Do English teachers in England speak RP? Should they?

<<If an RP speaker were to come to America and speak GAE, he would be applauded on trying to fit in and following the American way.>>

In my experience British English speakers aren't expected or encouraged to change to GAE here, as people generally appreciate British accents. Often it's the opposite--I've heard several British ex-pats here in the America saying that they often get the remark "I LOVE your accent--never change it!" I would think the only reason they would be expected to change it would be if they were playing an American role in a movie or TV.

I'm a conversation leader at an English institute (for EFL students) and the main teacher in the class is originally from London. She isn't expected to change her accent to GAE even tho she teaches English here in America.

I really, really can't understand why anybody would WANT to change his/her native accent...out of choice anyway. I mean that from both sides of the Atlantic.....a Brit in America or an American in Britain. I mean a deliberate, conscious effort to change...to me it would seem unnatural...or fake, which is the word being bandied about in here.

I suppose that if you go and live in another English speaking country there is a chance you will unconsciously adopt local speech patterns after a while and I read that some Brits have lived in America for a very long time and still sound as if they've never stepped outside of the Home Counties in their entire lives.....isn't Joan Collins one such? She was on TV the other day and still sounds as if she's never left England. The same goes for Americans who've lived in the UK for a long time I would reckon....I mean accents really...they may use local words and phrases but still in their native accents.

I can never, ever imagine myself losing my native home accent, wherever I live and for however long a time. I have heard of a lot of Brits in some more remote parts of America getting a wee bit pi$$ed off being asked to repeat themselves or just say something simply because of the novelty value of their accents. A guy from Birmingham, England gets quite a kick from being mistaken for an Australian...more than likely he will play along with them a wee bit just for a laugh, knowing the Brummie sense of humour......in the nicest possible way.

Here we are used to accents from all over the globe so it's not an issue with us so long as we can understand what they're saying and we can help them out in any way.

>>In my experience British English speakers aren't expected or encouraged to change to GAE here, as people generally appreciate British accents. Often it's the opposite--I've heard several British ex-pats here in the America saying that they often get the remark "I LOVE your accent--never change it!" I would think the only reason they would be expected to change it would be if they were playing an American role in a movie or TV.<<

Yes, it must be said that the view towards British accents is quite positive, as a whole, in the US (and presumably in English-speaking Canada as well, especially considering their closer historical ties with the UK). I myself haven't really heard of any pressure in the US for speakers with British accents to change to using GAE at all; if anything, it seems to me like things actually are the opposite way around, like what you have said from what you have seen.

<<I really, really can't understand why anybody would WANT to change his/her native accent...out of choice anyway. I mean that from both sides of the Atlantic.....a Brit in America or an American in Britain. I mean a deliberate, conscious effort to change...to me it would seem unnatural...or fake, which is the word being bandied about in here.>>

I totally agree--it's unnatural to do so, plus I'm happy with and proud of my accent.

<<Here we are used to accents from all over the globe so it's not an issue with us so long as we can understand what they're saying and we can help them out in any way.>>

In terms of different accents here, I'm more used to hearing international nonnative accents of English more than different kinds of native accent of English. Even different American dialects aren't well represented here--since I go to a public university in California, out-of-state Americans have to pay twice the tuition. Consequently, 95% of students here are Californians, 3% are internationals (I'm not sure if temporary exchange students are counted or not) and 2% are out-of-state Americans. Of course, I live right by international house on campus so I'm well exposed to different foreign native and nonnative English speakers and I work for an English institute so I'm probably exposed to foreign accents more than the typical person but still, sometimes a foreign yet native English accent will catch me off guard.

The other night I was on duty in an office I work in and a guy came in who needed a key and I had to ask him his name. It was loud in the office (so that didn't help) but he also had a British accent, which I wasn't expecting. It took him a few tries for me to understand that his last name was "Scott" as the vowel he was using there was not what I was expecting (and since it was loud in there it made it especially hard). I felt bad about making him repeat but I otherwise I couldn't understand him--I think if it hadn't been so loud in there I would've gotten it much sooner. However, I also have a feeling that if had an American accent and was saying "Scott" I probably wouldn't've had to ask him so many times, even tho it was loud. Hopefully he wasn't too annoyed.

<<I have heard of a lot of Brits in some more remote parts of America getting a wee bit pi$$ed off being asked to repeat themselves >>

I read somewhere that when people of one accent go live somewhere else, they often do modify their accents and dialects unconsciously, but ONLY the sounds or expressions that get them blank looks or requests to repeat themselves -- i.e. the parts that impede comprehension. The rest of their accent will remain untouched, even if it differs from the local accent -- as long as people can understand it, there is no pressure or incentive to change.

It's interesting because there seems to be quite a bit of variation in terms of people retaining or changing their accents when moving to a new place (I'm talking about on the unconscious level). As someone mentioned before, you might've lived 45 years in a very different area than where you grew up yet still largely retain your original accent. On the other extreme, some people move to a new place and almost immediately subconsciously start sounding more and more like the people around them. They may never even realize it on a conscious level until they go back to their original home and people comment on their changed speech patterns.

My grandparents on my mom's side were born and raised in Canada and moved to California as adults and by the time I was around there were only a few traces of Canadianisms in their speech, as they had lived many decades already in California. But my mom said that their Canadianisms were stronger when she was little but over time they eventually faded away, being replaced by speech norms here (where they differed at all--the difference between most varieties of Canadian and American English aren't as great as those between other world varieties).

Conversely, my uncle (my mom's brother) ended up moving to Canada as a young adult and marrying a Canadian woman and having a family there and in the 30 years since he's been in Canada his speech patterns have become more Canadian. I doubt many or any of those changes in his speech were consciously done but were just the result of being there so long and being so connected with Canadian culture (he has dual citizenship).

I've read linguistic reports that show that people who identify strongly with their particular area (whether it be a town or province or state or country) are much more likely to pick up on speech patterns that establish them as "one of the locals" even if they weren't originally from there. Since my uncle has for various obvious reasons been committed to living in Canada (probably for the rest of his life) it's not surprising that his speech patterns have changed somewhat.

Still, there is a great deal of individual variation in this area and you will find people who strongly identify with a new area they move to yet don't ever demonstrably change their speech patterns and people who end up picking up regionalisms even if they don't particularly identify with the area. Sociolinguistics is fascinating but not necessarily as concretely scientific as some other linguistic domains like morphology, syntax or phonetics.

There are also some people who are bi-dialectical because they have one British and one American parent or for whatever reason... They have two accents at their disposal and can go from one to the other (albeit it sometimes takes a bit of warming up) depending on their geographical location and the audience they are addressing. I'm not saying that one should ever change his/her accent if that is not something that he/she is comfortable doing. What I AM saying is that those few bi-dialectical people out there should not be judged because of what makes THEM feel comfortable any more than they should judge you for sticking to your native accent regardless of what country and/or situation you may find yourself in.

There are some people who would pick up an Irish accent after a week in Ireland and then there are many who would stick to their native accent even if they lived there for a thousand years. Neither the former nor the latter should be judged.

Talking about modifying accents, when I worked in Australia I had to modify my Northern English "u" sounds because Australians would often say "What are bUgs?" "What are hUts" "What is stUff", but repeat the word with my pronunciation- not to take the piss, but simply because they were unfamilar with "u"s being pronounced with a low vowel sound. When I came back to England, however, I got the piss ripped out of me for sounding like a Southerner!!

Ah, the old "hoot" - "hut", "boog" - "bug" thing. Yes, it does get confusing at times!

How would you transcribe the Northern English "u" in X-Sampa?

<<How would you transcribe the Northern English "u" in X-Sampa?>>

/U/. That's also the vowel in Southern English, General American, and Australian "put" "good" and "wood." In Middle English (before the "foot-strut" split) Southern British English also had /U/ for all "short u"s but later on in Southern British English /U/ --> /V/ generally in positions where there was no preceding labial consonant. Northern English dialects have mostly kept the older vowel. For more information, check out this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot-strut_split

<<Ah, the old "hoot" - "hut", "boog" - "bug" thing. Yes, it does get confusing at times!>>

It's quite different from these sounds. Northerners simply pronounce "u"s with a short deep manly sound where Southerners pronounce "u"s with a sound closer to an "a", so "bugger" sounds more like 'bagger".

"manly sound" <- LOL! Oh what a bagger of a description! I knew there was something different about her.