/æ/ with spread lips or neutral

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angel-girl1

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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

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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

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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/.
 
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