36. New tendencies in the pronunciation of present day english

Changes in the standard may be traced in the speech of the younger generation of native RP speakers. Considerable changes are observed in the sound system of the present day English. The variability concerns mainly vowels.

Changes in vowel quality:

According to the stability of articulation:

1. Long [i:] and [u:] have become diphthongized

2. Diphthongs tend to be smoothed out, become shorter, so that they are more like pure vowels.

According to the horizontal and vertical movement of the tongue:

3. Very striking changes occur in the vowel quality affected by the horizontal movement of the tongue. In fact the general tendency is marked by the centering of both front and back vowels.

4. There is a tendency for all short vowels to be produced nearer the center of the mouth, that is to move towards [ə] especially in unstressed position.

5. Some final vowel sounds may be very open ([ə] and [i]: better, city)

6. The nuclei of diphthongs [ei, eə, oə, uə] become more open when these phonemes are being leveled (careful [‘keəful]-> [ke:ful]).

Combinative changes:

Combinative changes are changes when sounds in company influence each other.

7. The tendency is to omit the [j] after [s, l, z, n] before [u:]. There is also some fluctuation/ instability (in pronunciation) after [l]. ([su:t, stu:dənt, lu:te? I’lju:3n], [nu:z])

8. Change of [o:] to [o] before constrictive fricatives (f,s,th)

9. Nowadays, there are changes in vowel length. There is a strong tendency for the short vowels to be lengthened.

Changes in vowel quality:

1. There is a tendency for devoicing sounds after long vowels and diphthongs (as in deed [di:d]). But the weak consonants are never replaced by strong ones. E.g. [sed] devoiced, but weak – [set] strong, aspirated.

2. In rapid speech initial [h] is lost in words. (her [hз] -> [з])

3. In RP the glottal stop [?] can appear:

• as realization of syllable final [t]befor a following consonant (not quite [‘no? ‘kwait]

• in certain consonant clusters (as in box, simply [bo?ks] [‘sim?pli])

4. Palatalized final [k’] (week, quick, etc)

5. There is a strong tendency towards elision, reduction, assimilation (second year [‘sekond3iə], gives you [‘giv3u:], I dunno.)

6. Intrusive “r”, inserted before a following vowel even though there is no “r” in spelling. (idea of, China and)

Some changes in intonation:

• Spread of rising tones in final intonation groups (I was born in ,London).

• Frequent use of Low Falling tone in tags (Lovely ,day, ,isn`t it?)

• Common use of rising tones in special questions (Where were you ,born?).

37. Principle types of pronunciation in britain

RP is the received standard pronunciation of English in Great Britain. RP is regionless accent within Britain: you cannot say which area of Britain the speakers of RP come from, which is not the case for any other type of British accents.

The scholars (A. Gimson+) distinguish two groups of English RP: National RP and Regional RP.

British English Pronunciation Standards and Accents (BEPS) also comprise English English, Welsh English, Scottish English and Northern Ireland English.

English English is non-RP accents of England. They are Southern accents and Northern and Midland accents.

Welsh English. In Wales English dominates over Welsh in urban areas. Welsh English at the level of educated speech and writing is not much different from that of English English. Most differences are found at the level of more localized dialects.

The status of Scottish English is still debated. Some linguists say that it is a national variant. Others say that it is a dialect. English has been spoken in Scotland for as long as it has been spoken in England. However, in the Highlands and Islands of northern and western Scotland, Gaelic is still the native language of thousands of speakers of these regions. A standardized form of this language is known as Scots. Nevertheless, nowadays educated Scottish people speak Scottish Standard English. A form of Scottish Standard English is grammatically and lexically not different from English used elsewhere, although with obvious Scottish accent.

Northern Ireland English is spoken in Northern Ireland. It should be stated that English pronunciation standards in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Eire are different.

The official language of Ireland is Irish. It is taught in schools. Nowadays, however, native speakers of Irish are few in number and are confined to rural areas.