Talk:Received Pronunciation

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It is requested that one or more audio files of a demonstration of Received Pronunciation be included in this article to improve its quality. Please see Wikipedia:Requested recordings for more on this request.

Archives

September 2005-November 2007

Contents 1 linking 'r' and intrusive 'r' 2 Contradiction 3 This Article 4 Tripthongs 5 Audio file? 6 Gladstone and Baldwin 7 Kings/Queen's English 8 England

[edit] linking 'r' and intrusive 'r'

"True" RP makes use of intrusive 'r' but other versions of RP do not. However, linking 'r' must ALWAYS be made. Thus "China and Japan" need not have an 'r' sound between the first two words (though it really should) but "before I left" MUST have an 'r' sound between the first two words unless there is a pause between them. That is because "I" starts with a vowel sound. However, "before she left" would have no 'r' betwen the first two words since "she" begings with a consonant sound. I've even heard BBC pronunciations involving INTERNAL intrusive 'r' such as "drawring" for "drawing". Also, while intrusive 'r' is required between a word ending in 'a' or 'ah' and a word beginnning with vowel sound, it is not used by all RP speakers between a word ending in 'aw' and a wording beginning with a vowel sound. JC Wells, for example, will pronounce "Christina Onassis" as "kristinerunasis" but will pronounce "Law and Order" as "lawandawde" rather than "lawrandowde". I can't reproduce the proper pronunciation symbols so I tried to transcribe the pronunciation as best as I could.

Incedentally, I speak "Upper-RP", when I want to and tone it down when I feel it to be necessary. I can speak General American but cannot properly imitate any regional British accent because most of them sound so f*****g weird! If you're not going to use RP, then GenAm is your next best bet (assumimg you can pull either or both of them off). In its nicer forms, GA sounds much nicer and more "educated" and "refined" than some of the trashy working class UK accents which are so far from RP that they may as well not even be British. Of course, American English has its "Brooklynese" (which is primarily used in certain parts of the NYC metro area) and the Southeastern accent which can make one sound like a dumb hillbilly or a Southern belle depending on how thick the drawl is.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.43.233 (talk) 8 December 2007

And how does this relate to the wikipedia article on RP? Do you have any suggestions for improvements to the article? Snalwibma (talk) 11:32, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

this edit adds information that contrasts the part of the article where it states

"In unstressed syllables occurring before vowels and in final position, contrasts between long and short high vowels are neutralized and short [i] and [u] occur"

I'm assuming that the Trudgill (2000) is arguing that the sound in happy is [ɪ] but we've got an inherent contradiction as Roach (2004) says it's [i]. Which is right? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Free variation? It sounds like happy tensing. --Kjoonlee 14:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This Article

I think this article should concentrate more on phonetics as opposed to just phonology. Otherwise it seems as if RP is no different from General American. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 22:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, good point. There is some phonetic information but we could certainly expand on this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tripthongs

There are two tripthongs down already. Should there not be a third? I believe that the R.P. pronunciations of cure and pure should be represented with the /juə/ vowel. Is this not a tripthong? I think that /j/ counts as a vowel in I.P.A., but am not 100% sure on this. Epa101 (talk) 08:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Generally, in English [j] doesn't count as part of a vowel nucleus. This is why [ju] is not a diphthong in English. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, most people agree with you on the /j/. However, I thought about this a bit more, and realised that you could add a schwa onto any of the R.P. dipthongs that do not already end in a shwa and get an acceptable tripthong, although some of these are rarely used. Here is my list:

• /eɪə/ player, sayer, layer
• /aɪə/ fire, wire, liar
• /ɔɪə/ lawyer, employer, destroyer
• /əʊə/ (lawn) mower, (hair) blower, lower
• /aʊə/ hour, shower, power

If you look back at Joseph Wright’s work, which were early applications of IPA, all of the tripthongs there end in a shwa. In English Dialect Grammar, the only exceptions were /ɪaʊ/ and /ɪəʊ/, which were both confined to Scotland.

Any thoughts on whether the five tripthongs above are acceptable? Epa101 (talk) 22:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The article mentions /aɪə/ and /aʊə/, though they are commonly monophthongized. I suspect that sources don't mention the others because the schwa is syllabified. My Oxford dictionary transcribes layer as /ˈleɪə(r)/; the stress mark means that it has multiple syllables. Interestingly fire and shower also exhibit syllabification but hour does not. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Audio file?

It would be helpful to have an audio file for this article, demonstrating what Received Pronunciation sounds like. I don't understand phonology, so this article is basically useless for people like me who want to learn what it actually sounds like. Perhaps it could even double as a Spoken Article file. -kotra (talk) 23:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gladstone and Baldwin

I have provided a reference for Gladstone. I moved the tag to Baldwin seeing as I do not have a reference close to hand. I remember reading that he retained some Midlands pronunciations, and still said bath with the old short a. One book that definitely mentions that it is the Ey Up Mi Duck! The Dialect of Derbyshire book, which has some erudite chapters on linguistics as well as humour. I don't suppose that anyone has a copy close to hand? Epa101 (talk) 22:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kings/Queen's English

Queen's English is not the same as RP! Just thought I'd let you know!--Cameron (t|p|c) 13:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that the queen doesn't actually use proper RP despite popular opinion or are you saying that when a Brit says "he speaks the queen's English" that there's another accent in mind? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there a consensus amongst linguists on this? The link at the bottom to the Wells article seems to define "Received Pronunciation" rather widely. I would have thought that any speaker who used t-glottaling and l-vocalisation would automatically be excluded from R.P., but Wells is a phonetician and he would disagree. I am sure that many linguists would define R.P. much more narrowly than that. In early- and mid-20th century literature, "Received Pronunciation" has always been interchangeable with "the King's/Queen's English" from what I have read. Has its meaning broadened over time? Epa101 (talk) 20:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

P.S. The distinction might be that there are sometimes words that may be said one of two ways in R.P. For example:

• Again - əgɛn, əgɛin
• Either - ʌɪθə(ɹ), i:θə(ɹ)
• Moor - mɔː(ɹ), mʊə(ɹ)

In the Queen's English, I think that there is just one, as the Queen decides which one counts. Epa101 (talk) 16:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Where do you get that from? The distinction between Queen's English and RP, I mean. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]}

I think that Epa101 has become confused by an equivocation fallacy. Queen's English can be used as a synonym for RP, in which there are multiple ways of pronouncing certain words. Queen's English can also mean the pronunciation and dialect used by the Queen, which assuming that she is consistent would have one way of pronouncing each word. -- Q Chris (talk) 07:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

In Roach’s work “English Phonetics and Phonology”, he suggests a distinction between the English used by the Royal Family/aristocracy and R.P. He says that royals use the /eʊ/ vowel instead of /əʊ/ in words such as ‘’no, slow, gold’’, etc. Epa101 (talk) 18:57, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I see how you might get a distinction between "Queen's English" and RP from that but it's still quite a stretch. AFAIK, that's not how "queen's english" is commonly used and we would need a clearer statement from a source to justify making such a distinction in the article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It is page 26 in the Roach "English Phonetics and Phonology" if you want to have a look, but he only mentions it in passing. Epa101 (talk) 22:40, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't being clear. You mentioned a difference between Received Pronunciation and Queen's English (In RP, again, either, and moor have two pronunciations while in QE they have only one). You then cited Roach who indicates that the Royal Family does not speak (perfect) RP. If you are then trying to indicate that the terms RP and QE refer to two different phenomena, then Roach isn't backing you up. RP and QE are synonymous. The Queen not actually using RP is more a cute bit of a trivia than a reason to distinguish the two. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I was just giving you the page reference if you wanted to look it up for yourself. My early post on again, either, moor was just a bit of speculation by me - a suggestion. It probably is wrong. The Roach point was added just because I was reading the book that day and thought that it was worth adding to the page. It was not meant to support my earlier post in any way, but just seemed as a respectable source that made a distinction between royal speech and RP. Roach does not actually express any opinion on the phrase "The Queen's English" in the book. Epa101 (talk) 10:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, then it looks like we've got harmony here :). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 10:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] England

I've noticed that the way English people pronounce, well, England, is different from the way Americans pronounce it. How would the English pronunciation be written phonetically? 208.104.45.20 (talk) 03:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

/Iŋ'lənd/. What do the Americans say? Epa101 (talk) 15:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I meant for you to put it in brackets. Americans typically pronounce it [Iŋ'ɡlɨnd]. It's a slight difference, but it's still there. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 20:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)