5. National pronunciation standards of English in the English-speaking countries.

Standard English refers to any form of the English language considered by some people as the ideal use of language for educated native speakers. It refers to grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and to some degree pronunciation. It is normally considered the "correct" written version of the language. In the British Isles, particularly in England and Wales, it is often associated with: the "Received Pronunciation" accent and UKSE (United Kingdom Standard English), which refers to grammar and vocabulary. In Scotland the standard is Scottish Standard English. In the United States it is generally associated with the General American accent. In Australia with General Australian. Every country has its own version of standard English.

Standart national pronunciation is sometimes called an “orthoepic norm” or “literary pronunciation”.

The national standards aren’t fixed and stable; also they differ in sound, stress and intonation. The accent upon which Standard British English is based - RP - is dying out and is now only spoken by a tiny minority of the British public.

What counts as Standard English will depend on both the locality and the particular varieties that Standard English is being contrasted with. A form that is considered standard in one region may be non-standard in another. With rare exceptions, Standard Englishes use either American or British spelling systems, or a mixture of the two (such as in Canadian English and Australian English spelling). British spellings usually dominate in Commonwealth (territories of the former British Empire- United Kingdom, South Africa , Nigeria, Canada, Australia, India ) countries.

Characteristics of Standard English:

1. SE is a variety of English that has no local base.

2. The linguistic features of SE are a matter of grammar, vocabulary and orthography (spelling, punctuation), but it’s not a matter of pronunciation: spoken in a wide variety of accents.

3. SE carries social prestige within the country; is used as a desirable, educational target; as the norm of communication by the country’s leading institutions (government, law, media).

4. SE has a wide intelligibility ( [ɪnˌtelɪʤə'bɪlətɪ] – доступность), but only a minority uses it for communication.

Problem of World Standard English : “there are 2 competing pressures influencing the development of English – 1) acts to maintain international intelligibility - uniform World Standard English; 2) acts to preserve national identity – diverse set of Regional Standard Englishes.”

According to British dialectologists (Trudgill, Hannah, Hughs) the following variants of English are reffered to the English-based group: English English, Welsh English, Australian English, New Zealand English; to the American-based group: United States English, Canadian English. Scottish English and Irish English fall somewhere between.

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All the national types of English pronunciation have many features in common, because they are of common origin. At the same time they have a number of differences, due to the new conditions of their development after separation from British English and due to the degrees of their connection with British English after this separation.

A world known phonetician A.C. Gimson sticks to the point, that there is no standard for the pronunciation. There are three main accents of English in Great Britain (RP, Scottish and Northern) and a great number of accents which are an integrated part of numerous British dialects.

6. Orthoepic Norms and choice of the teaching norm

The concept of orthoepy includes pronunciation and the norms of suprasegmental phonetics (stress, tone and so forth). Pronunciation includes the phonetic system of a language—that is, the stock of phonemes and the quality and realization of these phonemes under given conditions—and the phonetic shape of individual words and grammatical forms.

There are 2 major approaches to what norm is.

1. A set of actual realizations of the language system accepted by the educated speakers as `correct`, preferable (певна сукупність реалізацій мовної системи,яка визнається мовним загалом як зразкова на певному етапі її розвитку) = норма як сукупність еталонних реалізацій

2. A collectively accepted, and/or socially relevant representation applied to a language = норма як сукупність правил.

Pronunciation norm is …

1. a set of parameters describing that phonetic shaping of spoken form of a national language which at a given time is generally considered correct, is statistically relevant and/or enjoys social prestige.

2. a set of pronunciation forms and rules of their usage.

7. The United Kingdom is probably the most dialect-obsessed nation in the world. With countless accents shaped by thousands of years of history, there are few English-speaking nations with as many varieties of language in such a small space.

Received Pronunciation (Southern)

Received Pronunciation is the closest to a “standard accent” that has ever existed in the UK.  Although it originally derives from London English, it is non-regional.  You’ve probably heard this accent countless times in Jane Austen adaptations, Merchant Ivory films, and Oscar Wilde plays. It emerged from the 18th- and 19th-Century aristocracy, and has remained the “gold standard” ever since.

Features:

• Non-rhoticity, meaning the r at the ends of words isn’t prounounced (mother sounds like “muhthuh”).

• Trap-bath split, meaning that certain a words, like bath, can’t, and dance are pronounced with the broad-a in father. (This differs from most American accents, in which these words are pronounced with the short-a in cat.

• The vowels tend to be a bit more conservative than other accents in Southern England, which have undergone significant vowel shifting over the past century.

Northern England English

These are the accents and dialect spoken north of the midlands, in cities like Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool. Related accents also found in rural Yorkshire, although there are some unique dialect features there that I won’t get into now.

Features:

• The foot-stut merger, meaning that the syllable in foot and could is pronounced with the same syllable as strut and fudge. (IPA ʊ).

• Non-rhoticity, except in some rural areas.

• The dipthong in words like kite and ride is lengthened so that kite can become something like IPA ka:ɪt (i.e. it sounds a bit like “kaaaait”)

• Unique vocab includes use of the word mam to mean mother, similar to Irish English.

Scottish English

This is the broad definition used to describe English as it is spoken in the country of Scotland. Note that Scottish English is different than Scots, a language derived from Northumbrian Old English that is spoken in Scotland as well. That being said, Scots has a strong influence on how English in Scotland is spoken.

Features:

• Rhotic, with trilled or tapped r’s.

• Glottal stopping of the letter t when in between vowels (similar to Cockney and related accents).

• Monopthongal pronounciations of the /ei/ and /ou/ dipthongs, so that that face becomes IPA fe:s and goat becomes IPA go:t.

Estuary English (Southeast British)

Estuary is an accent derived from London English which has achieved a status slightly similar to “General American”  in the US. Features of the accent can be heard around Southeast England, East Anglia, and perhaps further afield.  It is arguably creeping into the Midlands and North.

Features:

• Similar to Cockney, but in general Estuary speakers do not front th words or raise the vowel in trap. There are few hard-and-fast rules, however.

• Glottal stoppingof ‘t’ and l-vocalization (see above) are markers of this accent, but there is some debate about their frequency.

Cockney

Cockney is probably the second most famous British accent. It originated in the East End of London, but shares many features with and influences other dialects in that region.

Features:

• Raised vowel in words like trap and cat so these sounds like “trep” and “cet.”

• Non-rhoticity: see explanation above under Received Pronunciation, above.

• Trap-bath split: see explanation above under Received Pronunciation.

• London vowel shift: The vowel sounds are shifted around so that Cockney “day” sounds is pronounced IPA dæɪ (close to American “die”) and Cockney buy verges near IPA bɒɪ (close to American “boy”).

• Glottal Stopping: the letter t is pronounced with the back of the throat (glottis) in between vowels; hence better becomes IPA be?ə (sounds to outsiders like “be’uh”).

• L-vocalization: The l at the end of words often becomes a vowel sound Hence pal can seem to sound like “pow.” (I’ve seen this rendered in IPA as /w/, /o,/ and /ɰ/.)

• Th-Fronting: The th in words like think or this is pronounced with a more forward consonant depending on the word: thing becomes “fing,” this becomes “dis,” and mother becomes “muhvah.”

8. General American(Gam) as the American English pronunciation norm

General American (GA), also known as Standard American English (SAE), is a major accent of American English. The accent is not restricted to the United States. Within American English, General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American English, several Northeastern accents, and other distinct regional accents and social group accents like African American Vernacular English.