Talk:Received Pronunciation/Archive 3

Gird Gerd!
This is what I want to see included. At the very least, I want someone in the know to explain it. What has happened to "oo"? Not "oo" as in "Coo!" (like pigeons doo) but "oo" as in "could, should and would".

"Wood" seems to have retained its "oo"ishness, but for some extraordinary reason "good" has become "gird".... as in the exclamations "Oh, gird!" and "Very gird!" and even "Gird Gerd!" when greatly surprised.

Strangely, I have only heard females do this!

If this trend continues, we will soon be hearing "I word if I curd, but perhaps I sherdn't!"

Do you think that what is done in the kitchen will become "kerking"? And what one does with ones eyes will become "lurking"?

I shall watch this space to see if someone can appropriately include this on the page.

Amandajm (talk) 16:48, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Very interesting.  it  is indeed a contemporary  form of British  English  that  seems to  be creeping  in among  the younger generations. In  fact  when I  discuss it, I use the example for book  which  then rhymes with  beurk !


 * Gurk! How Ghastly! I have heard that as well. Amandajm (talk) 13:03, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

/r/
Should probably have a section on the status of linking vs intrusive ar in RP, and how that may vary with age. — kwami (talk) 12:20, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know about a section dedicated to just /r/, but there's no mention of phonotactics in the article. We can either put that information in the consonants section or add another.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  18:00, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Was it not originally trilled (like in most foreign languages)? I know from old recordings it tends to be trilled, and even now among some people, it may be trilled on certain words to add emphasis. Evlekis (Евлекис) 11:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I really don't think linking/intrusive R does vary with age. No doubt the very first generation of R-droppers in the 18th century lacked intrusive R, because for them there was still an underlying /r/ phoneme that had a zero realization rule when non-prevocalic.  But all the sources I've seen indicate that this was soon replaced in later generations by a generalized R-insertion rule (and loss of the /r/ phoneme except nonprevocalically).
 * There is the special case of intrusive/linking R after NORTH/THOUGHT (e.g. "draw-ring" for drawing). This seems to be a relatively recent (20th-century) development which was a delayed consequence of the horse/hoarse merger.  Before the horse/hoarse merger, the large majority of words with word-final /ɔ:/ belonged with THOUGHT, so the merged NORTH-THOUGHT set lacked both linking and intrusive R.  After the horse/hoarse merger, these were outweighed by FORCE words that used to end in /ɔə/, and had always had linking R.  So the entire merged NORTH/THOUGHT/FORCE set swang over to having both linking and intrusive R.
 * It's possible that people who grew up within the lifetime of elders who still retained the horse/hoarse merger (e.g. Wells, who reports this in his own speech) retained the distinction for an extra generation, having linking R in FORCE words, but having neither linking nor intrusive R in NORTH/THOUGHT words. I doubt that anyone born after World War II has this distinction.  And again, it's not a linking vs. intrusive R distinction, but a NORTH-THOUGHT vs. FORCE distinction.  Grover cleveland (talk) 16:35, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Minor change
In the first sentence I changed the word accent to dialect. The term accent refers to a foreign language influence, where as any variation within one language is a dialect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.168.253.184 (talk) 02:07, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * See Accent (linguistics). — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  02:15, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * And Oxford American Dictionary.--Kudpung (talk) 02:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

"Received"
Can someone add an explanation of the term "Received"? What makes this pronunciation a "received" one? —Largo Plazo (talk) 10:59, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Text explaining this was accidentally removed a while back in the process of reverting vandalism. I think I've fixed it now.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  16:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Repeat Plea for Non-IPA Speakers...
As with a lone small voice heard way, way above, I find this article not particularly valuable: I confess, I am a non-IPA(International Phonetic Alphabet)-speaker. I do have an advanced degree, American, 43, and I love to learn. However, I have never "had" to learn it, (I suspect most Americans older than I have not) and frankly, learning IPA is not the highest thing on my priority list. Its use essentially makes this article unreadable for a lot of people, which does not seem consistent with Wikipedia's purpose. And I like to read - I don't think it should have to have an audio file to be useful. Thanks. Peacedance (talk) 03:06, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What would you like to see instead? Grover cleveland (talk) 06:51, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand your difficulty, Peacedance, but asking that an article about pronunciation not use IPA is like asking an article about general relativity to not use math. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  16:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's use is probably not  so  widespread in  the USA, but  in  Europe for example where we have 100s of languages and 1000's of regional accents in  an area even smaller, it's use is indispensable for language learners and linguists. Kudpung (talk) 13:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Queen's English
Why is RP equated with the "Queen's English"?

The Queen's English has nothing to do with pronunciation. It's to do with speaking or writing English according to generally accepted rules, clearly and correctly, using a generally understood vocabulary. It is of course the English of the UK (and other places for which reference to the Queen is relevant). To say this does not disparage other styles of English. Why should anyone else want to use the Queen's English?

Nor is there any reason why RP should be used only in relation to the English of the UK. Any place that uses English can have a received pronunciation.

JeanMich (talk) 09:17, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * See the thread above at How can BBC English and Queen's English both be classed as RP? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:00, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The thread above does not make the point sufficiently strongly. 'Queen's English' means correct use of grammar etc. Nothing to do with pronunciation at all. Taking it to mean 'the way the Queen speaks' is as mistakenly over-literal as thinking 'the Queen's Highway' means the gravel path up to Sandringham.Grumpypierre (talk) 12:04, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

is RP Prestige accent in Wales?
I don't have access to the referenced source but having Welsh relatives I would be surprised if it is generally held to be prestigious. They perceive it negatively and associate it with Englishness and snobiness. Also the use of RP in Wales seems to be contradicted by this abstract http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2729424, though again I don't have access to the full source. I have therefore marked this as dubious. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It might be important to point out here that the source is over 30 years old. Perhaps we can find a more recent one.  Here is the relevant quote: "In particular, there are many different ways of pronouncing Standard English (i.e. different 'accents'), one of which is particularly prestigious in England and Wales, namely 'Received Pronunciation' ('RP')." — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  17:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that a later source would be useful. I think that the best thing at present is to leave this conversation in place and hope someone finds one. -- Q Chris (talk) 21:26, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

HILARIOUS. I lived in Wales for several years, have an RP accent and lost count of the number of times someone has wanted to knock my head off for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.82.51.28 (talk) 21:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Whether that means that RP is a prestige accent in Wales depends on whether "having your head knocked off" refers to Welsh men literally or Welsh women figuratively. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This also happens in much of the north of England, and you can get treated with suspicion for having an RP accent anywhere if you're dealing with someone with staunch left-wing views. The problem is that the vast majority of the linguistic literature says that people admire RP.  You and I know that that's not true, but Wikipedia has to follow the academic sources.  Epa101 (talk) 20:20, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I know the literature pretty well, but I can't think of a single work that says that people admire RP. Can you cite any? RoachPeter (talk) 09:02, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have, however, added some text on scholars who retain the concept of RP but reject the name. If you were to say "I speak Received Pronunciation" nowadays, everyone would presume that you were a member of the Monday Club.  Some scholars have realised this, but they just use a different name to describe the same thing.  Epa101 (talk) 11:02, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

"Admire" was a poor choice of word by me. To illustrate the sort of thing that I meant, here is a passage from the (excellent) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. "In England and Wales, RP is widely regarded as a model for correct pronunciation, especially for educated formal speech." (3rd edition, page xix) As much as I respect Professor Wells, I cannot accept this sentence. It suggests a respect for RP beyond that accorded to it in modern Britain. However, I sometimes find that the same sentiments are there in other writers even if the name "Received Pronunciation" is not used. Jack Windsor Lewis may harp on about how he doesn't like the name, but then he calls some speech "sophisticated" and others "demotic" or "unsophisticated". I don't see how he's improving terminology: example 1, example 2, Blog 025: example 3, Blog 299 example 4. Actually, I don't mind your EPD description of BBC English at all. Well done on it! Epa101 (talk) 20:55, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to add that many of my comments on this talk page were written years ago, when I thought that I knew a lot more than I did. Many of my comments on this page are quite embarrassing now. Epa101 (talk) 21:16, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

RP with regional accent
I'm a little confused by the article which implies speaking RP requires no regional accent and that RP is only really spoken in England and Wales. I've always understood RP to be something other than an accent, and that it is possible to speak RP with a regional lilt. The best example I can think of is the BBC Radio 4 announcer Kathy Clugston, whose accent is identifiably Northern Irish. I would have said she speaks RP, with a slight Northern Irish accent. Am I completely wrong? Is the way she speaks not considered RP at all? Similarly, living in Edinburgh, a large number of people from the middle and upper classes here speak what I have always considered RP whilst still sounding identifiably Scottish92.236.117.111 (talk) 16:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
 * RP is an accent of Standard English, and not a dialect per se; thus the name "Received Pronunciation" and not, say, "Received Dialect". Although I have never heard Kathy Clugston speak, it sounds like she speaks Standard English with a regional accent. Yeah? Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 21:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It is possible for one's pronunciations to be all RP but intonation to be different. The BBC announcer Annita McVeigh has some Northern Irish influence on her intonation.  I'd say that the best example of this would be the legion of European immigrants who have been taught RP but still give away their origins by their intonation.  Intonation doesn't get studied nearly as much as pronunciation in linguistics, so that's probably the reason why it's not mentioned.  It's not easy to put intonation patterns into words.  Epa101 (talk) 16:11, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it would be correct to describe such speakers as having a regional accent with considerable RP influence (or vice versa). Grover cleveland (talk) 19:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above, but I feel it would be clearer to say that if you are speaking with a regional accent, you are not speaking RP. The suggestion that there could be something like a "Northern RP" or a "Welsh RP" doesn't make sense to me, unless the whole concept was redefined. RoachPeter (talk) 10:14, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

There is NO standard!
"Received Pronunciation (RP) is the standard accent of Standard English in Great Britain". RP is the accent of a tiny minority of the UK's popullation. the UK has no language academy and English is not even legally the officla language let alone RP being some kind of standard. So RP has no legal status and is vastly ountnumbered by reggional varioation (many of which are far old and ar more consrvation forms). Thus the statement in the articel is patently untrue. It's the phonology that is used in dictionaries, that's as far as being "satndard" goes. 94.197.127.204 (talk) 11:02, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * See Standard language. There doesn't have to be a language academy or even de jure official status for an accent to be considered standard.  A standard accent also doesn't have to be widely spoken.  — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  14:17, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Then quite what you are describing isn't a standard it's a an accennt given prestige by social attitides in soemparts of teh popullation. It certainly is NOT considered to be "standard" in either descrpitve or applied linguistics. Though in applied linguistics it may be favoured for ESL as it regionless (though it is often nonsensical when regional accents are closer to teh L1 phonology.
 * RP may usually concord with S. English, but by no stretch of the imagination is standard English spoken by a majority of RP speakers. Again, the statement is utter falsehood by anything but the most uninformed/bigotted stretch of the imagination. 94.197.127.85 (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh and you seem to be unaware that RP is not a language (the sentence says "the standard accent of Standard English"), it's not even a dialect, it is an accent (and one that is usually only found in a tiny proportion of the population. 94.197.127.85 (talk) 16:06, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Let's keep the discussion polite! I think that you have a decent point.  You might've said at one point that RP was the standard accent of the BBC, but that is not the case any more.  I'm not even sure if it's standard in the public schools any more.  Perhaps the sentence should read, "The standard accent for EFL when students are being taught British English."  Epa101 (talk) 16:26, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * That was me being polite! :-) I think it tends to be regarded as an APPROPRIATE system in TEFL/TESOL in some schools by some teachers, but American variations can also be found very often too- and doubtlessly Australian, Irish and Canadian too. So, I think any absolute and unqualified statements about RP's status are very misleading indeed and tend to reflect an attitude that denigrates the accents of the vast majority of L1 speakers. There is no credible source that is going to claim it represents any kind of standard (even within L1 RP there are regional variations from school to school anyway)94.197.127.25 (talk) 16:37, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Please be sure to use proper indentation. It's a hassle for other editors to have to either fix your comments or figure out who is responding to whom.  Also look at WP:CIVIL, impolitenesses such as implying that other editors are bigoted is frowned upon at Wikipedia.
 * Anyway, you have made the claim that a standard language must be considered "standard" by descriptive linguists. However, just as your claim that standardization requires a standardizing body or official status, this is also false.  Descriptive linguists are not even generally in the business of articulating which variety is standard and which is not.  It also may be false that such linguists don't consider it standard, though I'd have to take another look at phonological works on English to be sure.
 * When we focus more on sociolinguists, you would be hard pressed to find a scholar who does not consider RP to be a standard accent. prestige variety and standard variety often go hand-in-hand, and this is not an exception to that.
 * Now, if your concern is that calling RP the standard accent "denigrates the accents of the vast majority of L1 speakers" (which I'm not sure is even true), then I'd say we work on addressing the issue of neutrally describing prestige, not by covering it up. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  22:44, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If you want to *self*-idenitfy as a bigot, that's your own stuff, not mine. I only said that the bigotry was implicit from the statement- big difference.
 * Again RP is not a language, it's a social class accent, so your point is irrelevant. Okay, provide your references that sociolinguist consider any accent in English to be standard! I'd challenge that you can't and that you are actually just making this up for some obtuse unfathomable reason. Considering that standard English is spoken in regional variations already there isn't even any requirement for code switching let alone any requirement for anyone affording RP a "standard" status. The majority of S. Enflish speakers are not RP speakers= fact. To afford RP (the accent of the elite) a higer status than the more prevelanet variations in the absence of any need for a standard (unlike say German) then you have see the social class dimension to that attitude being the chief motive (outside of TEFL/TESOL). 92.40.253.66 (talk) 22:57, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh and what does WP:CVIL say about putting your words in someone else's mouth? Apart from accusing me of accusing you of being a bigot, you are now claiming taht I am claiming something as absurd as a language needing an academy to be standardised. Although that can often be the case, it's certainly not co-requisite. And just because prestige may sometimes concord with standarisation, doesn't mean to say that apllies to this case. I'm not sure whether your Englsih skills aren't good enough to follow me or there is some other reason for you to be unable to respond to the points I am actually making, but no ground will be covered if you respond to something I haven't raised. 92.40.253.66 (talk) 23:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And to knock this absurdity on the head finally. Here:
 * "Connected with this is the exception referred to above. In BrE, one type of pronunciation comes close to enjoying the status of'standard': it is the accentassociated with the English public schools, ' Received Pronunciation' or 'RP\ Becausethis has traditionally been transmitted through a private education system based upon 23 boarding schools insulated from the locality in which they happen to be situated, it isimportantly non-regional, and this - together with the obvious prestige that the socialimportance of its speakers has conferred on it - has been one of its strengths as alingua franca. But RP no longer has the unique authority it had in the first half of thetwentieth century. It is now only one of the accents commonly used on the BBC andtakes its place along with others which carry the unmistakable mark of regional origin- not least, an Australian or North American or Caribbean origin. Thus the rule that aspecific type of pronunciation is relatively unimportant seems to be in the process of losing the notable exception that RP has constituted" Prof Emiritus Randolph Quirk
 * http://www.scribd.com/doc/36879171/A-Grammar-of-Contemporary-English
 * "SE is spoken in a variety of accents (inclusing of course any prestige accent a country may have such as Received Pronunciation" David Crystal
 * http://www.davidcrystal.com/DC_articles/English54.pdf
 * Read Trudgill on RP: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/trudgill.htm
 * So there you have three heavy-weight well-respected L1 English scholars of English linguistics saying that RP is not standard!
 * This interesting papaer touches upon the evolution of notions that RP is somehow standard: ::::::http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/kerswill/pkpubs/Kerswill2006RPStandardEnglish.pdf
 * 92.40.253.66 (talk) 23:37, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * So there’s no ambiguity about you saying what:
 * "the UK has no language academy and English is not even legally the officla language let alone RP being some kind of standard."
 * "RP has no legal status and is vastly ountnumbered by reggional varioation (many of which are far old and ar more consrvation forms). Thus the statement in the articel is patently untrue."
 * The implication in these statements is that a variety must be an official language, have a language academy, and must be spoken by a large number of speakers. This is all false.  If you are not trying to make the case that these are necessary attributes of a standard variety, then I don’t understand why you’ve brought them up.
 * "what you are describing isn't a standard it's a an accennt given prestige by social attitides in soemparts of teh popullation."
 * RP is an example where a prestige variety is a standard variety.
 * "Again, the statement is utter falsehood by anything but the most uninformed/bigotted stretch of the imagination"
 * This is an impolite accusation against other editors who have included the statement in question or who agree with its inclusion. If you are not attempting to browbeat other editors into your position by referring to the statement's adherents as bigots, then you should reconsider your rhetorical strategies, because that’s exactly what you seem to be doing with this statement.  Trying to weasel your way out of this implication is disingenuous.  Please comment on content, not on contributers.
 * "I'm not sure whether your Englsih skills aren't good enough to follow me"
 * Really, you should take a close look at WP:CIVIL. A comment like that is a bit of stone throwing anyway, don't you think?
 * "Again RP is not a language."
 * You'll need to explain to me why this is important. RP doesn't need to be a language to be a standard accent of standard English.
 * As far as quotes, I was merely speculating. Since you asked, I can take a look.  — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  23:42, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If you're making the case that RP is not a standard accent, then none of what you've provided backs you up. It's actually kind of hard to find an explicit claim one way or the other.  Here are some quotes that I've found:
 * Trudgill (linked to above): "like standard dialects, RP is a standard accent which has undergone, albeit implicitly rather than explicitly, codification."
 * John Wells: "The accent in question is sometimes popularly referred to as 'BBC English' or even 'Standard English’... it is generally taken as a standard throughout southern Britain (i.e. in England and perhaps Wales, but not in Scotland)." (Wells, Accents of English 1982, p. 117)
 * In this review (2001): "LESLEY MILROY writes that in Britain standardization is associated with class, the prestige variety being Received Pronunciation."
 * In this (2001) article, the author defines RP as "'standard’ English English"
 * In this (1986) review: "Besides the general linguist, the dialectologist will find something of interest here: the position of low status dialects in Britain has much in common with that of minority languages, and school is a prime example of an environment where the dominant Standard English/Received Pronunciation works against the interests of both non-standard speakers and those from a non-English linguistic background."
 * In this (1987) review: "The late A. C. Gimson has sought in Chapter 3 to redefine the concept of the RP accent. The old definitions are out of date mainly because they insist on tying it in with an archaic social class structure involving a privileged education. We need, he says, a new definition of RP as a standard detached from social and educational criteria and described purely in phonetic and phonological terms."
 * In this (1998) article: "Gradually, RP became to some extent a standardized pronunciation, though many experts now disagree about how extensive this was."
 * In addition, this (1989) article also seems to mix the distinction between prestige and standard in gauging participant attitudes, though there aren't any clearly illustrative quotes. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 00:49, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think these messages from the person who is so upset about the "standard accent" label for Received Pronunciation are the result of a misunderstanding. When we describe RP as a standard accent, it doesn't mean that the accent is the "proper way to speak", or "the way that people ought to speak". It's simply that those of us who work in English language teaching, dictionary publishing and other "applied" areas need to choose some accent to work with. If every time we time we were talking about how something is pronounced in English we had to run through, say, 25 different accents to satisfy everyone who thinks their accent is the most important, we would never get anywhere. The historical reason for RP being chosen as the "base" accent is that the people who wrote the first course-books on English pronunciation spoke with this accent, and found it easiest to describe their own accent. But nobody, really NOBODY in phonetics actually thinks that RP is superior to other accents. We use it simply for convenience, and all textbooks make this clear. Incidentally, the reason why I will not use the term 'Received Pronunciation' in my own writing is because so many people take "Received" in the wrong way and think it means "correct" or "superior". Finally, a note to the person writing these messages - please could you use a spell-checker? RoachPeter (talk) 08:42, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Those are good points. One further problem is that - in my experience - people seem to use the term "Received Pronunciation" in somewhat different ways. Some seem to use it roughly as a synonym to "Standard British English" - whatever that may turn out to be. Others seem to use it more exclusively for those more conservative forms of British English, that perhaps used to be regarded as the educated norm or "standard", but which today would appear rather old-fashioned. 1700-talet (talk) 11:13, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Really, a serious an non-sarcastic question. Are your English reading skills up to reading those papers, because Trudgill is obviously referring to SE as Standard English English and even if he weren't (which he most certainly is to anyone who knows his work) the point he is making is that English English is not British English.

I already pointed out that the notion of "standard" is most prevalent in TEFL, which if you read the trudgill article he addresses why that idea is such a bad idea too. RP is REGARDED by some teachers in some schools as standard but this is by no means universal and the staement in the WP article does not even reflect the TEFL context and certainly does not caveat the proposition in any way.

It sounds to me like you have a lot of personal investment in the idea that RP is considered a standard. I can only assume you have some kind of motive for holding onto something which is patently and (see above for some of the most respected opinions in the field) demonstrably wrong. You also seem to be oblvious to teh fact that RP is an L1 not L2 entity in its own right taht has a context beyond EFL and has a different role to British L1 English speakers (i.e. a clear social identity).

I can sit happily witha statement along the lines of: " There are some prevailing attitudes that RP should be considered "standard" phonology of SE but current thinking tends to reflect complex problems with that unfounded assumption. In TEFL many schools and teacherzs adopt RP as a model phonology for many reasons amongst which is the prestige of this accent, it's regionlessness and that British English dictionaries and teaching materials often use RP in their IPA descriptions. However there is much controversy about appropriateness of such a socially significant accents being taught, that the phonology can be more difficult than need be comapared so some regional varieties that are closer to the learner's L1, and the practicality that most native teachers will not be using RP when they speak and EFL setting can comprise teachers with many divergent accents."

All those statements can be sourced through Trudgill, Crystal and Quirk and countless others.

That in *my* world of "applied" is a far more accurate and honest picture of the role of RP in EFL. Simply stating "RP is the standard accent of SE" is *woefully* misleading.

94.197.127.113 (talk) 12:12, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You obviously have very strong feelings about this subject, but I honestly can't make any sense of what you are trying to say. I hope at least that you now feel you have got it off your chest. RoachPeter (talk) 19:24, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * To the contributor with no Wikipedia login:
 * I feel that many of your points are already covered in the article. It states that the majority of British people do not speak RP.  It states that some people dislike RP.  It states that definitions of RP vary.  (Btw not everyone sees RP as regionless.  For example, Newbrook's research on Merseyside speech in Urban Voices found that many people in Merseyside saw RP as very much southern.)  You seem to accept that RP is used in EFL.  I am aware that not all EFL teaching revolves around British English.  However, when it does, the pronunciation taught is RP.  I speak with a Yorkshire accent, yet I have never met a foreigner who has been taught Yorkshire pronunciation.  Even common English traits such as H-dropping can be confused to foreigners.  You have proposed a passage to insert into the article.  You need to provide specific references for this to be acceptable.  It's not acceptable to ask us to read all of Trudgill, Crystal and Quirk.  From what I've read of Trudgill, he seems comfortable with the notion of RP.  In this article, he says that he does not speak RP but he's happy for it to be used in EFL.  You need to convince me that his work supports your view.  Epa101 (talk) 20:44, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Two simple points: RP again is not an L2 entity in isoloation. This statement has nothing to me that indicates it's representing a(n overgeneralsied!) position RE: ESL/TEFL "Received Pronunciation (RP) is the standard accent of Standard English in Great Britain, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms.[1]"

Again, as the statement stands from an L1 POV the stentence is clearly wrong.

Secondly, the phonology may be taught in many TEFL, but it doesn't follow that it is considered "standard", again in many settings American phonology will be the choice. Again the statement fails to reflect that. 94.197.127.214 (talk) 22:15, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Ideological bias
I've put the content of the opening paragraph into perspective as it pertains to ideological bias and included cites of calls for the media to return to RP due to confusion and a lack of understanding from audiences, funny considering RP was introduced to prevent just those problems :-) Twobells (talk) 19:20, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And I reverted. I am sorry if you interpreted the old text as biased but your version sounded not only more biased but based on local politics that are not relevant to the article and not necessarily of interest to a reader of the page. As an American reading the original text, I assumed the use of "conservative" in that context was in the linguistic sense, i.e. less liable to change. I certainly didn't see it as a comment about members of the upper-case "C" Conservative Party. And the reaction of non-English speakers of English to RP is often exactly as described in the article regardless of  political affiliation. It is not at all political (except perhaps in one small part of the world). And I suspect the reliability of your source as it clearly is not a neutral publication and, as a non-British native  English speaker, in my experience quite inaccurate in this case. The various dialects in the UK are generally understandable by us in the US (and presumably by other non-British speakers of English), with occasional exceptions. Even Scots, which is technically a different language, is quite understandable to me. Further, there is a global trend to be more cognizant of minority languages and dialects and to effect preservation of these; from a global perspective the BBC's move away from RP is not merely an esthetic improvement but is also consistent with global trends. Admittedly, the various dialects probably do pose a challenge to the many people who have English as a second language. However, while quite relevant to this article this is not really the emphasis of your edits, and one would be hard pressed to find reliable sources for this topic without resorting to original research. Dave  (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 00:24, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Treatment of /r/
Today there has been another edit changing the symbol r to ɹ for the 'r' phoneme symbol, and I found that this phoneme had been assigned to the Alveolar column in the chart of RP consonant phonemes. I have changed the symbols to r and moved the phoneme to the post-alveolar column. I just wanted to check that most people are happy that the /r/ symbol should be used here for denoting the phoneme, and [ɹ] used for discussing its phonetic characteristics. RoachPeter (talk) 09:23, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I am. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  15:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I believe that's standard practice. Victor Yus (talk) 21:12, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * There's still the phoneme "/ɹ/" when talking about aspiration: "When a sonorant /l/, /ɹ/, /w/, or /j/ follows...". Maybe it should be changed to '/r/' for consistency. ─ JustTonio (talk) 16:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've now changed it RoachPeter (talk) 08:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Places of articulation of /j/ and /w/
As far as I know, /j/ is palatal, and /w/ velar (and labial). However, the article says that /j/ is velar and /w/ glottal. Do you agree? JustTonio (talk) 11:43, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * . I guess somebody goofed. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:31, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

First two sections
I had a read of the History and Usage sections, and two things occurred to me.

History: I believe that the term "received" as a label for pronunciation was first used in John Walker's pronunciation dictionary in 1774. This is cited on page 1902 in English Historical Linguistics, Volume 2. Should this be mentioned in this section? I have never seen a copy of Walker's dictionary. It might describe a variety that is too far removed from the RP of Daniel Jones for the two to be considered the same thing.

Usage: The sentence In the 19th century, there were still British prime ministers who spoke with some regional features, such as William Ewart Gladstone. seems out on a limb. The reference is an obscure source that may not be reliable. Gladstone's speech was not Jonesian RP, but it might've been the RP at the time that AJ Ellis referred to it. I'm not sure how developed the concept of RP was before the 20th century. Does anyone have any ideas? I think that this statement should either be fleshed out with more details about 19th century RP or be deleted. Epa101 (talk) 20:30, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Specimen of RP - advice needed
This article makes some references to my "Illustration of the IPA" for British English (RP) published in JIPA in 2004. I have the recording on which this piece was based and have scanned the two transcriptions I did (phonemic and narrow phonetic). I would be glad to add this material to the WP article if that was thought useful, but I don't have the necessary technical skills to insert recordings and scanned images, and I'm not sure what would be the appropriate way (or place) to edit this material into the WP article. I'd be glad of advice or offers of help. RoachPeter (talk) 18:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The first step is to upload your recordings and images to Wikimedia Commons (instead of to commons.Wikipedia, so that other WP’s can use them too). The UploadWizard will guide you through the process. Only the following file formats are allowed: png, gif, jpg, jpeg, tiff, tif, xcf, mid, ogg, ogv, svg, djvu, oga, flac, wav, webm — for audio files I recommend conversion to ogg format. Images need not be reduced in size (Wikipedia will do this for you) and png format is generally better that the “lossy” jpg format. If you need help with licensing read this page; other help pages are indexed here. A suitable category to add your files to is Received Pronunciation.
 * The next step is to add your material to the WP article. If you have an IPA transcription for your audio files you can use the template or a similar template that is linked from there. For the images see Wikipedia’s picture tutorial. —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:43, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * A suitable place might be an entirely new section “Specimen of Received Pronunciation” (or similar) above or below the “Notable speakers” section. —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:06, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

'Happy' vowel
Looking at the paragraph on close unstressed vowels, I find that I can't understand what the last sentence means: "The neutralisation is common throughout many English dialects, though the phonetic realisation of e.g. [i] rather than [ɪ] (a phenomenon called happy-tensing) is not as universal." Does it need clarifying, or is it just me? RoachPeter (talk) 17:07, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Introduction - needs work
The first sentence (2/25/2013 ~1800 GMT ) begins: "Received Pronunciation (RP) is the standard accent ..."

-=-

The third paragraph goes on: "It is important not to confuse the notion of Received Pronunciation, as a standard accent, with the standard variety of the English language used in England that is given names such as "Standard English", "the Queen's English", "Oxford English" or "BBC English". The study of RP is concerned exclusively with pronunciation, while study of the standard language is also concerned with matters such as grammar, vocabulary and style."

-=- ??? ---

Either this is using an entire paragraph to make the (entirely obvious) point that accent is not grammar, vocabulary or style or I am missing something. Why would anyone confuse accent with grammar? Would it not be better to be direct (and simple)and explain what accent is and explain its part in a language? Shouldn't "Standard English", "the Queen's English", "Oxford English" and "BBC English" have their own articles if they are worthy of use as references here?

-=-

If it is felt necessary for the U.K. audience to include clarification, how about something like this: "Language accent is the spoken sound of words and not other aspects of language such as grammar, vocabulary, or style." { Should mention be made of dialect? How about inflection (as in questions, exclamations, etc.), cadence {and tonality of} phrases - such as Irish lilt??{sorry if this is just ignorance on my part} } Also, the inclusion of some fact based statement about the occuranced of accents (along with links to dialect and language and studies thereof): All languages with large and geographically distributed populations of speakers have a variety of accents.[ or some such...sociologically separate?]  I believe that this introduction is less useful than it should be for the general audience.72.172.1.86 (talk) 17:19, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The point may be obvious to you, but it is an important distinction to make so that people don't get the impression that we're ignoring non-pronunciation features of RP. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  01:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * In response to the question "Why would anyone confuse accent with grammar?", I should point out that until recently the introduction to this article used to do just that, equating RP with "The Queen's English" or "Standard English", so I put the paragraph in to correct this. There are so many misconceptions and prejudices about RP and other accents with prestige issues that it is essential to be clear about the basic principles of the description. I really wouldn't want to add an extra piece about accents and dialects, though, as this is well documented elsewhere. RoachPeter (talk) 09:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I feel that, although it should not be necessary, it "is" necessary. There is massive confusion, certainly in the UK, about the distinction and I believe that it is well worth ramming the point home.Cooke (talk) 14:19, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I find it strange that there is a citation from 1965 stating that RP is the standard accent of the United Kingdom and suggest the reference be replaced by the OED's far more accurate "the standard of the South of England". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.13.246.232 (talk) 10:16, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Rhoticity
Is RP really a non-rhotic accent? The archetypal AP-speaker, to me, is Patric Stewart, and I haven't noticed him dropping his r's ("Meet me on the bridge, Mista Rika"?). Sure, RP isn't as strongly rhotic as Westcountry, for example, but it doesn't actually drop its r's completely, does it?. Iapetus (talk) 16:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * RP itself evolves over time and despite what you  might  read on  Wikipedia and elsewhere, there are in  fact  distinct  versions  of non-regional accents which  can be loosely  categorised as RP. It  often requires an expert ear to  hear  these differences. The RP (or RPs) used by the younger generations today  appear to  be distinctly  non  rhotic; if a R is stressed, it is usually  only  done  for effect or affect. But  these are my  opinions and nothing  that  will  probably  bear sourcing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Patrick Stewart is non-rhotic when he's speaking naturally. I don't think that RP has ever been described as rhotic.  Epa101 (talk) 19:50, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Since Patrick Stewart hails from Mirfield I don't believe that I have ever heard him speaking naturally! -- Q Chris (talk) 07:52, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Surely a non-rhotic accent is just one in which the 'r' is not sounded in a word like 'cart' - that is, after a vowel and before a consonant - or in a word like 'prayer' when it is not followed by a word beginning with a vowel.  RP is definitely non-rhotic in this sense.  No-one that I know has ever suggested that the 'r' is dropped in a word like 'bridge', where it is followed by a vowel.  And I don't know of any British accent in which the 'r' is dropped in such a word, except as an individual speech defect. Even in the case of speech defects, by people who have difficulty in pronouncing 'r', an attempt is made to substitute something close to it, usually something between 'r' and 'w'.86.168.138.78 (talk) 14:48, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

New table of vowels added
I'm sorry to be critical of the table of vowels that was inserted recently, because clearly a lot of work has gone into it.However, I feel quite unhappy about this table and its relation to the rest of the article. To start with, the references to Bekker (2008) and Lass (2002) don't seem to show up in the references, so I can't check how much of this has actually come from published sources. As a general point, it seems to me that the vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs were pretty well covered already; this new material in some ways duplicates what we already had, and in other cases actually contradicts it. I can't see why diaphonemes have to be invoked - they are used by WP for pan-dialectal transcriptions, but here we are dealing with a single accent with a widely agreed set of phonemes. Then we have the division into "Traditional, General and Advanced RP", terms which don't fit with what is said about supposed sub-varieties of RP in this article. I suppose I should suspend judgement about the accuracy of the symbolization until I get to see the published sources, but on the face of it it seems odd to give the HAPPY vowel a (phonetic) half-length diacritic; I feel very dubious about the transcription of "Advanced" FACE as [ɛɪ̯]. Why is the symbol <ɛ> used when elsewhere we use ? Why two separate lines for 'kick' and 'sit', when the vowels seem to be the same? What does the symbol <~> indicate when it appears between two vowels in the same box? Why is the NURSE vowel transcribed with a final /r/ when RP is a non-rhotic accent? Likewise, why add /r/ to /ə/-final diphthongs when this is not done elsewhere in this article? I hope other editors with an interest in this topic will say whether they are in agreement with the inclusion of this chart. RoachPeter (talk) 08:35, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Further to the above - looking at the article 'International Chart for English Dialects' helps to understand where the above material comes from. The two missing references are in the references for that article, and both seem to be about South African pronunciation. The stuff about diaphonemes, and the overall table format, seem to have been copied from that article. I am inclined to remove the chart from the RP article. The person who wrote it, who has only just signed up for WP, doesn't have a User Page and I don't think they are going to respond to the issues I raised above. RoachPeter (talk) 09:19, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have removed the chart, but if the author wants to work on it so that it harmonizes with the rest of the article I would be happy to help. RoachPeter (talk) 15:33, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

New table
I have given a new table just I hope somebody will not remove this at least this time as it has been improved since the last time when it was given. Gairike (talk • contribs) 05:05, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I really am not trying to persecute you, but I am still not happy about this table. Your first effort said it was based on the work of Bakker (2008) and Lass (2002), both of which are works on South African English. Now you say it is based on Wells (2007), but you give no details for this reference so I can't check it. You still label the list of symbols "Diaphonemes", which is completely out of line with the rest of the article, and some of the symbols you use (e.g. ɛ for the GET vowel, ɜr for NURSE, etc.) would not have been used by Wells. I don't know how much of the detail in the allophones for the three varieties of RP you describe are genuinely taken from relevant published sources - it is going to take me a long time to check - but if they aren't, your work counts as Original Research, which is not allowed in Wikipedia. We really need some input here from a Wikipedia expert who knows what to do when there is a difference of opinion. I will not remove it until we get some adjudication. RoachPeter (talk) 11:52, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

RP in Scotland/Wales/Ireland
The article seems to imply that RP is only used in England, or even specific to Southern England (though it discusses variant forms in Northern England), but I think accents very similar to RP are not unknown in Scotland and Wales among the upper social classes. (I do not know much about Ireland, but the 'Anglo-Irish' classes, in both North and South, in general seem to use RP.) In Scotland it is notorious that the aristocracy speak with an 'English' accent, supposedly as a result of an education in English boarding schools,  but the practice seems to be somewhat more widespread, extending at least into sections of the 'upper middle' classes. Maybe someone with more knowledge of the subject could cover this?86.152.29.101 (talk) 16:09, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Example of pronunciation
I'm rather sorry that this title was changed. Calling it "Example of pronunciation" sounds very vague to me. Could we get round this by calling it "Example of RP" (thus avoiding repeating the article title)? RoachPeter (talk) 09:43, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I noticed that in the 'spoken specimen' even the rather posh and Oxford educated speaker drops one of her H's!109.150.7.193 (talk) 19:37, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

BBC
Interesting article. I respect that it must be a challenge to put all of these subtle differences in sound into a print article.

I get most of my news from National Public Radio. Many of their reporters are Brits. I've long noticed that a subset of those reporters pronounce proper names in a way that's at odds, not just with American pronunciation but with many other Brits. Although it seems to have decreased over time, several of these folks have pronounced the American President's name as "Barrick Obamma" (sounds like "barracks," rhymes with "Alabama"). I've heard news stories on the the American tech company as "Hewlett puh-CARD," and heard FDR's middle name given as "duh-LAH-noe." I understand that accents and other linguistic elements can vary from country to country, even neighborhood to neighborhood, but it has perplexed me to see that the BBC has style guides advising its reporters on the preferable pronunciation of the names of American Presidents, especially given that the two cultures share so much linguistically. "Barrick Obamma" sounds as goofy to me as I'm sure "Queen Elly-Zah-bith" would to a Brit. I'm curious as to whether the source of such dramatic variations might come, at least in part, from Received Pronunciation. PurpleChez (talk) 17:48, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Vowel chart
Shouldn't we add a table which shows the difference in vowel realization between Contemporary RP and Traditional RP the way Upton (2004, see https://books.google.it/books?id=EeXI43AwwiEC&pg=PA241&dq=received+pronunciation+upton&hl=it&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX7IaU-JvSAhVCvBQKHSXmAKoQ6AEIVzAI#v=onepage&q&f=false) and Pearce (2007) do, using lexical sets? This would allow for a better representation of the current state of the accent and the former standard. Meyerbeer 91 (talk) 10:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

ʌ in the vowel table
The position of ʌ in the open-central-short position of the vowel table is puzzling: in the IPA, ʌ represents the open-mid back unrounded vowel, the unrounded counterpart of ɔ, while the open-central unrounded vowel is a. Shouldn't "ʌ" be in the mid-back-short cell of the table, between "ɜː" and "ɔː"? Or is the position of ʌ in the open-central cell a phonemic device, with what is usually transcribed as ʌ and corresponding to an open back vowel in other accents being an open central vowel in RP? If this is the case, should this be mentioned in prose near the table, along the lines of "While the vowel in strut is traditionally transcribed as ʌ, phonologically it is closer to a near-open central unrounded vowel ɐ; see § Alternative notation"? 128.214.138.172 (talk) 12:07, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * See Received Pronunciation. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:24, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Should we change /eə, æ/ to /ɛː, a/?
The following discussion was split from User talk:Mr KEBAB/Archive 4. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:39, 25 August 2017 (UTC) How do you feel about replacing and  with  and  in Received Pronunciation? Plenty of sources use that transcription, IMO it's quite important to say that is much more commonly monophthongal, even in phonemic transcriptions. Mr KEBAB (talk) 06:16, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I believe the most authoritative of the sources that Wikipedia uses here is the OED? From this link it seems that the OED uses your transcriptions above, plus using for what we now have as,  for what we now have as  and  for what we now have as . Do we have any reason not to change those? I'm not so well read on the sources so I'm not sure what other sources say. Cheers.--Officer781 (talk) 14:49, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for not responding for a month, I did my research and only and  are uncontroversial symbols that are used by more than one source. AFAIK the rest is used only by the OED, which I don't think is the most authoritative as far as pronunciation is concerned, just one of the most authoritative ones. See  and . Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:19, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The links you have linked above actually argue against any changes to the standard scheme. Do you have sources arguing for only the two changes as you have proposed? Either way I think it is good if we can include more Wikipedia users in this discussion.--Officer781 (talk) 09:15, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The 8th edition of Gimson's Pronunciation of English, which is more recent than those two. Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:31, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm pinging more users per Officer's request: . Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:39, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Adding a google books link here in case anyone needs it: .--Officer781 (talk) 17:39, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think they should stay as they are, until multiple major lexical and pronouncing dictionaries follow suit. The phonemes for RP not only illustrate RP as one dialect but also serve as reference points for comparison in descriptions of other varieties and phonological history of English, so we should be circumspect about them. Especially I'd be inclined against changing /eə/, since /eə, ɪə, ʊə/ are often treated as a group of centering diphthongs when discussing phonology.
 * If anything, /ʌ/ and /ɔː/ are the symbols no longer representative of modern RP articulation yet kept for convenience sake, so to change /æ, eə/ but not those would be a bit inconsistent IMHO. Nardog (talk) 16:51, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There's hardly any source that writes them . Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:58, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That's kind of my point though. Many vowel symbols have become stale in comparison to modern pronunciation, but we keep using them because the majority of reputable sources do. So I just don't think it's unreasonable to wait for all other scholars and publishers to follow suit, if they do. (Come to think of it, /ɜː/ is another one, and apparently Upton has switched to /əː/ but not Cruttenden. This we'll see too.) Nardog (talk) 17:20, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * is perfectly appropriate for RP for a couple of reasons, but not necessarily for e.g. AuE. But I agree that is a better symbol simply because it's more recognizable and it is the long counterpart of  for virtually all speakers of RP. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:35, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I support and  for RP. It would be good to change  to  as well, because  and  are a short–long pair, but if policy prohibits that, so be it. — Eru·tuon 20:30, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Cruttenden's reasoning is that the change from mid to open-mid  is not yet complete and so it's not necessarily a short counterpart of, therefore it's better to keep transcribing it . But I find it a bit pedantic. Vowels don't have to have exactly and precisely the same height to be a short-long pair. Plus, some speakers of Estuary English do have  and  as a short long pair of mid, rather than open-mid height. Then again, Estuary  is more often a centering diphthong than it's the case in RP.


 * Plus, I think that many if not most RP speakers do think of - as a short-long pair. The difference in quality is either rather small or simply nonexistent. Mr KEBAB (talk) 07:58, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

"permissiveness towards" (regional varieties of English)
Since permissiveness is generally a negative term (as in "the permissive society"), I feel this should read "tolerance of" or (better still) "acceptance of". "Permissiveness towards" suggests that regional accents are essentially undesirable, and the whole point is that they are not.188.230.240.75 (talk) 16:45, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Long and short vowels
The statement in this section "Conversely, the short vowel becomes longer if it is followed by a voiced consonant. Thus, bat is pronounced  and bad is " needs correcting. The word "conversely" is not appropriate here. The phonetic process affecting vowel length is one of shortening of vowels preceding syllable-final voiceless (fortis) consonants, so that 'bat' has a markedly shortened vowel compared with the vowel in 'bad'. This error is found also in Vowel length and in English phonology and I have proposed (in Talk) changing all such cases. RoachPeter (talk) 10:46, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Now rewritten. RoachPeter (talk) 14:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)