English English

Roughly speaking the non-RP accents of England may be grouped like this:

1. Southern accents.

1) Southern accents (Greater London, Cockney, Surrey, Kent, Essex,

Hertfordshire,

Buckinghamshire);

2) East Anglia accents (Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire,

Bedfordshire,

Northamptonshire, Leicestershire;

3) South-West accents (Gloucestershire, Avon, Somerset, Wiltshire).

2. Northern and Midland accents.

1) Northern accents (Northumberland, Durham, Cleveland);

2) Yorkshire accents;

3) North-West accents (Lancashire, Cheshire);

4) West Midland (Birmingham, Wolverhampton).

Истеари инглиш

Интерференция

Диалект?

12. Received Pronunciation and Estuary English. British standard pronunciation

1. Public school pronunciation as long as RP is no longer valid; the young are often influenced by other prestigious accents

e.g. Cockney or Mid-Atlantic

RP can't be called simply educated pronunciation either, since not all educated people use it, nor can all those who use it be safely described as "educated". If the traditional term RP is retained, it is because of its widely spread and a convenient name for an accent which remains acceptable and intelligible within Britain. There are nevertheless two limiting factors in defining the model. Firstly, the dictionary represents the pronunciation current in usage among speakers, among speakers of the middle generation, while in general English dictionaries the given pronunciation is typical of the usage of an older generation which must frequently be regarded as archaic or obsolescent. It happens so, the speech of the young is likely at any time to be regarded as generally current among middle-aged speakers is usually found out ascertained why consensus of opinion; by the analysis of recordings, made by speakers of relevant-aged groups, especially concerning certain crucial areas, such as the type of vowel used in weak syllables.

2. Certain bounds of view of the model are provided by the nature of the phonological system itself thus the model requires 2 significantly different vowels in pairs such as

Sam (SE/AM)

Psalm (SA:M)

or it is the feature of RP that "r" is not pronounced before a following consonant or finally except in the case of linking "r". So all the variations in pronouncing "r" can be considered as non-standard.

The existence of RP on the British linguistic map gives accent judgments a peculiar importance in England especially, and makes the English more sensitive than most people to accent differences. It is in England alone that Standard English speakers are divided by an accent-bar, when one side of which is RP and on the other side all the other accents. And very often the first judgment made on a stranger's speech is the answer: which side of the accent bar is he? It is not easy to explain how this accent bar works. There is no doubt that RP is a privileged accent - one's social life or one's career both may be affected by whether person possesses it or not. It is surely an advantage to speak RP, it may be a disadvantage not to speak it. Outside England though it has no prestige and it appears just as regional to an American speaker as any other way of pronouncing English.

Speakers of RP are at the top of the social scale, and their speech gives no clue to their regional origin. The higher the person is on the social scale, the less regionally marked is his accent and the less it will differ from RP. The relationship between class and accent can be represented like this (Здесь должен быть рисунок пирамиды, на левой стене Social valuation, снизу Regional variation)

Traditionally, the British middle class and upward striving working classes are strongly concerned about their accents even nowadays. They are anxious to attain and a certain spoken dialect in this case it is RP and anxious for conformity to rigid conventions of correctness.

J.C. Wells in his book "Accents of English" gives another classification of different varieties of RP.

1. Upper-class RP spoken by the aristocracy.

2. Main stream RP which is equal to general RP.

3. Adopted RP spoken by adults who didn't speak RP as children. The usual reason of adopting RP is the change in one's social circumstances.

4. Near RP comprising accents which are not exactly RP though not very different from it.

Not all people stay in one social position throughout life, those who climb the social scale will tend to modify their accent in the direction of RP, helping to maintain the existing relationship between class and accent. They will not only attempt to make their speech more like RP but will also speak more slowly and carefully in order to avoid mistakes.