[Vocabulary] Received Pronunciation

[englishhobby]

How can you describe received pronunciation? What is its main characteristic for you? I can google it, of course, but I would like to know the opinion of native speakers. As far as I understand, received pronunciation is very distinct, each sound is 'perfect, just as it should be', but a minority of people are using it, because the majority don't care to sound more distinct.

Is sounding disctinct and clear the main and only feature of RP?

 

[englishhobby]

Can we say that the Queen uses RP? Where can we find a list of phonetic features of RP? As far as I know, BBC announcers are trained to use RP, do they have special coursebooks? It would be very interesting to look at them .

 

[Rover_KE]

The Queen does and so do many well-known personalities you may have heard of:

Theresa May, Julian Fellowes,Trevor Macdonald, Joanna Lumley, Patricia Routledge, Donald Sinden, David Dimbleby, Jeremy Paxman etc.

BBC announcers have not been trained in RP for decades. You'll hear all manner of regional accents from the BBC.

 

[Tdol]

The idea behind it was to create a standard form that didn't have the regional characteristics that made dialects difficult to understand outside their area.

 

[englishhobby]

Does speaking with RP come naturally to the people who do it, or do they make some effort to be able to use it? Why do people speak with RP nowadays?

 

[jutfrank]

I certainly don't think the Queen uses RP.

These days, RP acts as a kind of overall standard pronunciation. In Britain, for example, there is a multitude of different ways to pronounce language. What is considered the normal way to pronounce can depend on many things. My view is that these things are generally to do with how people identify themselves, such as by social class, gender, origin and geographical region.

Choosing an overall standard for our time, where there is such vast variation is therefore by nature difficult, controversial and politically sensitive. The aim, then, whether or not you regard it as achievable, is a kind of 'middle way'. I identify current RP in Britain as the way of the English lower middle class, to which the Queen's English certainly does not belong.

 

[Tdol]

RP moves with the times, so it is less posh than it used to be and has absorbed influences, but it still exists, and could be seen as the pronunciation equivalent of standard grammar.