A history of the English Language

227.
The Standard Speech.
The spoken standard or, as it is called in Britain, 
Received Pronunciation,
often 
abbreviated RP, is something that varies in different parts of the English-speaking world. 
In Britain it is a type of English perhaps best exemplified in the speech of those educated 
in the great public schools but spoken also with a fair degree of uniformity by cultivated
7 
See James Sledd, “Bi-dialectalism: The Linguistics of White Supremacy,” 
English Journal,
58 
(1969), 1307–15; and Rosina Lippi-Green, 
English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and 
Discrimination in the United States
(London, 1997). 
8 
Linguistic Variation and Change
(Oxford, UK, 1992), p. 52. 
A history of the english language 296

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people in all parts of the country. It is a class rather than a regional dialect. This is not the 
same as the spoken standard of the United States or Canada or Australia. The spread of 
English to many parts of the world has changed our conception of what constitutes 
Standard English. The growth of countries like the United States and Canada and the 
political independence of countries that were once British colonies force us to admit that 
the educated speech of these vast areas is just as “standard” as that of London or Oxford. 
It is perhaps inevitable that people will feel a preference for the pronunciation and forms 
of expression that they are accustomed to, but to criticize the British for omitting many of 
their 
r’
s or the Americans for pronouncing them betrays an equally unscientific 
provincialism irrespective of which side of the Atlantic indulges in the criticism. The 
hope is sometimes expressed that we might have a world standard to which all parts of 
the English-speaking world would try to conform. So far as the spoken language is 
concerned it is too much to expect that the marked differences of pronunciation that 
distinguish the speech of, let us say, Britain, Australia, India, and the United States will 
ever be reduced to one uniform mode. We must recognize that in the last 200 years 
English has become a cosmopolitan tongue and must cultivate a cosmopolitan attitude 
toward its various standard forms.
9