2.1 English based pronunciation standards

Standard English — the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms. Local dialects are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. In Great Britain there are two variants, Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group contains several (up to ten) dialects.

The study of dialects has been made on the basis of information obtained with the help of special techniques: interviews, questionnaires, recording by phonograph and tape-recorder, etc. Data collected in this way show the territorial distribution of certain key words and pronunciations which vary from region to region.

Dialects are now chiefly preserved in rural communities, in the speech of elderly people. Their boundaries have become less stable than they used to be; the distinctive features are tending to disappear with the shifting of population due to the migration of working-class families in search of employment and the growing influence of urban life over the countryside. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema.

The dialect vocabulary is remarkable for its conservatism: many words that have become obsolete in standard English are still kept in dialects, e. g. to and 'envy'<OE andian; barge 'pig'<OE berg; bysen 'blind'<OE bisene and others.

As was mentioned before, BEPS (British English Pronunciation Standards and Accents) comprise English English, Welsh English, Scottish English and Northern Ireland English (the corresponding abbreviations are EE, WE, ScE, NIE)./2/

ENGLISH ENGLISH

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

1. Southern accents.

1) Southern accents (Greater London, Cockney, Surray, 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).

RP (Received Pronunciation)

It has long been believed that RP is a social marker, a prestige accent of an Englishman. In the nineteenth century "received" was understood in the sense of "accepted in the best society". The speech of aristocracy and the court phonetically was that of the London area. Then it lost its local characteristics and was finally fixed as a ruling-class accent, often referred to as "King's 'English". It was also the accent taught at public schools. With the spread of education cultured people not belonging to the upper classes were eager to modify their accent in the direction of social standards.

We may definitely state now that RP is a genuinely regionless accent within Britain; i.e. if speakers have it you cannot tell which area of Britain they come from; which is not the case for any other type of British accents.

It is fair to mention, however, that only 3 – 5 per cent of the population of England speak RP. British phoneticians (Ch.Barber, A.C.Gimson, A.Hughes and P.Trudgill) estimate that nowadays RP is not homogeneous. A.C.Gimson suggests that it is convenient to distinguish three main types within it: "the conservative RP forms, used by the older generation, and, traditionally, by certain profession or social groups; the general RP forms, most commonly in use and typified by the pronunciation adopted by the BBC, and the advanced RP forms, mainly used by young people of exclusive social groups — mostly of the upper classes, but also for prestige value, in certain professional circles".

This last type of RP reflects the tendencies typical of changes in pronunciation. It is the most "effected and exaggerated variety" of the accent. Some of its features may be results of temporary fashion, some are adopted as a norm and described in the latest textbooks. Therefore, it is very important for a teacher and learner of English to distinguish between the two. RP speakers make up a very small percentage of the English population. Many native speakers, especially teachers of English and professors of colleges and universities (particularly from the South and South-East of England) have accents closely resembling RP but not identical to it. P.Trudgill and J.Hannah call it Near-RP south­ern. So various types of standard English pronunciation may be summarized as follows: Conservative RP; General RP; Advanced RP; Near-RP southern./22/

Regional Non-RP Accents of England

As was stated above, we grouped regional accents of England into southern and northern ones. This division is very approximate of course, because there are western and eastern accents but their main accent variations correspond either with southern or northern accentual characteristics. Thus we would like to point out here the main differences between southern and northern accents.

In vowels

One of the main differences between these groups of accents is in the phoneme inventory — the presence or absence of particular phonemes. Typically, the vowel [a] does not occur in the accents of the north; e.g.

South North

blood [blлd] [blud]

one [wлn] [won]

but [bлt] [bәt]

We can also note that many northern speakers while they do not have [л] have [u:] rather than [u] in words such as hook, book, look. They therefore distinguish pairs like book and buck, which in the south sound [buk] and [bлk], in the North as [bu:k] and [buk]:

South North

book [buk] [bu:k]

buck [bлk] [buk]

Another well-known feature which distinguishes northern and southern accents concerns the vowels [æ] and [a:].

Before the voiceless fricatives [f, θ, s] and certain consonant clusters containing initial [n] or [m], [æ] is pronounced in the north instead of [a:].

South North

path [pa:θ] [pæθ]

dance [da:ns] [dæns]

Note: Speakers with more strongly regional southern sub­standard accents may not have the contrast or, at most, have a contrast that is variable.

In the south, however, [æ] is often pronounced as [a:]:

RP South

bad [bæd] [ba:d]

One more major north — south differentiating feature involves the final [i:] like in words city, money, etc. In the north of England they have [ı]. In the south of England these words are pronounced with [i:], e.g.

South North

city ['sıti:] [sıtı]

money ['mлni:] ['monı]

In consonants

It has been mentioned above that some English accents are "rhotic" or "r-full" and other are non-rhotic or "r-less". Rhotic accents are those which actually pronounce [r], corresponding to orthographic "r" in words like bar and farm. This [r] sound is post-vocalic and is most often heard in Scotland, Ireland and in the southwest of England.

In most regional accents the glottal stop is more widely used than in RP. In some areas, especially the north-east of England, East Anglia and Northern Ireland, the glottal stop may also be pronounced simultaneously with the voiceless [p, t, k], most strikingly between vowels: pity ['pit?i:].

Many non-RP speakers use [n] in the suffix "-ing" instead of [ŋ]; sitting ['sıtın]. In an area of western central England which includes Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool they pronounce [ŋg]: singer ['sıŋgә], wing [wıŋg].

In most accents [j] is dropped after [t, s]: student ['stu:dәnt], suit [su:t]. In parts of the north the change has progressed a good deal further, it has been lost after [θ]: enthusiasm [әn'θu:zıәzm].

In large areas of eastern England [j] is lost after every consonant. In London [j] is lost after [n, t, d]: news [nu:z], tune [tu:n]./22/

Southern English Accents

We now turn to an examination of regional non-RP accents of England and we shall first give a brief outline of the group of Southern accents.

As was stated above, educated Southern speech is very much near-RP accent whereas non-standard accents are very much near Cockney. Therefore we shall focus our attention on the rather detailed description of uneducated London accent — Cockney.

Cockney accent. It has been long established that Cockney is a social accent — the speech of working-class areas of the Greater London. Here are some pronunciation peculiarities of it.

In vowels

1. [л] is realized as [æı]: blood [blлd] — [blæıd];

2. [æ] is realized as [ε] or [εı]: bag [bæg] — [bεg], [bæıg];

3. [ı] in word-final position sounds as [i:]: city ['sıtı] — ['sıti:];

4. when [o:] is non-final, its realization is much closer, it sounds like [o:]: pause [po:z] — [po:z]; when it is final, it is pronounced as [o:ә]: paw [po:] — [po:ә];

5. the diphthong [eı] is realized as [æı] or [aı]: lady ['leıdi:] — ['læıdi:], ['laıdi:]

6. RP [з] sounds as [æu]: soaked [sзukt] — [sæukt];

7. RP [au] may be [æә]: now [nau] — [næә].

In consonants

1. [h] in unstressed position is almost invariably absent;

2. [?] is widely spread in Cockney speech: paper ['pæi?pә], butterfly [‘bл?әflaı];

3. The contrast between [θ] and [f] is completely lost: thin [fin], booth [bu:f];

4. The contrast between [ð] and [v] is occasionally lost: weather ['wevә];

5. when [ð] occurs initially it is either dropped or replaced by [d]: this [dis], them [(d)әm];

6. [1] is realized as a vowel when it precedes a consonant and follows a vowel, or when it is syllabic: milk [mıvk], table [teıbv]; when the preceding vowel is [o:], [1] may disappear completely;

7. [ŋ] is replaced by [n] in word-final position: dancing ['da:nsın] or it may be pronounced as [ıŋk] in something, anything, nothing: ['nлfıŋkJ;

8. [p, t, k] are heavily aspirated, more so than in RP;

9. [t] is affricated, [s] is heard before the vowel: top [tsop]./22/

Northern and Midland Accents

Midland accents, Yorkshire, for example, West Midland and North-West accents have very much in common with Northern ones. Therefore they are combined in this book into one group; peculiar realization of vowels and consonants will be marked, of course, when each subgroup is described separately.

The counties of northern England are not far from the Scottish border, so the influence of Scotch accent is noticeable, though there are of course many features of pronunciation characteristic only of northern English regions. The most typical representative of the speech of this area is Newcastle accent. It differs from RP in the following:

In vowels

1. RP [л] is realized as [u]: love [lлv] — [luv];

2. RP final [ı] sounds like [i:]: city ['siti] — ['siti:];

3. words like dance, chance which in RP have [a:] are pronounced with [æ]: [dæns], [t∫æns];

4. [eı], [зu] are either monophthongs, or much narrower diphthongs than the ones in the south of England, or they may even sound as opening diphthongs [ıe], [uo]: bay [be:], [bıe], plate [ple:t], [plıet], boat [bo:t], [buot];

5. words that have "al" in spelling — talk, call, all, are pro­nounced with [a]: [ta:k], [ka:l], [a:l];

6. RP words with [з:] are pronounced with [o:] in a broad Tyneside accent: first [fo:st], shirt [∫o:t]; so first, forced; shirt, short are homonyms;

7. [aı] is [ε]: right [rεıt];

8. words which in RP have [au] may have [u:], e.g. about ['әbu:t].

In consonants

1. [1] is clear in all environments;

2. [h] is usually present in all positions;

3. -ing is [ın]: shilling ['∫ılın];

4. [p, t, k] between vowels are accompanied by glottal stop [?]

5. in parts of Northumberland and Durham [r] may be uvular (in its production the tongue and the uvular, not the tongue and the alveolar ridge take part)./22/

Yorkshire accents.

Yorkshire and Bradford accents are identical with northern vowel features in points 1, 3, 4 (only many speakers pronounce words which have "ow", "ou" in spelling with [зu]: know [nзu]); with northern consonant features in point 3. /22/