Received pronunciation

More than 300 million people speak English as the first language. It’s the national language of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the greater part of Canada. Besides it’s native for many people who live in Malta, India, Israel. Though every national variant has some differences in pronunciation, lexics and grammar; they all have much in common, which gives us ground to speak of one and the same language.

National language is the language of a nation. Standard pronunciation is the pronunciation which is governed by the orthoepic norm. It’s the pronunciation of educated people. It’s used by radio and TV and what is more it’s recorded in pronunciation dictionary as the “correct” pronunciation. Language is a living body, so standards are not fixed, they undergo constant changes. Pronunciation is subjects to all kinds of innovations. Consequently some pronunciation forms which once were acceptable may become obsolete (устаревший) and vise-verse some “new fashions” in pronunciation maybe entered in the inventory of standard pronunciation.

often – [ fə n] and [ ftə n]

Every national variety of language falls into territorial or regional dialects. Dialects are distinguished from each other by differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. When we refer to variety only in pronunciation, we use the word accent.

Dialects may be geographical that is spoken by people living in certain areas. Differences may arrive from education, social surroundings, occupation – sociolinguistic dialects. They may be defined as varieties that are spoken by a social limited number of people, be characteristics of certain localities.

Pei said: “Like other local differences of food, dress, customs, dialects are often a nuisance. Yet they lend (придают) picturesque variety to languages, and variety is the spice of life”.

Normally, for certain reasons (political, social, cultural, economical), one of the local dialects becomes the standard language and its pronunciation becomes the national standard pronunciation. In the history of the English language in Great Britain dialects follow this similar pattern: in the 15^th century there were lots of regional dialects. This was basically the London form of south-east dialect. Yet in the course of time (с течением времени) it lost some of its local characteristics and was finally fixed as the speech of the educated class, aristocracy and the court. What’s more it was the pronunciation of people at public schools because it’s through these schools that the pronunciation, known as RP was perpetuated (увековечен).

RP (received pronunciation) is not the pronunciation of any region, it’s regionless. It’s considered to be a prestige accent of an Englishman. In the 19^th century the word “received” was understood in the sense of accepted in the best society. Today because of its use on radio and TV within Britain RP has become the social standard. Because great prestige is still attached to this accepted social standard. Thus RP is often identified with “BBC English”. It’s the form of pronunciation which is commonly described in the text books on phonetics; it is traditionally taught by foreigners. It would be wrong to think that RP is used by the entire population of Great Britain (повсеместно, всеми без исключения). It’s the accent of the minority (by only 3%) of the English population. Moreover, the present day RP is not homogeneous (однородный).

There are 3 types of RP:

1) The conservative RP (is used by older generation and by people of certain professions or certain social groups)

2) General RP (most commonly adopted (принимать) by the BBC)

3) The advanced RP (is used by young people and exclusive social groups for prestige value; besides it is used in certain profession circles)

The linguistic situation is changing due to the influence of communication, greater mobility, influence of films, pop-music from other English-speaking countries, especially the USA. Some members of the younger generation reject RP, because of its association with the “Establishment” (государственный аппарат).