Limon Capaceta Adolfo Javier

Universidad Autnoma de Sinaloa

Language systems: phonetics & phonology
23 August 2017

Summary of Receive Pronunciation Video

The video explains the concept of Received Pronunciation (RP), and it presents
many points of view on the basis of different interviews done to some scholars or people
considered authorities towards pronunciation or accents.

RP is also known as the Queens English, and the reason is simple: it is associated
with upper class and all it conveys like power, prestige and privilege. RP also associated
with standardisation, and it is also used on the BBC transmissions or in dictionaries. John
Wells states that RP came at the end of 18th century and beginning of 19th. He thinks that
since before the train era, it was not easy to travel, hence, there were no conditions for
standards in pronunciation; however, the construction of railways allowed foreigner people
to come to England. On the other hand, public universities offered RP as a standard
pronunciation because they took pupils from different parts of the country. Spreading it out
all over the country.

In spite of RP is related to the English of England, Scots and Irish peoples speech
got influenced by RP; nevertheless, they did not accept RP as a standard accent. Although,
for example, Scots modified their speech towards English. According to Jack Aitken, these
changes occurred around the 17th century when the Scots speech suffered an adjustment,
and in the next century, Edinburgh (Scotland) welcomed talented people from England who
lived there. Furthermore, the Scottish aristocracy started to send their sons to public
universities and as it was mentioned before, at the time, universities took RP as a standard
accent. Thus, RP had a big influence on Scottish society.

Early RP may sound, nowadays, very updated. And as any other accent suffered
changed along with its history. Contemporary RP speakers had changed their speech by
modifying certain aspects of phonetics. Even the Queen has changed her speech along the
years. The video shows an old clip of the Queen in her time of child giving a speech in an
old-fashioned RP accent and then, the remarkable distinction or evolution of her accent
during her adulthood. One interesting example of these changes is the consonant sound l
which is a new feature that younger RP speakers brought to RP, the vocalization of the l
consonant avoids the w sound, turning into the ceasing of a stigmatised cockney
vulgarism and incorporated as a general pronunciation.

Another use for RP as a standard speech is on theatre. Students who go to drama

school are intended to use RP if they want to work in this field, even if it means to lose
their accents. Andrew Wale who is the head of voice at the Royal Shakespeare Company
(theatre company) argues that he conceives the majority authority figures in Shakespeare
production will speak in a variant of RP, Andrew explained that he conceives that the
majority of parts as they sound in RP but turning certain sounds to maybe old-fashioned
sound, as it was demonstrated when an actor was playing a passage of Oscar Wildes A
Woman of No Importance, and Mr Andrew corrected the actor by telling him about
phonetical differences. RP domination on theatre notwithstanding, some actors began to
challenge this. Some actors like Barrier Rutter refuse to lose their accents and believe that
there are certain words that sound more rhymical than in RP. In other cases, like the writer
Liz Lochhead, that is in the middle ground by switching RP to Scots aiming Scottish
speech also. Liz argues that the total use of RP promotes the cultural imperialism. Some
research on Scotland shows that they are changing their attitude towards RP, it still remains
its honourable perception as a prestige accent, but according to Jack Aitken, hostile since it
raised tackles and overawed.

Since there is a deep and more personal connection towards other people with
different accents, speakers are likely to leave aside certain peculiarities of their speech, and
take something that is more general.

Bibliography
BBC. (s.f.). The English Language Received Pronunciation 360. Obteined from YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pQnFOIixl0