Received Pronunciation

When you go to your English class and listen to your teacher or to an audio record from the book, this accent is probably what you hear. Received Pronunciation (RP) is the closest to a standard accent in the UK and it is the accent which enjoys the highest prestige in England. Although it is said to be influenced by the English spoken in London, it is regionless i.e. not associated with any locality. Traditionally, RP has been associated to the middle and upper classes and until the 1970s BBC announcers were required to be RP speakers. That is why RP is also known as BBC English.

Some of its more important features are:

-   Non rhoticity (The r is not pronounced unless it is followed by a vowel or it is at the beginning of a word)  Eg: paper /ˈpeɪpə/ bird /bɜːd/

-    No h-dropping. That is, h is pronounced in words like horse or head.

-    No j-dropping.  /j/ is pronounced in words like tune /tjuːn/ or stupid /ˈstjuːpid/

-    FOOT/STRUT split.  Words that contained the short /u/ in Middle English are pronounced with the phoneme / ʊ / meanwhile others are pronounced with /ʌ /

-  RP has not undergone significant vowel shifts.  That’s why its vowels tend to be more conservative if we compare them with other varieties of English.

All these features may sound familiar you since this is the variety that you are used to.  

Exercises:

1. Do some research on RP and try to identify features not mentioned above. 

2. Watch the following video and try to identify at least 3 of the features described above. Give   examples.

If you have any doubt, any question or you want to know the answers of these exercises please contact me. 

For a more detailed discussion:

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/received-pronunciation/vowel-sounds-rp/

Hughes, A., Trudgill, P., & Watt, D. (2013). English accents and dialects: an introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles. Routledge.