Received Pronunciation

[birdeen's call]

This question is directed at British members. Do you use Received Pronunciation or local accents? Are people who use RP in everyday life numerous?

[Rob Y]

RP is not spoken as much as it used to be. True RP is only really spoken by royalty and upper classes.

Many BBC Radio 4 presenters, Conservative politicians, university lecturers and older generations from the south of England still speak with some form of RP.

The majority of the population speak with a regional accent, but some of them like London English might be quite similar to what you learn as RP.

[Tdol]

Yes; it depends a lot on what you mean by RP- the old style BBC English pronunciation is only used in certain fairly restricted social circles, but if you regard RP as a pronunciation that doesn't have any or much in the way of regional influence, a so-called neutral accent, then it is fairly common. When Rob talks of the majority speaking with a regional accent, again this has many gradations- some regional accents are very strong, other speakers just have some sounds that place them as coming from an area. As so often with language, the devil is in the definition.