Your opinion on an RP speech sample

http://www17.zippyshare.com/v/48556211/file.html

Can you identify the origin of the narrator (it is obviously somewhere in Britain, but is it possible to be more specific based on his pronunciation/intonation)?

Would you consider it an example of conservative RP (doesn't it sound a bit old-fashioned to you)? And if you are a UK resident, what is the likelihood of hearing this accent and would it sound unusual/outdated to you? Thank you.

Sounds like Richard Dawkins.

No, it's not Dawkins (but I can understand why you would think so).

I will disclose the identity of the speaker a bit later.

The reason why I thought it was Dawkins is not the topic (which could also be a good reason) but his accent, intonation, enunciation, voice quality - his speech overall. He obviously speaks quite a conservative English English RP. Although it's not the Brian Sewell type of old-fashioned RP, neither particularly outdated nor excruciatingly meticulous or ridiculously posh, he does have a far clearer and more meticulous enunciation than most people of his age, let alone younger generations.

To me, his speech conjures up the image of a middle-aged, middle-class (probably upper middle-class) man, who went to public or private school and might have continued his studies in Oxford or Cambridge. I'm just hazarding a guess and thus might be way off beam.

***Can you identify the origin of the narrator (it is obviously somewhere in Britain, but is it possible to be more specific based on his pronunciation/intonation)?***

As you say the narrator obviously originates in Britain and, more precisely, England but that's not absolutely, positively, indisputably set in stone. I know of a certain London-based BBC radio presenter who sounds pretty much like this individual who was born and brought up in Edinburgh here......but who can still lapse into genuine Scots when he feels like it. An expert on Scottish accents says in his related website that the Edinburgh Scottish accent has more characteristics of the general English accent than any other Scottish accent - maybe it has but no way could the average native born Edinburgh person be mistaken for a Sassenach!

This narrator sounds somewhat mature - 35 plus, I would say. Not necessarily from the South of England - but that likelihood is the most probable. He could well come from anywhere in England and I would reckon from a professional/well educated background which accounts for the strong RP feature of his accent. You could meet professional people from Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull (all Northern English cities) who sound just like this man. Actually he sounds pretty much like any English English BBC radio or TV presenter/announcer/news reader to be honest with you. Not too many of the older ones clearly betray their regional origins from the way they speak, but with a far more relaxed media policy these days with regard to this issue some of the younger BBC staff do speak with fairly muted regional accents. It's certainly not good for media presenters to speak in accents which would lead to problems for listeners in the country as a whole. For example strong Glaswegian doesn't go down too well in the Home Counties of Southern England or the valleys of South Wales.

You didn't actually ask us to guess the speaker's identity so I wouldn't even try to, but as you're going to reveal it later that's great. I wonder if it's who I think it may, just may, be.....nope...this bloke sounds older....

Thank you very much, Liz and Damian! You have provided me with all the answers I was looking for.

The speaker is Simon Vance (a.k.a., Richard Matthews, Robert Whitfield), a professional narrator:

http://www.simonvance.com/index.html

Simon Vance was born in Brighton, England. He studied acting and then turned to audio book narration. I am amazed at how versatile he is at imitating different accents. That particular sample is from his rendition of Bill Bryson's book "A Short History of Everything".

Regarding Brian Sewell's accent, you may find this article entertaining:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-922851-details/The+perils+of+talking+posh/article.do

Personally, I have been speaking English for over a decade, but it still fascinates me how much attention is paid to one's accent in the English-speaking world. In my mother tongue (Russian), it would be virtually impossible to tell a person's educational or class background from her accent. Since accents in Russian are fairly uniform (in comparison to English, one can say that there is no accent variation at all), it is only one's choice of vocabulary that can give away his/her educational background.

<<Personally, I have been speaking English for over a decade, but it still fascinates me how much attention is paid to one's accent in the English-speaking world.>>

Wrong. It only happens in Britain. Britian hardly constitutes the English-speaking world. Even there it is becoming a thing of the past.

To umm yep:

I wouldn't be so sure. I have been living Down Under for over three years (and before settling in Australia, I spent four years in the US). In my experience, people do pay attention to one's accent (more so in Australia where quite a few people still look up to all things English as some sort of ideal - a colonial legacy, I believe).

Being a native Brit - I might add that one certainly is judged on one's accent.

I speak a near RP English myself, or so I'm told - and, rather funnily, I'm regarded as 'posh' and 'upper class'. This can either lead to respect - which is great - or jealousy and disdain, as my accent is, on occasion, viewed as rather snobby!

Our neighbours are from Birmingham - 'Brummies', as they're called. Being as unfair as I am - it comes of being Conservative - they were filed under the 'common' slot (lower class). Unfortunately for them, they lived down to this expectations by quibbling over parking spaces and attempting to usurp our garden shed.

If I meet a person with a regional accent - for example, I'm from Devon, and there's quite a strong accent here, used mainly by farmers and dinner ladies - I'm much more likely subconsciously to class them as slightly lower down in the class hierarchy than if they spoke standard RP.

***Wrong. It only happens in Britain. Britain hardly constitutes the English-speaking world. Even there it is becoming a thing of the past***.

Firstly - Right....I really don't believe that the accent a person uses, or the manner in which s/he speaks, is considered an issue of any significancs.

As I say, it does not only happen in Britain. How easy would it be for an individual from, say, Mississippi, USA, with the characteristic accent of that region, to obtain a position with a company in, say, Vermont, USA and especially one which involves considerable client/customer contact?

Of course Britian doesn't "constitute the English speaking world" in its entirety- nobody has ever claimed that to be the case..I know I never have. Let's just agree, at least, that Britain (or more precisely England) is the land of its birth and be done with it once and for all. Like time measurement itself, and so much else, England is where it all began. ;-)

You are right on the button there.....accent "snobbishness" - and overt class discrimination to a large extent...are more or or less a thing of the past in Britain. You'd do well to look at other countries away from Britain, which I will shall not name here, if you wish to see quite obvious examples of discrimination of various kinds.

significance

And of course it's Britain and not Britian! You'd be amazed if you realised how often that name is spelled wrongly when typing rapidly.

It's more the manner and vocabulary of someone's speech that shows their upbringing. I mean, for PC reasons someone with ANY understandable accent would be able to get a job as an anchor, but their speech would still have to be correct and proper. The accent that shows up in the background of their proper educated speech is of no consequence.