Question:
‘ You may laugh, but surveys prove that most of the English
population equate good articulation with higher IQs,
better looks, cleanliness, sex appeal and reliability.
It is called Received Pronunciation.
( Lette, 1993, quoted in English:
History, Diversity and Change, p.259).
Evaluate this claim by Lette.
English has become the language of fashion, the gateway
to world knowledge and it opens doors to countless
opportunities but only if you speak the right
variety. The English accent varies regionally across
social groups and people frequently adjust their accents
accordingly to the appropriate or desired social impressions
to signal different kinds of social identities and
aspirations; although there are local prestigious varieties
out of Britain and even with the emergence of Estuary English
in Britain, Received Pronunciation (RP) as the standard
English model still triumph presently as the speech of the
educated, the rich and the powerful.
Received Pronunciation (RP) emerged from the pressing
desire to standardise English. RP has transformed itself from
the south-eastern variety into an accent of perfection endowed
with a whole set of positive associations. It is associated
with upper class: power, prestige and privilege. Received
Pronunciation (also known as BBC English or Queen’s English)
is the desirable, prestigious accent, ‘received’ at the royal
court and was held as a model of perfect English accent.
The varieties of English accents are complex and confusing.
Caribbean English and Jamaican English are rhythmical. This
impression is due to the stress on their final syllables in
contrast to the initial stress of RP, celebrate (Caribbean
/Jamaican accent) rather than celebrate(RP). In Singapore the
vowels in beat and bit are similar and they are not distinct
in Singapore English; in New Zealand, the vowel sound of hit
is pronounced with a (∂)pronunciation s o that ‘hit’
can begin to sound closer to ‘hut’ in RP and when an
Australian says words such as ‘burst’ or ‘weight’, a person
from the US may think he hears ‘bust’ and ‘white’ !
Alan Bell in his study of the contrasting pronunciation,
found Maori women (original inhabitants of new Zealand)
using fewer (∂) and a larger amount (I) pronunciations due
to the influence of the Maori language, whereas Pakeha
women (descendants from Britain 150 years ago) use more(∂)
pronunciation. Our pronunciation are highly influenced by
our cultures, ethnic groups and mother tongues and it
reveals our origin and status.
The English language is embedded in all our reflections of
our immediate cultural contexts. For example, in south of
India they would say: ‘I came by walk’(I came on foot)
as in I came by bus/taxi. They believe our legs are god’s
gift as a natural mode of transport. Additionally, in
Singapore, Singaporeans do not know how to use modal
(auxiliary) verbs because it does not exist in their
cultures- Malay and Chinese. ‘Can’ is used to substitute
all modal verbs: ‘Can you come over tonight?’,
‘Can lah/cannot lah’, Can or not?’. The following is an
example of a conversation in Singapore English:
‘Today cannot, tomorrow can?’
‘What about Monday, can?
‘Also can’.
‘So, on Monday I borrow your father’s car, can?
‘How can!’
The different ways people speak English are influenced by
the syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation of their local
cultures.
The different English pronunciations are strongly shaped by
the phonetics of the first language of their speakers. Our
pronunciation was born from the first sounds we hear in our
mother’s embrace, in our childhood and is deeply embedded and
rooted in us. The Indian sound has a problem, they do not have
the ‘sure’ sound as measure/pleasure/treasure, thus they
accommodate by using the closest sound they can find in their
own mother’s tongue to substitute ‘sure’. So ‘sure’
becomes ‘gure’. Indians from eastern India moving to
the south would say: ‘I am going to cast a bote (vote)’
would be seen as an object of laugher. Since there is no
‘V’ sound in their mother’s tongue, they choose the
closest sound which in this case is ‘b’. Hence, even
within a country, from region to region there are confusing
variants of the English pronunciation.
Besides the different regional accents within a country,
a country also has its own local prestigious English variety.
Lanham and Mcdonald’s sociohistorical description of South
African English (1979) show how the settlement of different
groups from England into the different regions in South
Africa has furnished the current social and regional
variations. The accent of Eastern Cape is ‘Extreme South
African English’ which is the accent of the first English
settlers (artisans and labourers) while Natal English accent,
the locally prestigious, respectable South African English
is associated with the middle class English settlers who are
sugar plantation owners of Natal. Speakers using local
prestigious English variety will help to reflect the speakers’
social status in a positive light.
Is an accent a turn-off or turn on? Some consider the
Australian drawl sound like yobs and some complain that
American accent ‘vulgar’ while British accent sounds uptight.
New Zealand accent is distinct from Australian pronunciation
and Singaporean accent is different from Malaysian accent so
variants are rampant, complex even confusing from country
to country, region to region, culture to culture and within
these varieties.
There are consistently social judgements of what is
acceptable or appropriate or beautiful in our pronunciations.
Accent which is pronunciation indicate a person’s place of
origin and social class. Some usages are socially acceptable
and some speakers of high social status condemn and disparage
the speech of the socially inferior who speak non-stand
English. In social-networking, one may change one’s accent to
mark one’s identity, to upgrade one’s social status and to be
accepted in a group or to ascertain the closeness of
relationships within a speech community. The significant
thing about accent is it enables us to identify speakers as
a member of a particular social class which determines
their status.
The intimate connection between language and society operates
accordingly to how speakers attach different social meanings
to them. In New York accent with non-prevocalic ‘r’ was
associated with prestige and high social status. The upper
–class new York speakers stressed on the non-prevocalic ‘r’
most consistently however the lower-class has the least
‘r’ pronunciation of all the socio-economic groups in New York
city. Lanov’s research of the variable pronunciation of
non-prevocalic ‘r’ in words like ‘car’ and ‘part’ by New York
speakers suggested that an accent do varies across members of
a society, echoing their the social stratification of that
society. The ‘r’ pronunciation will increase the higher one
goes up the social class.
In addition, gender differences has been quite influential
in the sociolinguistic study of change. The research of
Deborah Cameron and Jennifer Coates (1988) on the role of
women in the situation of linguistic change do reveal that
women are more ‘status conscious’ than men and it is in
consistence with Labov’s findings. Labov’s research shows
women in New York using more ‘prestige r’ pronunciation than
men from the same social class. Speakers do vary their accents
according to different contexts, the lower middle-class
New York speakers use even more prevocalic ‘r’ in formal
situations than speakers of upper-middle class. This
indicates that the lower-middle-class speakers feeling
insecure of their social rank, yearn to be accepted as
members of upper middle class are aware of the prestige and
the value of non prevocalic ‘r’. The speech of the rich and
powerful are seen to dominate and impress the poor and the
powerless.
Our accents are associated with approval and acceptance in
society. Younger children might be reflecting their parents’
accents but once they started to have peers and their social
life they start to imitate the new pronunciation of their
group. Teenagers are picking up strong local accents as they
come under peer pressure to conform to all styles of
behaviour. In Singapore, for example, young men who enter
the army will adopt a different slang, vocabulary
(usually vulgar to display their manhood) to gain acceptance
and approval from their peers. People’s command of prestigious
accent is likely to increase their freedom and also their
career prospects. There are incidents of working adults who
attend special courses to remove their natural accents and
learn RP, the prestigious English accent which would help
them upgrade their social status and gain acceptance in the
society.
There is a controlling link between attitudes toward an accent
and attitudes towards speakers of that accent. Our accent can
sound like self conscious superiorities or be contrived with discrimination.
‘In order to secure refinement of tone, she
articulates with the tip of her tongue against her front
teeth (as much as possible) like the snobbish Irishman
who uses it as a cheap recipe for speaking genteel English’
(Shaw, Pygmalion).
In a BBC radio survey of British listeners’ attitudes toward
different regional accents, the majority of respondents ranked
RP on the top of the social scale and labelled it most honest
by contrast they placed local Liverpool at the bottom and
cockney as the least charming. Speakers of ‘cultivated RP’
were perceived as more positively in terms of competence,
reliability, intelligence, attractiveness and self
-confidence. Speaking ‘badly’(non-standard) would be
referred as ‘uneducated’, ‘ignorant’, ‘illiterate’ as well
as being associated with disapproval and disdain of their
language and their way of life.
Received Pronunciation ( RP), the standard English quality is
measured using criteria as spelling, grammar and punctuation.
In Thailand, the lack of competence in English leads to funny
mistakes. One incident was a signboard on a stand of an
international show that read ‘Privillage Card’, aka the
much-touted ‘Elite Card’, which was soon read by Thai visitors
as ‘Privillage Card’ and quickly shortened to
‘Pillage Card’! There is a strong tendency to judge
people’s competence by their spelling, pronunciation and
grammar and accuracy in these areas is considered precise
and incisive.
The authority to standardise English came from linguists like
Samuel Johnson the 17th century dictionary writer and their
approach was largely prescriptive. The prescriptive approach
is to establish rules and regulations of standard spellings
and grammar and to labelling of language as ‘correct’ and
‘incorrect’. Susan Wright suggests that ‘RP surfaces silently
as the basis of linguists’ phonemic descriptions of English’
( EHDC p.260). RP is the standard English variety taught in
schools, used in the media and codified in dictionaries.
RP was considered to be the mark of education and elitist
notions sprang up around it. England was so powerful in
the 18th century and England was a magnet for talented
individuals that people modified their speech towards its
direction. BBC promoted RP, the educated southern English
voice and it strongly influenced broadcasters who were the
model markers of good English in their countries. Moreover,
articles were published in the best known international
journals, read by teachers of English not only in Britain
but outside by the most professionally minded of language
teachers throughout the world. Furthermore, university
students of the most prestigious British educational
institutions: Oxford, Cambridge, Eton and many public
schools with regional accents would pick up the accent of
their peers and modify their accent closer to RP. As England
became powerful, RP became a powerful influence
and RP is power.
The best accent however is not immune to change. Some
old-fashioned forms of RP, still occasionally heard from
older speakers, have other variation in their phonology. The
Queen seems to have changed her pronunciation slightly, she
is no longer using (є)- like vowel in words like land.
Though RP may have started to change as it evolves gradually,
its status remained prestigious. Even with the emerging
Estuary English from the Southern Essex accent which is
spreading, fanned by media exposure, RP still take centre
stage. RP may be losing its ‘normal English status’ but
certainly not its ‘posh English’ status.
English has become a world language - the essential link to
global communication. In the midst of confusing varieties,
the world needs a standard model and RP being historically
crowned as the ideal English accent still served as a perfect
model of ‘high-status English’ and it is bestowed with
positive social qualities. Most of The English population do
equate good articulation with intelligence, attractiveness,
reliability as well as other positive qualities. Spoken
exclusively by only three percent of the British people, it
is still the standard accent of the Royal family, Parliament,
the Church of England, the High Courts and other national
institutions. RP is still the chief accent taught to
foreigners as a prestigious British model and is widely used
abroad in English language schools. Received Pronunciation may
change, may evolve or perhaps may be forgotten, but right now,
presently, RP still triumph.
(2035 words)
Bibliography
TV1/2, The English Language: past, present and future. The Open University, UK.
Band 5/6. The English language: past, present and future. The Open University, Uk
Maybin. J. And mercer N., Using English from conversation to canon.
The Open university, UK.
Graddol D. And Leith D. And Swann J., English history, diversity and change.
The Open university, UK.
Shaw, B., Pygmalion, Penguin Classic.
http://www.yaelf.com/rp.shtml
http://www.blogtext.org/uncle/index19/index.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/received-pronunciation
http://en.wikipedia.org/Estuary_English
http://enn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation#Traditional_status
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A655599
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