashion, some are adopted as a norm and described in the latest textbooks. Therefore, it is very important for a teacher and learner of English to distinguish between the two. RP speakers make up a very small percentage of the English population. Many native speakers, 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 standard English pronunciation may be summarized as follows: Conservative RP; General RP; Advanced RP; Near-RP southern.