/æ/ with spread lips or neutral

[angel-girl1]

Hi,

My textbook states that this vowel is pronounced with lips neutral, but I think it is pronounced with spread lips.

Is it pronounced with lips neutral in RP?

Thanks.

 

[BobK]

It depends what you mean by RP. If, as is so often understood, you mean an extreme caricature of Thirties pronunciation, yes. Modern speakers of RP tend towards lip-spreading, I would say. But I don't have my IPA book to hand.

b

 

[5jj]

Cruttenden, in his 2001 edition of Gimson's Pronunciation of English, describes the lips as 'neutrally open' in general RP. I think that in my variety of RP, my lips are slightly more spread for /æ/ than they are for /ə/.