Тема 8. «Standards of pronunciation in English»

Orthoepic norm of the English language

Every language is characterized by the presence of the orthoepic norm. The notion of

the norm is very important as it sets the hierarchy of the language variants. The question of

the norm has been in the focus of the attention of the linguists since the study of the

language started.

There is an agreement among the linguists about the term standardised language. It is

considered to be is a variant of the language which has undergone standardization; in other

words – the processes of language determination, codification and stabilization

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. Language

determination means that some varieties of language were selected for particular purposes;

codification is the process when a language variety acquires a publicly recognized and fixed

form. The results of codification are usually found in dictionaries and grammar books.

Stabilization is a process when the variety in question takes on a more fixed and stable

form.

6 Trudgill P. Standard English: what it isn’t /T. Bex & R. J. Watts eds. Standard English: the widening debate. London:

Routledge, 1999. 47

Standard English is the variety of English normally used in writing, especially printing;

it is the variety associated with the education system in all the English-speaking countries of

the world it is the variety taught to non-native learners; it is the variety spoken by those who

are often referred to as "educated people". English can be described as consisting of a

standardized variety together with all the nonstandard varieties.

Most British sociolinguists agree that Standard English is a dialect, a variety of English

among many. Standard English is however an unusual dialect in a number of ways. It is the

most important dialect in the English-speaking world from a social, intellectual and cultural

point of view; and it does not have an associated accent, though its pronunciation is fixed in

various text books and dictionaries.

Dialects of English, as of any other languages, are both geographical and social

dialects. Standard English is unusual, seen against this background. First, the distinction

between Standard English and other dialects is not arbitrary. There is really no continuum

linking Standard English to other dialects because the codification results in a situation

where a feature is either standard or not. Secondly, Standard English is a purely social

dialect. Because of its unusual history and its extreme sociological importance, it is no

longer a geographical dialect, even if its origins were originally in the southeast of England.

It is true that, in the English-speaking world as a whole, it comes in a number of

different forms, so that we can talk of Scottish Standard English, or American Standard

English. But the most significant sociolinguistic characteristic of Standard English is that it

is a social dialect. Standard English is a dialect which is spoken as their native variety, at

least in Britain, by about 12%-15% of the population, and they are very much concentrated

at the top of the social scale. The further down the social scale one goes, the more

nonstandard forms one finds.

Standard pronunciation may be defined as “the elaborated variety of the national

language, in its spoken form, which obeys definite norms recognized as standard and

therefore, acceptable (implicitly) in all types and kinds of discourse.”

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Standard

pronunciation is governed by the norm, which serves as the regulator (filter) which

determines the borders of variation. The notion of “norm” has different meanings. Some

linguists associate the norm with the neutral style. There is another conception put forward

by Y. Screbnev, who looks upon the norm as a complex of functional styles. Educated

people, TV and radio propagate the standard form of pronunciation. This form of the

language is fixed in pronunciation dictionaries as the “correct” pronunciation. The standard

includes in its inventory the pronunciation forms, which reflect the main tendencies in

pronunciation that exist in the language.

The relationship between social and regional accent variation in Britain has often been

modeled as having the form of an equilateral triangle or a cone. Its base is broad, implying

considerable amounts of phonological variation between the different regional accents

spoken by the lower social classes. The increasing narrowness of the triangle upwards from

the base implies decreasing regional variation between the accents of speakers higher up the

social scale. Similarly, the point at the top of the triangle indicates the total lack of regional

variation we have already noted as characteristic of the Received Pronunciation (RP) accent,

spoken as it is by people at the top of the social scale. This model is an effective one.

The British are well-known for being extremely sensitive about how they and others

speak the English language. Accent differences receive more attention than generally

anywhere in the world, including other English-speaking countries. The pronunciation is

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Shachbagova D.A. Varieties of English Pronunciation. M., 1982. P.7. 48

important because it is the model for the students to imitate. Teachers of British English as a

foreign language typically choose Received Pronunciation (or BBC English, Standard

English, Queen's English or Oxford English as it is sometimes called) as the model. RP is

the most widely understood pronunciation of those who use British English as their

reference accent. It is also the type of British English pronunciation that Americans find

easy to understand.

Nowadays books used for teaching purposes mainly describe this variant of the

language. Recent research shows that nowadays people use variants of the same language in

different situations. Diglossia is a state of linguistic duality in which the standard literary

norm of a language and one of its regional or social variants are used by the same individual

in different social situations. Bilingualism is when the individual has command of two

different languages.

Standard pronunciation is not immutable. It changes through the evolution of language

and as the result of the influence of external factors. There are several reasons, which might

provoke changes of the standard of pronunciation. Sound changes may be brought about by

linguistic and extralinguistic causes.

English still have a non-regional model available to them. In spite of the developments,

the triangle model remains an accurate one for a description of social and regional patterns

of accent variation in Britain. The development of a network of regional varieties in Britain

is taking place underneath a non-regional, nationwide layer provided by RP. This layer is

thinner than it was but it is likely to remain intact until British society undergoes even more

radical changes in its social structure than it has already undergone in the last twenty years.

RP and its modifications

The situation in Great Britain is unique. In the history of the English language up to the

Middle Age, dialects followed the familiar pattern when for political, economic and social

reasons one of the local dialects usually became the standard language of the nation. The

pronunciation of the dialect becomes the national standard, whereas the pronunciation of

other dialects is regarded as substandard. However, with the invention of the printing

machine the situation changed drastically. A standard variant emerged, but this variant was

strictly social by origin. It represented the speech of the educated class. This manner of

speech was acquired at public schools that is why it is called Public School English. The

high authority of the royal family and the aristocratic circles, which used this variant of the

language, also supported the social prestige of the Received Pronunciation (RP). It has

become the implicitly accepted social standard of pronunciation.

There is a widely described high-status accent in Britain which is known as Received

Pronunciation (RP). It is fairly unusual: it is not associated with any geographical area; it is

a purely social accent associated with speakers in all parts of the country from upper-class

and upper-middle-class backgrounds. According to this feature it is impossible to tell where

an RP speaker comes from, unlike middle-class and working-class speakers. Though, while

all RP speakers also speak Standard English, we cannot state the opposite. As illustrated by

a number of researchers around 9% – 12% of the population of Britain speak Standard

English with some form of regional accent. So RP is a standardized accent of English and it

is not Standard English itself.

What is unusual about RP is that it is the accent of British English with the highest

status and that it is totally non-regional. It is a defining characteristic of the RP accent that,

while it is clearly a variety that is associated with England it contains no regional features

whatsoever. Typologically it has its origins in the southeast of England. This peculiar lack

of regionality must be due to a peculiar set of sociolinguistic preconditions, and has in fact 49

often been ascribed to its origin in British residential and therefore also non-regional,

schools for the children of the upper-classes, the so-called Public Schools.

Historically RP was selected to become the standard though of course, not by any overt

or conscious decision, precisely because it was the variety associated with the social group

with the highest degree of power, wealth and prestige. Subsequent developments have

reinforced its social character: the fact that it has been employed as the dialect of an

education to which pupils, especially in earlier centuries, have had differential access

depending on their social class background.

A cited statistic has it that in Britain RP speakers constitute only 3% of the population

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Generally it was assumed that there were more RP speakers than that, but this impression

was due to the fact that speakers of the RP accent were more often heard in the media than

their proportion in the population would indicate. In the XXth century, the prestige of this

form of speech was propagated by the radio and television. Thus, RP is often identified in

the public mind with the “BBC English”. The statistics was first established by P. Trudgill

in his work in 1974. In most cases Standard English speakers do not have «broad» local

accents which mean accents with regional features phonologically and phonetically very

distant from RP. This point becomes even clearer from an international perspective.

Standard English speakers can be found in all English-speaking countries, and they speak

this variety with different non-RP accents depending on whether they came from Scotland

or the USA.

RP is the teaching norm of English in the British Isles and in the former British

colonies. This form of pronunciation is most commonly described in books on phonetics of

British English and traditionally taught to foreigners. It is also called Standard English

Pronunciation or Public School Pronunciation. In order to describe the norm of the English

language the term Standard English is used. In Britain RP was looked upon, as “The Best

Accent”. The point with RP is that speakers either have an RP accent or they do not. There

are many people who have a so-called "near-RP" accent, but this is by definition not an RP

accent. When it comes to employing a codified language variety, a miss is just as good as a

mile. It takes only one non-RP feature for a speaker not to be a speaker of RP.

Standard pronunciation is not immutable. It changes through the evolution of language

and as the result of the influence of external factors. Sound changes may be brought about

by linguistic and extralinguistic causes. In the last few decades there have also been a

number of changes in the sociolinguistic situation of RP, and in its relationship to other

accents. Some linguists say that a new variety of English arises. They call it “Estuary

English”

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Present-day RP is not homogeneous. A.C. Gimson distinguishes the following types

within RP

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:

− The conservative RP, which is used by the older generation and traditionally by certain

professions and social groups.

− The general RP forms are those most commonly used and typified by the pronunciation

adopted by the BBC.

− The advanced RP is mainly used by young people of exclusive social groups.

J.C. Wells gives other varieties of RP

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:

8 Trudgill P. Sociolinguistic Variation and Change – Edinburgh University Press, 2001

9 Rosewarne, David, 1984. ‘Estuary English’. Times Educational Supplement, 19 (October 1984).

10

A.C. Gimson An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. London: Edward Arnold, 1962. P. 88.

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Wells J.C. Accents of English. Cambridge etc.: CUP, 1982. 50

− Upper-crust RP, which is spoken by the aristocracy.

− Mainstream RP, which is equal to general RP.

− Adoptive RP is the variety of RP spoken by adults who did not speak RP as children. The

usual reason for that is the change in one’s social circumstances.

− Near-RP is compromising accents, which are not exactly RP though not very different

from it.

People generally change their social position through their lives. Those who climb the

social scale tend to modify their accent in the direction to the pronunciation norm of the

English language. They also speak more slowly and carefully in order to avoid

communication failures.

In the last few decades there have also been a number of changes in the sociolinguistic

situation of RP, and in its relationship to other accents. Much of this appears to stem from a

change in attitudes towards RP on the part of the British population as a whole. It was

generally accepted that RP was perceived as being associated with speakers who were

competent, reliable, educated, and confident. It was also perceived as being the most

aesthetically pleasing of all British English accents. On the other hand, RP speakers scored

low on traits like friendliness, companionability, and sincerity, and messages couched in RP

also proved to be less persuasive than the same messages in local accents. It is an interesting

fact that in American science-fiction and horror films sinister, menacing characters were

talking in RP accent.

Nowadays RP is no longer the necessary requirement to employment of certain sorts,

non-RP accents are very much more common on the BBC, for example, than they were

forty years ago. And telephone sales companies, now think about which regional accents

will be most effective rather than automatically employing non-regional RP. So RP accent

can be even more of a disadvantage in certain social situations as it is perceived as being

'posh' and 'snobbish'. These factors also mean that fewer people than before are now

speakers of what J. C. Wells (1982) has called adoptive RP. In fact less people attempt, as

adolescents or adults, to acquire and use this accent. Even Conservative Party politicians no

longer have to strive for RP accents, as a recent Conservative Prime Minister once did.

Discrimination on the grounds of accent still, unfortunately, occurs in British society.

But this discrimination is no longer against all regional accents but only against those from

lower down the triangle. And it is also no longer permitted in British society to be seen to

discriminate against someone on the basis of their accent. In spite of these observations, it is

not possible to speak of some myths, such as: “RP is disappearing” or “RP is being replaced

by a new accent”. It is true that non-RP accents are now found in situations from which they

would have been excluded only a few decades ago, and there are actually less RP speakers.

And it goes without saying that RP has changed.

As far as RP is concerned, the younger generations of RP speakers still are RP

speakers. Pupils at Eton, and undergraduates at Cambridge University who are former

pupils at the big Public Schools, are still for the most part RP speakers. Their RP has some

new features, but these features are all non-regional; thus their accent must still be

considered as being RP. There is a tendency to regard RP as the manner of speech of a

single social group.

It seems that the pronunciation of British English is changing rather quickly. What is

often termed “Estuary English” may be the strongest native influence upon RP. "Estuary

English" is a variety of modified regional speech, it is a mixture of non-regional and local

south-eastern English pronunciation and intonation features. Over these two decades, 51

Professor Gimson's description of general RP as "typified by the pronunciation adopted by

the BBC," even appears to have become debatable. More and more the General RP of the

BBC has been under pressure from modified versions of RP, and perhaps now predominates

only in enclaves in Radio 3 and possibly Radio 4, and of more importance internationally, in

the World Service of the BBC. In addition to this, the children of parents who speak

Advanced or General RP are likely to speak rather differently from their elders. This is

truest of those in state schools, but it is also commonly found in public schools.