Received Pronunciation

The status of RP has changed. British phoneticians agree that RP is still an accepted social standars associated with the speech of BBC announcers. But over the last 20 years both the BBC and other national radio and TV channels have been increasingly tolerant of broadcasters’ accents. Nevertheless in their choice of newsreaders the national TV and radio channels still use predominantly RP speakers. However RP is an accent of such a small minority that there may be more foreign speakers of RP than native speakers of that accent of English (Crystal 1997). RP is a social prestige accent spoken by 3 – 5% of the population.

RP is classified into General RP, Refined RP and Regional RP. Refined RP is an upper-class accent, mainly associated with upper-class families and with professions which have been traditionally recruited from such families, e.g. officers in the navy. The number of speakers is declining: this type of speech is often regarded as affected. Some of the particular features of Refined RP:

/ǝu/ is pronounced as /eu/;

a very open final /ǝ/ and /ɪ/: better, city;

/ǝ:/ is very open in all positions;

/æ/ is often diphthongized - /æǝ/: understand.

Regional RP reflects regional variation, it describes the type of speech which is basically RP except for the presence of a few regional characteristics, e.g. the use of [a/æ] instead of [a:] before voiceless fricatives: after, bath, past, which is a sign of the northern accent within England.

General American

The proportion of GA speakers in the USA is higher than that of RP speakers in the UK – 33% of the population.

Vowels

There are 20 vowels in RP and 15 – 16 vowels in GA. GA lacks diphthongs ending in /ǝ/, all vowels before r within a syllable are likely to become “r-coloured” to some extent: here [hir], hair [her], pure [pjur].

The vowel [o] is replaced by [a:]: lock, dog, stop, sometimes by [o:]: long, orange, sorry.

[æ] is closer than in RP. The sentence “Merry Mary married” sounds as if all the accented vowels are identical.

[æ] is used instead of [a:] when followed by a consonant other than [r]: dance, ask, pass, aunt.

[ǝu] is more rounded in GA, the nucleus is a back mid-open vowel: (in RP it is a central mid-open vowel): go [gou], home [houm].

The nucleus of the diphthong [au] is more advanced.

The vowel [o:] is more open.

The vowels [ǝ] and [ǝ:] have a retroflex quality (while they are pronounced the tip of the tongue is curled back).

[u:] is more fronted than in RP.

A common characteristic of GA is the so-called “American twang” – the nasalizing of a vowel before a nasal consonant (candy, manner, fine). The vowels [æ] and [au] are nasalized in any position. Some American phoneticians treat nasality as a defect of American speech.

There is no strict division of American vowels into short and long.

Consonants

One of the most characteristic features of GA pronunciation is the articulation of the /r/ phoneme. It is pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled further back than in RP (a retroflex position). It is more sonorous and is accompanied by lip-rounding before vowels.

Unlike the RP /r/ it is pronounced in any position. Nearly ¾ of the whole American population pronounce /r/ in all positions (the Southern, the Eastern and Afro-American types of English in the USA are r-less).

The American /t/ in the intervocalic position (better, party, writer) is pronounced with the tip of the tongue making one tap against the teeth-ridge. Acoustically it resembles a weak [d] or [r].

When [t] follows [n] it is nearly omitted: twenty [tweni], plenty [pleni].

[t] is replaced by a glottal stop before [m, n, l, r, j, w]: that man, that 'one, little.

Most Americans use the dark [l] in all positions.

The sound [j] is commonly weakened or omitted: news [nu:z], Tuesday ['tu:zdei], assume [ǝ'su:m].

[tj], [dj] are often assimilated into [ʧ] and [dʒ] before [u:]: tune [ʧu:n], due [dʒu:], education [edʒu'keiʃn].

The phoneme /ʃ/ is vocalized in final unstressed syllables ending in

-ion, -ia: Asia [eiʒǝ], version [vǝ:ʒn], Persia [pǝ:ʒǝ].

[ʍ] or [hw] is used in words spelt with “wh”: what, which, etc. Most Americans make a clear distinction between where – ware, which – witch, weather – whether.

Apart from systemic differences there are lexical items which are pronounced differently:

ate [eit], tomato [tǝ'meɪtou], either, neither [i:], schedule ['skedʒul], vase [veɪz], leisure [li:ʒǝr], shone [ʃoun], vitamin ['vaɪtǝmɪn], clerk [klǝ:rk], lieutenant [lu'tenǝnt], nephew ['nefju], civilization [sɪvɪlǝ'zeɪʃn], specialization [speʃǝlǝ'zeɪʃn], simultaneous [saɪmǝl'teɪnjǝs], anti- [æntaɪ];

apparatus, data, status can be pronounced with either [æ] or [eɪ] in General American, but only with [eɪ] in RP;

hostile [hastl], missile [mɪsl], reptile [reptl].