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Standard pronunciation of English and its development. The types of Received Pronunciation.

A national language has two material forms: written and spoken. But spoken language is not the same throughout the country, it may vary from locality to locality. Distinct forms of a spoken language distinguished from each other by difference in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are called dialects. “Dialect” is the term broader than “accent”, as the latter is used to denote varieties in pronunciation only. So the word “dialect” can be used in the meaning of accent (referring to pronunciation only), but not vice versa. Consequently, dialectology is the branch of phonetics which deals with dialectal differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.

The spoken form has its national pronunciation standard. A standard is a socially accepted variety of a language established by a codified norm of correctness. There are other terms denoting standard national pronunciation such as orthoepic norm (from the word “orthoepy” – the correct pronunciation of the words of a language), orthoepic standard, literary pronunciation.

For certain geographical, economic, political, cultural and social reasons one of the dialects develops into the standard language of the nation (literary language) and its pronunciation becomes the national standard. Thus the literary language of England developed on the basis of the London dialect, because London expanded rapidly into an important centre of commerce, industry and learning as early as the 14^th. century. The pronunciation based on the London dialect became Standard English Pronunciation. It is also termed as Southern English pronunciation, Public School pronunciation, Received English Pronunciation (RP). The term “Southern English pronunciation” indicates only the birth place of this type of English pronunciation and does not mean that it is confined nowadays only to this locality. The term “Public School pronunciation” emphasizes that this type of pronunciation used to be taught in the expensive boarding school for the children of the rich. The term “Received Pronunciation” means that this type of pronunciation is accepted as correct by the majority of English people, it is the so called social standard within Britain. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) adopted this form of pronunciation for its announcers. RP is acknowledged as the teaching norm in most countries, where English is taught as the foreign language.

RP is not homogeneous and stable. Some linguists distinguish four main types within it today.

1) conservative RP, used by the older generation and, traditionally, by certain professions or social groups;

2) general RP, used most commonly and adopted by the BBC;

3) advanced RP, used by young people of exclusive social groups mostly of the upper classes, but also for prestige value in certain professional circles; it reflects the tendencies typical of changes in pronunciation.

These three types were singled out by A. Gimson. The researchers Trudgill and Hannah suggest one more type:

4) near-RP Southern, used by many native speakers especially teachers of English and professors of colleges and universities (particularly from the South and South-East of England), which closely resembles RP but is not identical to it.

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