Types of English pronunciation

1. General remarks on types of English pronunciation

There is wide range of pronunciation of any language, the English language as well. The pronunciation of almost every locality in the British Isles has peculiar features that distinguish it from other varieties of English pronunciation. Moreover pronunciation is socially influenced, i.e. it is influenced by education and upbringing. At the same time all these varieties have much more in common that what differentiates them. They are varieties of one and the same language, the English language.¹

The varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of people only in certain localities are known as dialects.

Due to communication media (radio, TV, cinema), the increased mobility of the population, concentration of the population in the cities, the dialectal differences are becoming less marked. That, of course, does not mean that the pronunciation of a Manchester dialect speaker does not differ from the pronunciation of a London dialect speaker. Dialect speakers are, as a rule, the less educated part of the population. With the more educated people pronunciation generally tends to comfort to a particular standard. In present-day English the number of local speech dialects is being reduced to a fewer, more or less general , regional types.

Every regional type of pronunciation is characterized by features that are common to all the dialects used in the region. The dialects, in their turn, are marked one from another by a number of peculiarities specific to each of them.

The orthoepic norm of a language is the standard pronunciation adopted by native speakers as the right and proper way of speaking. It comprises the variants of pronunciation which reflect the main tendencies in pronunciation that exist in the language. It is the pronunciation used by the most educated part of the population, the pronunciation that is recorded in pronouncing dictionaries as the best.²

The orthoepic norm of the English language is generally considered to be “Received Pronunciation” (RP), though, as many scholars state, it is not the only orthoepic norm current in present-day Britain.³

Received Pronunciation (RP) appeared about a century ago. It is mainly based on Southern English Pronunciation, but it has developed its own features which have given it a non-regional character, i.e. there is no district in Britain to which it is native. RP is spoken all over Britain by a comparatively small number of Englishmen who have had the most privileged education in the country-public school education, public schools being the best and most expensive fee-paying schools in the country. Suffice it to say, that almost all the leading positions in the Cabinet, the armed forces, the judiciary are occupied by those who have had public school education. RP is not taught at these schools, “it is absorbed automatically by the pupils” (as D. Jones puts it), for children are sent to live there at the age of 11 when pronunciation is most flexible. The children isolated in the school from their parents and other children, contact only with their teachers and schoolmates, and very soon acquire the so-called “public school accent”, or RP.

Though RP is carefully preserved by the public schools and the privileged class in England, the RP of today differs in some respects from the former classic RP used half a century ago. A. Gimson claims that the exclusive purity of the classic RP has been diluted, as some features of regional types of speech are “received” now, though some 50 years ago those features were considered to be regional, non-RP.

The main changes are as follows:

1. The diphthongization of the RP/i:/ and /u:/ which in final position are often pronounced with a glide (e.g. “see”, “who”).

2. The centering of the former /ou/ to /əu/, which “is perhaps the most striking of the changes which have affected the pronunciation of British English in recent times”.

This change is obvious from the following: for D. Jones the vowel in the first weak syllable of such words as “November” had three possible pronunciations – the recommended /ou/ (/nou`vembə/), shortened monophthongal form /o/ (/no`vembə/), or, in rapid speech /ə/ (/nə`vembə/). Now, there is a tendency to pronounce /əu/ in careful speech (/nəu`vembə/), and /ə/ in rapid speech ( /nə`vembə/).

Another English linguist S. Potter states on this account : “Increasing numbers of young people pronounce home as /həum/ centralizing the initial element of this narrow diphthong. This is a prominent and outstanding change because it is so widespread in all classes of society. There are clear indications that /həum/, not /houm/, will be the pronunciation on of tomorrow.”

3. A greater weakening of vowels in weakly stressed syllables, which results in the use of the neutral /ə/ where the more conservative form had and has the strong /I/, e.g.

/ bə`li:v / for / bI`li:v /

/ IntrəstIŋ / for / IntrIstIŋ /.

But RP does not accept a loss of the /ə/ - /I/ distinction in final open syllables, e.g., between “better – Betty”, “dollar – dolly”. RP retains the /I/ in such morpheme endings as -ed, -es, e.g. “matted, teaches” (as opposed to “mattered, teachers”).

4. The assimilation of the following sounds: /sj/  /ʃ/, /zj/  /ʒ/, /tj/  /ʧ/, /dj/  /ʤ/, e.g. “issue”, “crozier”, “situation”, “education”.

5. The final /b, d, g/ are now partially devoiced. But the distinctions between /b – p, d – t, g – k/ are just as clearly marked, because /p, t, k/ are energetic sounds (fortis), while /b, d, g/ are weak (lenis). (“cab – cap”, “had – hat”,“bag –back”)

6. The use of the intrusive /r/, which some 20-30 years ago was carefully avoided by RP speakers.

Nowadays RP tolerates the intrusive /r/ in such phrases as “the idea /r/ of it”, “Asia /r/ and Africa”, “drama /r/ and music”.

Those modifications are accepted and have become well-established nowadays, but they are not equally widespread among all the RP speakers. On this account A. Gimson distinguishes three types of RP today : (1) the conservative RP forms used mainly by the older RP speakers, (2) the general RP forms heard on radio and TV, are less conservative and have received all the changes mentioned above, (3) the advanced RP forms mainly used by the younger RP speakers, which as often as not have received many more changes, even the use of the glottal stop.¹

The modifications of RP which have been mentioned above are rather numerous and provide sufficient evidence of the evolution of RP during the past quarter of a century. RP has accepted so many features of the Southern English regional accents that many linguists use the terms “Southern English” or “Southern English type of pronunciation” for RP.

RP has been investigated and described more thoroughly than any other type of English pronunciation. It was excellently described in the works of D. Jones and his “English Pronouncing Dictionary” is still the most reliable reference book on RP. Many features of RP have been studied in the Russia and other countries. That is why it is RP or Southern English Pronunciation that is often accepted as the teaching standard in many countries where English is taught as a foreign language.