some interesting comments about GenAm and RP

Guest   Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:21 am GMT
"If God came down????!!!!! WTF are you talking about??? Do you think that Santa Claus and the tooth fairy speak RP too?"

http://www.zonalibre.org/blog/NEVERMORE/archives/dead-santa.jpg
Linda   Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:37 am GMT
You seem to be implying that people from the North of England are stupid because of their pronunciation of certain vowels. As a Northerner myself, I find that offensive. I could equally argue that 'people' would raise their eyebrows at an American saying 'I'm going to marry Mary'. What, you can't differentiate these sounds? Are you stoopid?

Many Americand DO differentiate between "Mary" (the "square" vowel)and "marry" (the "trap" vowel). Your comparison, however, is extremely facile. You see, American English contains both vowel sounds. It's just that some people prefer to pronounce these two words as homophones.

In Scouse, however, the "strut" vowel DOES NOT EVEN EXIST. That means that NO word containing this vowel can be pronounced correctly. Americans at least have the capacity to distinguish between Mary and marry by merely substituting one phoneme for another. Scousers do not have the capacity of distinguishing between look and luck because one of the vowels needed to do so does not even exist in their phonetic system.

You sound like one of those people who is extremely bitter for not having acquired RP. It is quite common for people who who are not proficient at something (like standard pronunciation) to call those who are proficient in it "snotty morons". Surely you can come up with something better than that? It is attitudes like yours that have kept English citizens from acquiring one standard pronunciation which is easily indersttod by all. The upper classes are also to blame for not encouraging schoolchidren to learn to speak standard English but rather hoarding it up in places like Eton and Oxford for themselves.

I think it is extremely pathetic in this day and age of mass media and mass education for a country as small as England not to have a majority of its speakers speaking Standard English but only a very small minority.

As far as the comment about God was concerned, that was not intended to be taken too seriously.

So if I'm in England and I speak RP then I am a snotty moron. However, if I speak GenAm I will be perceived as a Yankee moron. So basically, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't (since GA and RP ar the only two accents I am proficient in having attnded an international school in europe and having lived in the US). I guess no matter how I talk I'm pretty much f*cked.
Candy   Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:50 am GMT
<<You sound like one of those people who is extremely bitter for not having acquired RP. It is quite common for people who who are not proficient at something (like standard pronunciation) to call those who are proficient in it "snotty morons". Surely you can come up with something better than that? It is attitudes like yours that have kept English citizens from acquiring one standard pronunciation which is easily indersttod by all. The upper classes are also to blame for not encouraging schoolchidren to learn to speak standard English but rather hoarding it up in places like Eton and Oxford for themselves. >>

You don't have the faintest f*cking clue what you're talking about, so do yourself a favour and shut up. You've never even met me so how dare you say I'm 'bitter'? I like the way I speak. This 'bitter' or 'jealous' excuse is trotted out on numerous occasions by people who have no other argument.
Upper classes hoarding it up at Eton and Oxford??? Do you get all your information about England from 'Brideshead Revisited'????

<<I think it is extremely pathetic in this day and age of mass media and mass education for a country as small as England not to have a majority of its speakers speaking Standard English but only a very small minority. >>

Well, you see, we actually LIKE our regional differences. People don't WANT to talk the same as everybody else. If you think that's pathetic, that's your business, but don't expect others to agree.

I don't have the time to follow this inane discussion any more. BTW, RP is *NOT* Standard English.
Let me repeat: RP is *NOT* Standard English. So as you say yourself, I guess you're f*cked.
Damian in England ftb   Sun Oct 09, 2005 9:11 am GMT
I simply can't understand this argument....changing accents to suit certain situations...it sounds...well, plainsilly. Stupid. I would never dream of changing, or modifying, mine at any time, anywhere. Right now I am completely among "foreigners" (very nice ones!) who all speak the way I've described in my previous post.

I stand out like a sore proverbial with my accent right now but it's no big issue whatsoever.......nobody, but nobody, has made any pointed reference to the ay I speak down here and I met a lot of people last night. They could tell I'm from Scotland and that's that...all we wanted was to have a good time.

Linda says:
**I'm sure if God came down from the sky and spoke English, it would be RP**

Not true......he would definitely be speaking English but with an American accent.......George Bush says so, because he speaks with him all the time and God tells him what to do. If God spoke RP George W wouldnae know what the **** he was talking about.
Rick Johnson   Sun Oct 09, 2005 9:20 am GMT
Look, I'll try to put a historical pespective on this. Whereas in the US, English largely spread in its modern form from East to West, in Britain its construction came from all different directions. The simplist time to look at is up until about 1000 years ago when England was split in two between the Viking North and the Saxon South. Although the border disappeared shortly before the Norman conquest, the legacy of this split on accent and vowel sounds is profound even to this day. Many trends which start in London still struggle to make it beyond this great divide and vice versa.

As Candy says, RP is not standard English. It is by no means without accent or regional bias and to all intents and purposes it contains many southern vowel sounds. Standard English has only personal bias and is much closer to written English. Standard English is common and is spoken all over Britain unlike RP.
Rick Johnson   Sun Oct 09, 2005 9:23 am GMT
<<he would definitely be speaking English but with an American accent.......George Bush says so>>

Good answer Damian!!
Rick Johnson in da UK   Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:52 am GMT
<<Scousers do not have the capacity of distinguishing between look and luck because one of the vowels needed to do so does not even exist in their phonetic system.>>

Scouse is one of the few dialects that does make this distinction. Words like "book" are often pronounced with the same sound as "moon". There aren't many English accents that use this pronunciation and I can't think of any in North America that do.
Adam   Sun Oct 09, 2005 12:41 pm GMT
" think it is extremely pathetic in this day and age of mass media and mass education for a country as small as England not to have a majority of its speakers speaking Standard English but only a very small minority"

England's not that small.

England has a population of about 51 million. It was earlier this year that it surpassed the 50 million mark.

And the UK has a population of about 61 million.

In terms of population, the UK is the EU's second-largest country, and the world's 18th largest.
Adam   Sun Oct 09, 2005 12:44 pm GMT
"Scouse is one of the few dialects that does make this distinction. Words like "book" are often pronounced with the same sound as "moon".

In many areas of Lancashire, people pronounce the double Os in words such as "book" and "cook" and "look" in the same way that the double Os are prounounced in "moon."
Adam   Sun Oct 09, 2005 12:48 pm GMT
Background of RP:
There seems to be some disagreement as to the origins of the term "received" in the phrase, "Received Pronunciation" but both A.J. Ellis’ On early English Pronunciation, 1869-1889 as well as John Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language of 1791 are among the possibilities for it’s early appearance. (Wells 1982a), however, cites Daniel Jones, as the "great describer and codifier of the Received Pronunciation of English" in the 1890’s. Regardless of its exact origins, theterm "received" originally meant "that which is generally accepted" or "that accepted by the best society."

RP has for many years epitomized the "top end of the scale" of British English and it is what English people have traditionally meant when they’ve said that someone "hasn’t got an accent." It remains that RP is often regarded as a "neutral" and often "correct" accent. It is also referred to under the terms "BBC English," "Public School English" or even "Standard English. (Wells 1982a)

RP is also the accent that Americans and possibly other foreigners would likely refer to as the typical British accent. It should also be noted that there is no single accent whose role and status in the United States correspond to that of RP in England. (Wells 1982a)

A number of distinctions even within RP have, over the years, been proposed by various linguists. These include "Mainsteam" RP, "Upper crust" RP, "Adoptive" RP, "Near" RP, "Conservative" RP, and "General" RP." (Wells 1982a) discusses these in detail along with their individual phonetic and lexical nuances. Wales (1994) also differentiates between them in saying that "conservative" RP is often spoken by the older generation, and "advanced" RP by the younger generation. Her discussion of the accents of the royal family can be found in the "Queen’s English" section.

Regardless of the differences within RP, it is an accent commonly recognized and one that has been taught as the standard English in schools for years.

Geography of Received Pronunciation (RP) English:
RP is only really associated with England and not the other countries of Great Britain. However, it is not associated with any particular location within England. Because it is what might be thought of as an "educated accent" it appears characteristically in upper and upper middle class speakers and is more sociologically defined rather than geographically defined.

Sociolinguistic Issues of Received Pronunciation (RP) English:
Traditionally, there have been certain occupations most typically associated with an RP accent and they include barristers (attorneys in the superior courts) stockbrokers and diplomats. Up until the 1970’s this was the accent that was required to be considered an announcer on the nationally broadcast BCC (British Broadcasting Corporation) television and radio stations, hence the term "BBC English." As discussed in the general sociolinguistic issues section, RP is an accent that is not localizable but is very recognizable as being the standard, neutral accent of the society. It is not, however, used by a large percentage of the population.

Wells (1991) has identified some characteristics of popular accents that have been resisted by RP and also some changes that have been accepted into RP. He asserts that it is important not to lose sight of the fact that "accents, and more generally varieties of language, are not objective entities so much as mental constructs" and that is preference is for a "sociolinguistic defnition of RP, which entails recognizing the possibility of change. Some of those changes can reasonably be attributed to influence from Cockney – often overtly despised, but covertly imitated."


Features of Received Pronunciation (RP) English:
Intrusive R
To an objective observer, the intrusive r is very prevalent in RP. It involves the "insertion of an r-sound at the end of a word ending in a non-high vowel where the next word begins with a vowel.

Examples:

R pronounced

put a comma[r]
the idea[r] of
I saw[r] it happen

R not pronounced

a comma may be added
idea for
I saw them

Trudgill (1999) sees the development of this intrusive r as one of the consequences of r-lessness that developed in more modern British dialects.


R-Lessness


http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/RPEnglish.html
Adam   Sun Oct 09, 2005 12:54 pm GMT
This gives you some insight into what British accents are "kind to the ears" and which are perceived as being "ugly" -

www.thescotsman.com


Sean's voice the 'most pleasant' in Britain

RUSSELL JACKSON


SCOTTISH actor Sir Sean Connery has the "most pleasant" speaking voice, according to a new poll which also rates the broadcasters Trevor McDonald and Terry Wogan as appealing to the nation’s ear.

But while we swoon for the lilt of Connery, it seems we can’t bear to listen to Tony Blair or David Beckham and would least like to talk like a Brummie (an inhabitant of Birmingham).

Among other well-known figures with distinctive accents and speech, Cilla Black and Janet Street-Porter were also likely to have people reaching for the "off" switch.

The BBC-commissioned online poll sampled 5,000 people on their attitude to accents and dialects and how we speak and are spoken to.

Dr Clive Upton, a linguistics expert at Leeds University, said: "Scratch the surface and language can create huge debate. We are passionate about it, because it’s about who we are and where we are from."

Three-quarters of people who answered the poll said they thought they had a reasonably strong accent, with those from Northern Ireland and Scotland being most proud of their lilt.

More than 60 per cent of people think British English is becoming more Americanised, and 59 per cent wished they could change their accent - mostly to Standard English.

One respondent said: "My accent makes me sound thick and gives the impression that I have straw coming out of my mouth." The most reviled accent is that of Birmingham - which came bottom of the tables for pleasantness, prestige and career progression - with those of Liverpool and Glasgow not far behind.

Standard English tops the chart, with Scotland next and Cornish coming in as eighth most desirable.

The poll was commissioned ahead of the BBC’s Voices project in which 1,000 interviewees are being recorded round the UK. The BBC material will be used to augment and update a survey of English dialects at Leeds University and provide an online interactive dialect map of the British Isles.

It is being launched in a Word for Word live special on BBC Radio 4 presented by Dermot Murnaghan on Wednesday at 9am.

Not only did Sir Sean’s Edinburgh burr top the UK-wide poll for having a pleasant voice, Scottish voters also made his their number-one voice.

Jane Stuart-Smith, an English lecturer at Glasgow University, said: "It’s interesting that Sean Connery topped both the Scottish and British surveys.

"His accent is so popular because people associate his voice with the stereotype of an attractive persona.

"When people voted for him, I wonder whether they were thinking about Sean Connery himself or James Bond, who is associated with a suave, elegant mysterious figure."

Ms Stuart-Smith added: "I don’t think it is surprising that Billy Connolly appeared in both lists.

"Billy Connolly’s Glaswegian accent is associated with harshness and toughness and this can provoke a range of responses, from positive to negative.

"Nor am I surprised that Scotland is the part of Britain where people are proudest of their accents, because many link accent with identity.

"When you consider Scotland’s relationship with the United Kingdom, most Scots tend to be particularly proud of their Scottishness rather than their Britishness, and it follows they would be proud of the accent that reveals them as Scots."

Ms Stuart-Smith was surprised that Glaswegian was poorly rated by respondents across the country, but she thought that this might change in the future. "I am surprised that this type of result for the Glasgow accent is still being found," she said. "It ties in with a whole set of prejudices about Glasgow.

"But Glasgow is now a stylish and fashionable city. Perhaps a younger set of respondents would associate Glasgow with stylishness and would have quite a different reaction to the Glasgow accent."
Adam   Sun Oct 09, 2005 12:59 pm GMT
I can't see why the Northern Irish are proud of their accent. It's TERRIBLE. It's got to be one of the ugliest accents in the UK. The accent of the Republic of Ireland is much better than that of Northern Ireland.
Rick Johnson   Sun Oct 09, 2005 1:26 pm GMT
<<In many areas of Lancashire, people pronounce the double Os in words such as "book" and "cook" and "look" in the same way that the double Os are prounounced in "moon.">>

Yes, I know. I was referring to England as a whole.

<<RP is an accent that is not localizable but is very recognizable as being the standard, neutral accent of the society.>>

Adam, you live fairly close to me- my nearest main town is Bolton and you know as well as I do that if someone spoke RP in Bolton town centre that people would immediately assume they were from the South.

<<Regardless of the differences within RP, it is an accent commonly recognized and one that has been taught as the standard English in schools for years.>>

Which schools in this area? I went to different schools around Manchester (including 2 years at a primary school in Bolton) and RP was never on the syllabus at any!
Guest   Thu Jun 08, 2006 8:51 am GMT
" other than the fact that the r of British English is a little different than that of General American"

Interesting to see "different than"; still not common elsewhere, thankfully.
Kirk   Thu Jun 08, 2006 9:24 am GMT
<<Interesting to see "different than"; still not common elsewhere, thankfully.>>

Oh, please. Not this again.

"Different than" has a long and proud tradition in English and, as if it even needed validation, has been used by prestigious writers (of various nationalities) for centuries. In fact, the two examples the OED cites under the entry "different" with the usage "different than" don't even come from this side of the pond. One is an excerpt from a text written by Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774, an Irish writer) and the other is from John Henry Newman (1801-1890, an English writer, theologian and cardinal).

In fact, the OED notes that "different than" "is found in Fuller, Addison, Steele, De Foe, Richardson, Goldsmith, Miss Burney, Coleridge, Southey, De Quincey, Carlyle, Thackeray, Newman, Trench, and Dasent, among others:"
It goes without saying that many/most of those writers were British.