Received Pronunciation Explained

pronounced as /notice/
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the British English accent regarded as the standard one,
carrying the highest social prestige, since as late as the very early 20th century. It has also been
referred to as Queen's English or King's English. The study of RP is concerned only with
matters of pronunciation, while other features of standard British English, such
as vocabulary, grammar, and style, are not considered.
Language scholars have long disagreed on RP's exact definition, how geographically neutral it is,
how many speakers there are, the nature and classification of its sub-varieties, how appropriate a
choice it is as a standard, how the accent has changed over time, and even its name. The
speakers who conventionally use RP have changed the accent to such a degree over the last
century that many of its early 20th-century traditions of transcription and analysis have become
outdated or are no longer considered evidence-based by linguists.[1] Still, these traditions
continue to be commonly taught and used, for instance in language education, and RP remains a
popular umbrella term in ordinary British society and in linguistics. Standard Southern British
English (SSBE) has been considered by some as an evolution of RP that is now commonplace
(its name referring to Southern England),[2] although SSBE has also been used by some linguists
as a synonym for RP.[3]

History
The tradition of Received Pronunciation is usually credited to the British phonetician Daniel Jones.
In the first edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917), he named the accent "Public
School Pronunciation"; for the second edition in 1926 he wrote: "In what follows I call it Received
Pronunciation, for want of a better term." However, the term had been used much earlier by P. S.
Du Ponceau in 1818 and the Oxford English Dictionary cites quotations back to about 1710. [4] A
similar term, received standard, was coined by Henry C. K. Wyld in 1927. The early
phonetician Alexander John Ellis used both terms interchangeably, but with a much broader
definition than Jones's, saying, "There is no such thing as a uniform educated pron. of English,
and rp. and rs. is a variable quantity differing from individual to individual, although all its
varieties are 'received', understood and mainly unnoticed".
Although a form of Standard English had been established in the City of London by the end of the
15th century, it did not begin to resemble RP until the late 19th century. RP has most in common
with the dialects of what has been termed the South East Midlands, in particular the Golden
Triangle of universities, namely London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the public schools that fed
them, such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby.[5] In 1922, the BBC selected RP as its broadcasting
standard, citing its being widely understood globally as a reason.
According to Fowler's Modern English Usage (1965), "the correct term is 'the Received
Pronunciation'. The word 'received' conveys its original meaning of 'accepted' or 'approved', as in
'received wisdom'."[6]

Alternative names
Some linguists have used the term "RP" while expressing reservations about its suitability. The
Cambridge-published English Pronouncing Dictionary (aimed at those learning English as a
foreign language) uses the phrase "BBC Pronunciation", on the basis that the name "Received
Pronunciation" is "archaic" and that BBC News presenters no longer suggest high social class and
privilege to their listeners. Other writers have also used the name "BBC Pronunciation". The term
'The Queen's English' has also been used by some writers.[5]
The phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis frequently criticised the name "Received Pronunciation" in his
blog: he has called it "invidious", [7] a "ridiculously archaic, parochial and question-begging
term"[8] and noted that American scholars find the term "quite curious". [9] He used the term
"General British" (to parallel "General American") in his 1970s publication of A Concise
Pronouncing Dictionary of American and British English [10] and in subsequent publications.
[11] The name "General British" is adopted in the latest revision of Gimson's Pronunciation of

English. Beverley Collins and Inger Mees use the term "Non-Regional Pronunciation" for what is
often otherwise called RP, and reserve the term "Received Pronunciation" for the "upper-class
speech of the twentieth century". Received Pronunciation has sometimes been called "Oxford
English", as it used to be the accent of most members of the University of Oxford.
[5] The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association uses the name "Standard Southern

British". Page 4 reads:

Sub-varieties
Faced with the difficulty of defining a single standard of RP, some researchers have tried to
distinguish between sub-varieties:
•proposed Conservative, General, and Advanced; "Conservative RP" referred to a
traditional accent associated with older speakers with certain social backgrounds; General
RP was considered neutral regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the speaker; and
Advanced RP referred to speech of a younger generation of speakers. Later editions (e.g.,
Gimson 2008) use the terms General, Refined and Regional RP. In the latest revision of
Gimson's book, the terms preferred are General British (GB), Conspicuous GB and
Regional GB.
•refers to "mainstream RP" and "U-RP"; he suggests that Gimson's categories of
Conservative and Advanced RP referred to the U-RP of the old and young respectively.
However, Wells stated, "It is difficult to separate stereotype from reality" with U-RP.
Writing on his blog in February 2013, Wells wrote, "If only a very small percentage of
English people speak RP, as Trudgill et al. claim, then the percentage speaking U-RP is
vanishingly small" and "If I were redoing it today, I think I'd drop all mention of 'U-RP'".
[12]

•Upton distinguishes between RP (which he equates with Wells's "mainstream RP"),

Traditional RP (after Ramsaran 1990), and an even older version which he identifies with
Cruttenden's "Refined RP".[13]
•An article on the website of the British Library refers to Conservative, Mainstream and
Contemporary RP.[14]

Prevalence and perceptions

Traditionally, Received Pronunciation has been associated with high social class. It was the
"everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose men-folk [had] been
educated at the great public boarding-schools" and which conveyed no information about that
speaker's region of origin before attending the school. An 1891 teacher's handbook stated, "It is
the business of educated people to speak so that no-one may be able to tell in what county their
childhood was passed".[15] Nevertheless, in the 19th century some British prime ministers, such
as William Ewart Gladstone, still spoke with some regional features.[16]
Opinions differ over the proportion of Britons who speak RP. Trudgill estimated 3% in 1974,
[17] but that rough estimate has been questioned by J. Windsor Lewis.[18] Upton notes higher

estimates of 5% (Romaine, 2000) and 10% (Wells, 1982) but refers to these as "guesstimates"
not based on robust research.[19]
The claim that RP is non-regional is disputed, since it is most commonly found in London and the
southeast of England. It is defined in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as "the standard
accent of English as spoken in the South of England", and alternative names such as "Standard
Southern British" have been [Link] RP's historic high social prestige in Britain, being seen
as the accent of those with power, money, and influence, it may be perceived negatively by some
as being associated with undeserved, or accidental, privilege [20] and as a symbol of the
southeast's political power in Britain. Based on a 1997 survey, Jane Stuart-Smith wrote, "RP has
little status in Glasgow, and is regarded with hostility in some quarters". [21] A 2007 survey found
that residents of Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to dislike RP. [22] It is shunned by some with
left-wing political views, who may be proud of having accents more typical of the working
classes.
Since the Second World War, and increasingly since the 1960s, a wider acceptance of regional
English varieties has taken hold in education and public life. Nonetheless, surveys from 1969 to
2022 consistently show that RP is perceived as the most prestigious accent of English in the
United Kingdom. In 2022, 25% of British adults reported being mocked for their regional accent
at work, and 46% in social situations.[23]

Use
Media
In the early days of British broadcasting speakers of English origin almost universally used RP.
The first director-general of the BBC, Lord Reith, encouraged the use of a 'BBC accent' because it
was a "style or quality of English which would not be laughed at in any part of the country". He
distinguished the BBC accent from the 'Oxford accent', to which he was "vehemently opposed".
In 1926 the BBC established an Advisory Committee on Spoken English with distinguished
experts, including Daniel Jones, to advise on the correct pronunciation and other aspects of
broadcast language. The Committee proved unsuccessful and was dissolved after the Second
World War.[24] While the BBC did advise its speakers on pronunciation, there was never a
formalised official BBC pronunciation standard. [25] A notable departure from the use of RP came
with the Yorkshire-born newsreader Wilfred Pickles during the Second World War; his accent
allowing listeners to more clearly distinguish BBC broadcasts from German propaganda, though
Pickles had modified his accent to be closer to RP.[26] [27] Since the Second World War RP has
played a much smaller role in broadcast speech. RP remains the accent most often heard in the
speech of announcers and newsreaders on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, and in some TV channels,
but non-RP accents are now more widely encountered.[28]

Dictionaries
Most English dictionaries published in Britain (including the Oxford English Dictionary) now give
phonetically transcribed RP pronunciations for all words. Pronunciation dictionaries represent a
special class of dictionary giving a wide range of possible pronunciations: British pronunciation
dictionaries are all based on RP, though not necessarily using that name. Daniel Jones transcribed
RP pronunciations of words and names in the English Pronouncing Dictionary. Cambridge
University Press continues to publish this title, as of 1997 edited by Peter Roach. Two other
pronunciation dictionaries are in common use: the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, compiled
by John C. Wells (using the name "Received Pronunciation"), and Clive Upton's Oxford Dictionary
of Pronunciation for Current English, (now republished as The Routledge Dictionary of
Pronunciation for Current English).[29]

Language teaching
Pronunciation forms an essential component of language learning and teaching; a model accent is
necessary for learners to aim at, and to act as a basis for description in textbooks and classroom
materials. RP has been the traditional choice for teachers and learners of British English.
[30] However, the choice of pronunciation model is difficult, and the adoption of RP is in many

ways problematic.[31]

Phonology
Consonants
+Consonan Labial Dental Alveolar Post
t phonemes alveol
pronounced pronounced
Nasal
as /link/ as /link/
pronounced pronounced pronounced pronounced
Stop
as /link/ as /link/ as /link/ as /link/
pronounced pronounc
Affricate
as /link/ as /link/
pronounced pronounced pronounced pronounced pronounced pronounced pronounced pronounc
Fricative
as /link/ as /link/ as /link/ as /link/ as /link/ as /link/ as /link/ as /link/
pronounced pronounc
Approximant
as /link/ as /link/
Nasals and liquids (pronounced as //m//, pronounced as //n//, pronounced as //ŋ//, pronounced
as //r//, pronounced as //l//) may be syllabic in unstressed syllables. The consonant pronounced
as //r// in RP is generally a postalveolar approximant, which would normally be expressed with
the sign pronounced as /[ɹ]/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but the sign pronounced
as //r// is nonetheless traditionally used for RP in most of the literature on the topic.
Voiceless plosives (pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t//, pronounced as //k//, pronounced
as //tʃ//) are aspirated at the beginning of a syllable, unless a completely unstressed vowel
follows. (For example, the pronounced as //p// is aspirated in "impasse", with primary stress on
"-passe", but not "compass", where "-pass" has no stress.) Aspiration does not occur when
pronounced as //s// precedes in the same syllable, as in "spot" or "stop". When
a sonorant pronounced as //l//, pronounced as //r//, pronounced as //w//, or pronounced as //j//
follows, this aspiration is indicated by partial devoicing of the sonorant. pronounced as //r// is a
fricative when devoiced.
Syllable final pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t//, pronounced as //tʃ//, and pronounced
as //k// may be either preceded by a glottal stop (glottal reinforcement) or, in the case of
pronounced as //t//, fully replaced by a glottal stop, especially before a syllabic
nasal (bitten pronounced as /[ˈ ɪʔ creaky voice; thus,
an alternative phonetic transcription of attempt pronounced as /[əˈtʰemʔt]/ could be pronounced
as /[əˈ ʰ
As in other varieties of English, voiced plosives (pronounced as //b//, pronounced as //d//,
pronounced as //ɡ//, pronounced as //dʒ//) are partly or even fully devoiced at utterance
boundaries or adjacent to voiceless consonants. The voicing distinction between voiced and
voiceless sounds is reinforced by a number of other differences, with the result that the two of
consonants can clearly be distinguished even in the presence of devoicing of voiced sounds:
•Aspiration of voiceless consonants syllable-initially
•Glottal reinforcement of /p, t, k, tʃ/ syllable-finally
•Shortening of vowels before voiceless consonants

As a result, some authors prefer to use the terms fortis and lenis[32] in place
of voiceless and voiced. However, the latter are traditional and in more frequent usage.
The voiced dental fricative (pronounced as //ð//) is more often a weak dental plosive; the
sequence pronounced as //nð// is often realised as pronounced as /[nn̪ nn̪ ]/ (a long dental nasal).
pronounced as //l// has velarised allophone (pronounced as /[ɫ]/) in the syllable rhyme.
pronounced as //h// becomes voiced (pronounced as /[ɦ]/) between voiced sounds.

Vowels
! rowspan="2"
Front Central Back

pronounced as pronounced as
Close
/link/ /link/
 pronounced as pronounced as pronounced as pronounced as
Mid
/link/ /link/ /link/ /link/
pronounced as
Open
/link/
Examples of short vowels: pronounced as //ɪ// in kit, mirror and rabbit, pronounced as //ʊ//
in foot and cook, pronounced as //e// in dress and merry, pronounced as //ʌ//
in strut and curry, pronounced as //æ// in trap and marry, pronounced as //ɒ//
in lot and orange, pronounced as //ə// in ago and sofa.
Monophthongs ("Long")!! Front! Central! Back
pronounced as pronounced as
Close
/link/ /link/
pronounced as pronounced as pronounced as
Mid
/link/ /link/ /link/
pronounced as
Open
/link/
Examples of long vowels: pronounced as //iː// in fleece, pronounced as //uː// in goose,
pronounced as //ɛː// in bear, pronounced as //ɜː// in nurse and furry, pronounced as //ɔː//
in north, force and thought, pronounced as //ɑː// in father and start.
The long mid front vowel pronounced as //ɛː// is elsewhere transcribed with the traditional
symbols (IPA|ɛə, eə). The predominant realisation in contemporary RP is monophthongal.

"Long" and "short" vowels

Many conventional descriptions of the RP vowel system group the non-diphthongal vowels into
the categories "long" and "short". This should not be taken to mean that RP has minimal pairs in
which the only difference is vowel length. "Long" and "short" are convenient cover terms for a
number of phonetic features. The long-short pairings shown above include also differences in
vowel quality.
The vowels called "long" high vowels in RP pronounced as //iː// and pronounced as //uː// are
slightly diphthongized, and are often narrowly transcribed in phonetic literature as diphthongs
pronounced as /[ɪi]/ and pronounced as /[ʊu]/. The starting point of the diphthongal pronounced
as //uː// can be either close to pronounced as /[ʊ]/ or a more centralized and even unrounded
pronounced as /[ɨ]/, and its narrow transcriptions could be either pronounced as /
[ʊu]/ or pronounced as /[ ɨɯ
]/.
Vowels may be phonologically long or short (i.e. belong to the long or the short group of vowel
phonemes) but their length is influenced by their context: in particular, they are shortened if a
voiceless (fortis) consonant follows in the syllable, so that, for example, the vowel in 'bat'
pronounced as /[bæʔt]/ is shorter than the vowel in 'bad' pronounced as /[bæd]/. The process is
known as pre-fortis clipping. Thus phonologically short vowels in one context can be
phonetically longer than phonologically long vowels in another context. For example, the vowel
called "long" pronounced as //iː// in 'reach' pronounced as //riːtʃ// (which ends with a voiceless
consonant) may be shorter than the vowel called "short" pronounced as //ɪ// in the word 'ridge'
pronounced as //rɪdʒ// (which ends with a voiced consonant). Wiik, cited in, published durations
of English vowels with a mean value of 172 ms for short vowels before voiced consonants but a
mean value of 165 ms for long vowels preceding voiceless consonants.
In natural speech, the plosives pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //d// often have no
audible release utterance-finally, and voiced consonants are partly or completely devoiced (as in
pronounced as /[bn̪ ædn̪ ]/); thus the perceptual distinction between pairs of words such as 'bad'
and 'bat', or 'seed' and 'seat' rests mostly on vowel length (though the presence or absence of
glottal reinforcement provides an additional cue).
Unstressed vowels are both shorter and more centralised than stressed ones. In unstressed
syllables occurring before vowels and in final position, contrasts between long and short high
vowels are neutralised and short pronounced as /[i]/ and pronounced as /[u]/ occur
(e.g. happy pronounced as /[ˈhæpi]/, throughout pronounced as /[θɹuˈaʊʔt]/). The neutralisation
is common throughout many English dialects, though the phonetic realisation of e.g. pronounced
as /[i]/ rather than pronounced as /[ɪ]/ (a phenomenon called happy-tensing) is not as universal.
According to Jane Setter, the typical pronunciation of the short pronounced as /[u]/ is a weakly
rounded near-close near-back rounded vowel pronounced as /link/.[33]

Diphthongs and triphthongs

Diphthong Example
Closing
pronounced as //eɪ// pronounced as //beɪ// bay
pronounced as //aɪ// pronounced as //baɪ// buy
pronounced as //ɔɪ// pronounced as //bɔɪ// boy
pronounced as pronounced as
beau
//əʊ// //bəʊ//
pronounced as pronounced as boug
//aʊ// //baʊ// h
Centring
pronounced as //ɪə// pronounced as //bɪə// beer
pronounced as pronounced as
boor
//ʊə// //bʊə//
The centring diphthongs are gradually being eliminated in RP. The vowel pronounced as //ɔə// (as
in door, boar) had largely merged with pronounced as //ɔː// by the Second World War, and the
vowel pronounced as //ʊə// (as in poor, tour) has more recently merged with pronounced as
//ɔː// as well among most speakers, although the sound pronounced as //ʊə// is still found in
conservative speakers, and in less common words such as boor. See – merger. More recently
pronounced as //ɛə// has become a pure long vowel pronounced as //ɛː//, as explained above.
pronounced as //ɪə// is increasingly pronounced as a monophthong pronounced as /[ɪː]/,
although without merging with any existing vowels.
The diphthong pronounced as //əʊ// is pronounced by some RP speakers in a noticeably different
way when it occurs before pronounced as //l//, if that consonant is syllable-final and not followed
by a vowel (the context in which pronounced as //l// is pronounced as a "dark l"). The realization
of pronounced as //əʊ// in this case begins with a more back, rounded and sometimes more open
vowel quality; it may be transcribed as pronounced as /[ɔʊ]/ or pronounced as /[ɒʊ]/. It is likely
that the backness of the diphthong onset is the result of allophonic variation caused by the
raising of the back of the tongue for the pronounced as //l//. If the speaker has "l-vocalization"
the pronounced as //l// is realized as a back rounded vowel, which again is likely to cause
backing and rounding in a preceding vowel as coarticulation effects. This phenomenon has been
discussed in several blogs by John C. Wells.[34] [35] [36] In the recording included in this article
the phrase "fold his cloak" contains examples of the pronounced as //əʊ// diphthong in the two
different contexts. The onset of the pre-pronounced as //l// diphthong in "fold" is slightly more
back and rounded than that in "cloak".
RP also possesses the triphthongs pronounced as //aɪə// as in tire, pronounced as //aʊə// as
in tower, pronounced as //əʊə// as in lower, pronounced as //eɪə// as in layer and pronounced as
//ɔɪə// as in loyal. There are different possible realisations of these items: in slow, careful speech
they may be pronounced as two syllables with three distinct vowel qualities in succession, or as a
monosyllabic triphthong. In more casual speech the middle vowel may be considerably reduced,
by a process known as smoothing, and in an extreme form of this process the triphthong may
even be reduced to a single long vowel. In such a case the difference between pronounced as
//aʊə//, pronounced as //aɪə//, and pronounced as //ɑː// in tower, tire, and tar may be
neutralised with all three units realised as pronounced as /[ɑː]/ or pronounced as /[äː]/. This type
of smoothing is known as the tower–tire, tower–tar and tire–tar mergers.
 Triphthongs! As two syllables! Triphthong! Loss of mid-element! Further simplified as! Example
pronounced as / pronounced as /
pronounced as /[aɪ.ə]/ pronounced as /[aɪə]/ tire
[aːə]/ [aː]/
pronounced as / pronounced as / pronounced as / pronounced as / towe
[ɑʊ.ə]/ [ɑʊə]/ [ɑːə]/ [ɑː]/ r
pronounced as / pronounced as / pronounced as / lowe
pronounced as /[əʊ.ə]/
[əʊə]/ [əːə]/ [ɜː]/ r
pronounced as /
pronounced as /[eɪ.ə]/ pronounced as /[eɪə]/ pronounced as /[ɛːə]/ layer
[ɛː]/
pronounced as / pronounced as /
pronounced as /[ɔɪ.ə]/ pronounced as /[ɔɪə]/ loyal
[ɔːə]/ [ɔː]/

BATH vowel
There are differing opinions as to whether pronounced as //æ// in the BATH lexical set can be
considered RP. The pronunciations with pronounced as //ɑː// are invariably accepted as RP.
The English Pronouncing Dictionary does not admit pronounced as //æ// in BATH words and
the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary lists them with a § marker of non-RP status.[37] John Wells
wrote in a blog entry on 16 March 2012 that when growing up in the north of England he used
pronounced as //ɑː// in "bath" and "glass", and considers this the only acceptable phoneme in RP.
[38]
Others have argued that pronounced as //æ// is too categorical in the north of England to be
excluded. Clive Upton believes that pronounced as //æ// in these words must be considered
within RP and has called the opposing view "south-centric". Upton's Oxford Dictionary of
Pronunciation for Current English gives both variants for BATH words. A. F. Gupta's survey of
mostly middle-class students found that pronounced as //æ// was used by almost everyone who
was from clearly north of the isogloss for BATH words. She wrote, "There is no justification for
the claims by Wells and Mugglestone that this is a sociolinguistic variable in the north, though it
is a sociolinguistic variable on the areas on the border [the isogloss between north and south]".
In a study of speech in West Yorkshire, K. M. Petyt wrote that "the amount of pronounced as
//ɑː// usage is too low to correlate meaningfully with the usual factors", having found only two
speakers (both having attended boarding schools in the south) who consistently used pronounced
as //ɑː//.
Jack Windsor Lewis has noted that the Oxford Dictionary's position has changed several times on
whether to include short pronounced as //æ// within its prescribed pronunciation. [39] The BBC
Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names uses only pronounced as //ɑː//, but its author, Graham
Pointon, has stated on his blog that he finds both variants to be acceptable in place names. [40]
Some research has concluded that many people in the North of England have a dislike of the
pronounced as //ɑː// vowel in BATH words. A. F. Gupta wrote, "Many of the northerners were
noticeably hostile to pronounced as //ɡrɑːs//, describing it as 'comical', 'snobbish', 'pompous' or
even 'for morons'." On the subject, K. M. Petyt wrote that several respondents "positively said
that they did not prefer the long-vowel form or that they really detested it or even that it was
incorrect". Mark Newbrook has assigned this phenomenon the name "conscious rejection", and
has cited the vowel as "the main instance of conscious rejection of RP" in his research in
West Wirral.

French words
John Wells has argued that, as educated British
speakers often attempt to pronounce French names in
a French way, there is a case for including pronounced as //ɒ// (as in French: bon), and
pronounced as //ææ// and pronounced as //ɜ// ː(as in French: vingt-et-un), as marginal members
of the RP vowel system. He also argues against including other French vowels on the grounds
that not many British speakers succeed in distinguishing the vowels in French: bon and
French: banc, or in French: rue and French: roue. However, the Cambridge English Pronouncing
Dictionary draws a distinction between pronounced as //ɒ//
(there rendered as pronounced as //ɔ//)ː and the unrounded
pronounced as //ɑ// ːof French: banc for a total of four nasal vowels.

Alternative notations
Not all reference sources use the same system of transcription. Clive Upton devised a modified
system for the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993), changing five symbols from the
traditional Gimson system, and this is now used in many other Oxford University
Press dictionaries; the differences are shown in the table below.
Example word! style="text-align:left; width:33%;"
Traditional symbol Upton's reform symbol
dress pronounced as //e// pronounced as //ɛ//
trap pronounced as //æ// pronounced as //a//
nurse pronounced as //ɜː// pronounced as //əː//
square pronounced as //eə// pronounced as //ɛː//
price pronounced as //aɪ// pronounced as //ʌɪ//
Linguist Geoff Lindsey has argued that the system of transcription for RP has become outdated
and has proposed a new system (which he calls Standard Southern British, or SSB) as a
replacement.[41] [42]
Lindsey's system is as follows—differences between it and standard transcription are depicted
with the traditional transcription in parentheses.
Lindsey's monophthongs and diphthongs!Short!Long (triggering r-liaison)!+j diphthong!+w
diphthong
pronounced as //a// pronounced as //ɑj// pronounced as //aw//
pronounced as //ɑː//
(æ) (aɪ) (aʊ)
pronounced as //ɛː// pronounced as //ɛj//
pronounced as //ɛ// (e)
(ɛə) (eɪ)
pronounced as //ɪ// pronounced as //ɪː// (ɪə) pronounced as //ɪj// (iː)
pronounced as //ɔ// pronounced as //oː// pronounced as //oj//
(ɒ) (ɔː) (ɔɪ)
pronounced as //ɵ// pronounced as //ɵː// pronounced as //ʉw//
(ʊ) (ʊə) (uː)
pronounced as //əw//
pronounced as //ə// pronounced as //əː// (ɜː)
(əʊ)
pronounced as //ʌ//

Historical variation
Like all accents, RP has changed with time. For example, sound recordings and films from the
first half of the 20th century demonstrate that it was usual for speakers of RP to pronounce the
pronounced as //æ// sound, as in land, with a vowel close to pronounced as /[ɛ]/, so
that land would sound similar to a present-day pronunciation of lend. RP is sometimes known
as the Queen's English, but recordings show that even Queen Elizabeth II shifted her
pronunciation over the course of her reign, ceasing to use an pronounced as /[ɛ]/-like vowel in
words like land.[43] The change in RP may be observed in the home of "BBC English". The BBC
accent of the 1950s is distinctly different from today's: a news report from the 1950s is
recognisable as such, and a mock-1950s BBC voice is used for comic effect in programmes
wishing to satirise 1950s social attitudes such as the Harry Enfield Show and its "Mr.
Cholmondley-Warner" sketches.[44]
A few illustrative examples of changes in RP during the 20th century and early 21st are given
below. A more comprehensive list (using the name "General British" in place of "RP") is given
in Gimson's Pronunciation of English.

Vowels and diphthongs

•Words such as, gone, off, often, cross were formerly pronounced with pronounced as
//ɔː// instead of pronounced as //ɒ//, so that often and orphan were homophones
(see lot–cloth split). The Queen continued to use the older pronunciations,[45] but it is
now rare to hear this on the BBC.
•There used to be a distinction between horse and hoarse with an extra diphthong
pronounced as //ɔə// appearing in words like hoarse,, and pour. The symbols used by
Wright are slightly different: the sound in fall, law, saw is transcribed as pronounced
as //oː// and that in more, soar, etc. as pronounced as //oə//. Daniel Jones gives an
account of the /ɔə/ diphthong, but notes "many speakers of Received English (sic), myself
among them, do not use the diphthong at all, but replace it always by /ɔː/". This
distinction had become obsolete in RP by the late 20th century.[46]
•The vowel in words such as tour, moor, sure used to be pronounced as //ʊə//, but this
has merged with pronounced as //ɔː// for many contemporary speakers. The effect of
these two mergers (horse-hoarse and moor-more) is to bring about a number of three-
way mergers of items which were hitherto distinct, such
as poor, paw and pore (pronounced as //pʊə//, pronounced as //pɔː//, pronounced as
//pɔə//) all becoming pronounced as //pɔː//.
•The vowel and the starting point of the diphthong
has become lowered from mid pronounced as /[en̪ ]/
to open-mid pronounced as /[ɛ]/.[47]
•The starting point of the diphthong has raised from pronounced as /[ɔɪ]/ to pronounced
as /[oɪ]/.[48]
•Before the Second World War, the vowel of cup was a back vowel close
to cardinal pronounced as /[ʌ]/. It then shifted forward to pronounced as /link/, but
pronounced as /link/ is increasingly used in modern RP to avoid the clash with the lowered
variety of pronounced as //æ// in the pronounced as /link/ region (the trap-strut merger).
•There has been a change in the pronunciation of the unstressed final vowel of happy as a
result of a process known as happY-tensing: an older pronunciation of happy would have
had the vowel /ɪ/ whereas a more modern pronunciation has a vowel nearer to /iː/. In
pronunciation handbooks and dictionaries it is now common to use the symbol /i/ to cover
both possibilities.
•In a number of words where contemporary RP has an unstressed syllable with schwa
pronounced as //ə//, older pronunciations had pronounced as //ɪ//, for instance, the final
vowel in the following: kindness, doubtless, witness, witless, toilet, fortunate.[49]
•The pronounced as //ɛː// phoneme (as in fair, care, there) was realized as a centring
diphthong pronounced as /[ɛə]/ in the past, whereas most present-day speakers of RP
pronounce it as a long monophthong pronounced as /link/.[49]
•A change in the symbolisation of the GOAT diphthong reflects a change in the
pronunciation of the starting point: older accounts of this diphthong describe it as starting
with [ön̪ ], moving towards [u]. [50] This was often symbolized as /ou/ or /oʊ/. In modern

RP the starting point is unrounded and central, and is symbolized /əʊ/.[46]

•The vowels in and, traditionally transcribed as pronounced as //ɒ// and pronounced as
//ɔː//, have shifted upwards, and are now close to pronounced as /link/ and pronounced
as /link/, respectively, in quality.[51]
•The vowels in and, traditionally transcribed as pronounced as //ʊ// and pronounced as
//uː//, have undergone fronting and reduction in the amount of lip-rounding (phonetically,
these can be transcribed pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/, respectively).
•As noted above, the vowel pronounced as //æ// has become more open, near to cardinal
pronounced as /link/.[46]
!Keyword!Older RP!Traditional
RP!Modern
RP
commA
ə
lettER
TRAP æ a
BATH
PALM ɑɑː
START
LOT ɒ
ɔ
CLOTH
THOUGH
ɔː
T
ooː
NORTH ooː
(ɔə~)ɔ
FORCE
ː
ɐ~ʌʌ~ɑʌ
STRUT ʌʌ ɐ
ɑʌ
FOOT ʊ ɵ
ʊu
GOOSE uː ʊʌʉ~ɪʌ ɨ
uɑ
CURE ʊə ooː
DRESS eo ɛ
KIT ɪo
ɪ
happY
ɪi
FLEECE iː ɪi
NEAR ɪə ɪə~ɪː
NURSE əː~ɜː
FACE eoɪ ɛɪ
SQUARE ɛə ɛə~ɛː
GOAT öoʊ əʊ əʉ
PRICE aɪ äɪ ɑɑɪ
ɑɑ
MOUTH äʊ aʊ
ʊ
CHOICE ɔɪ ɔɔɪ oɪ

Consonants
•For speakers of Received Pronunciation in the late 19th century, it was common for the
consonant combination (wh) (as in which, whistle, whether) to be realised as a voiceless
labio-velar fricative pronounced as //ʍ// (also transcribed pronounced as //hw//), as can
still be heard in the 21st century in the speech of many speakers in Ireland, Scotland and
 parts of the US. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the pronounced as
//ʍ// phoneme has ceased to be a feature of RP, except in an exaggeratedly precise style
of speaking (the wine-whine merger).
•There has been considerable growth in glottalization in RP, most commonly in the form of
glottal reinforcement. This has been noted by writers on RP since quite early in the 20th
century.[52] Ward notes pronunciations such as [njuːʔtrəl] for neutral and [reʔkləs]
for reckless. Glottalization of /tʃ/ is widespread in present-day RP when at the end of a
stressed syllable, as in butcher [bʊʔtʃə].[53]
•The realization of /r/ as a tap or flap [ɾ] has largely disappeared from RP, though it can be
heard in films and broadcasts from the first half of the 20th century. The word very was
frequently pronounced [veɾɪ]. The same sound, however, is sometimes pronounced as an
allophone of /t/ when it occurs intervocalically after a stressed syllable – the "flapped
/t/" that is familiar in American English. Phonetically, this sounds more like /d/, and this
pronunciation is sometimes known as /t/-voicing.[54]

Word-specific changes
A number of cases can be identified where changes in the pronunciation of individual words, or
small groups of words, have taken place.
•The word Mass (referring to the religious ritual) was often pronounced /mɑːs/ in older
versions of RP, but the word is now almost always /mæs/.
•The indefinite article an was traditionally used before a sounded /h/ if immediately
followed by an unstressed vowel, as in 'an hyaena.'[55] This is now uncommon, especially
in speech, and may be confined only to some of the more frequently used words, such as
'horrific' and 'historical.'[56] [57] [58]

Comparison with other varieties of English

•Like most other varieties of English outside Northern England, RP has undergone
the foot–strut split: pairs like put/putt are pronounced differently.
•RP is a non-rhotic accent, so pronounced as //r// does not occur unless followed
immediately by a vowel. Pairs such
as father/farther, caught/court and formally/formerly are homophones.
•Unlike a number of North American accents of English, RP has not undergone the Mary–
marry–merry, nearer–mirror, or hurry–furry mergers: all these words are distinct from
each other.
•Unlike many North American accents, RP has not undergone the father–bother or cot–
caught mergers.
•RP does not have yod-dropping after pronounced as //n//, pronounced as //t//,
pronounced as //d//, pronounced as //z// and pronounced as //θ//, but most speakers of
RP have yod-dropping after pronounced as //s// and pronounced as //l//. Hence, for
example, new, tune, dune, resume and enthusiasm are pronounced pronounced as
//njuː//, pronounced as //tjuːn//, pronounced as //djuːn//, pronounced as //rɪˈzjuːm// and
pronounced as //ɪnˈθjuːziæzm// rather than pronounced as //nuː//, pronounced as
//tuːn//, pronounced as //duːn//, pronounced as //rɪˈzuːm// and pronounced as //ɪn
ˈθuːziæzm//. This contrasts with many East Anglian and East Midland varieties of English
language in England and with many forms of American English, including General
American. In words such as pursuit and allure, both pronunciations (with and without
pronounced as //j//) are heard in RP. There are, however, several words where a yod has
been lost with the passage of time: for example, the word suit originally had a yod in RP
but this is now extremely rare.
•The flapped variant of pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //d// (as in much of the
West Country, Ulster, most North American varieties including General American,
Australian English, and the Cape Coloured dialect of South Africa) is not used very often.
•RP has undergone the wine–whine merger (so the sequence pronounced as //hw// is not
present except among those who have acquired this distinction as the result of speech
 training). The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, based in London, still teaches these two
sounds for international breadth as distinct phonemes. They are also distinct from one
another in most of Scotland and Ireland, in the northeast of England, and in the
southeastern United States.
•Unlike some other varieties of English language in England, there is no h-dropping in
words like head or horse. In hurried phrases such as "as hard as he could" h-dropping
commonly applies to the word he.
•Unlike most Southern Hemisphere English and North American English accents, RP has
not undergone the weak vowel merger, meaning that pairs such as Lenin/Lennon are
distinct.
•In traditional RP pronounced as /[ɾ]/ is an allophone of pronounced as //r// (it is used
intervocalically after a stressed syllable, after pronounced as //θ/, pronounced as /ð// and
sometimes even after pronounced as //b/, pronounced as /ɡ//).[59]

Spoken specimen
The Journal of the International Phonetic Association regularly publishes "Illustrations of the IPA"
which present an outline of the phonetics of a particular language or accent. It is usual to base
the description on a recording of the traditional story of the North Wind and the Sun. There is an
IPA illustration of British English (Received Pronunciation).
The female speaker is described as having been born in 1953 and educated at Oxford University.
To accompany the recording there are three transcriptions: orthographic, phonemic and
allophonic.
Phonemic

pronounced as /ðə ˈnɔːθ ˈwɪnd ən ðə ˈsʌn wə dɪˈspjuːtɪŋ ˈwɪtʃ wəz ðə ˈstrɒŋɡə, wen ə
ˈtrævlə ˌkeɪm əˌlɒŋ ˈræpt ɪn ə ˈwɔːm ˈkləʊk. ðeɪ əˈɡriːd ðət ðə ˈwʌn hu ˈfɜːst səkˈsiːdɪd
ɪn ˈmeɪkɪŋ ðə ˈtrævlə ˌteɪk hɪz ˈkləʊk ɒf ʃʊd bi kənˌsɪdəd ˈstrɒŋɡə ðən ði ˈʌðə. ˈðen ðə
ˌnɔːθ wɪnd ˈbluː əz ˈhɑːd əz i ˈkʊd, bət ðə ˈmɔː hi ˈbluː ðə ˌmɔː ˈkləʊsli dɪd ðə ˈtrævlə
ˈfəʊld hɪz ˌkləʊk əˈraʊnd hɪm, ænd ət ˈlɑːst ðə ˈnɔːθ wɪnd ˌɡeɪv ˈʌp ði əˈtempt. ˈðen ðə
ˈsʌn ˌʃɒn aʊt ˈwɔːmli, ænd əˈmiːdiətli ðə ˈtrævlə ˈtʊk ɒf ɪz ˈkləʊk. ˌsəʊ ðə ˈnɔːθn ˈwɪn
wəz əˈblaɪdʒd tʊ kənˈfes ðət ðə ˈsʌn wəz ðə ˈstrɒŋɡr ˈtuː./
əv ðə

Allophonic

pronounced as /ðə ˈnɔːθ ˈwɪ nd ən n ə ˈsʌn wə dɪˈspjuː tɪŋ ˈwɪʔtʃ wəz ðə

ˈstɹŋ + ə, wen ə ɒɡt ævl ə ˈkɹe+ m əˌlʰ ŋ ɪæpt ˌ ɒn ə ˈwɹm ʰkləɪ kˈ . ðeɔ əːi ˈ dð əʊ ðə ˣwɪˈn ɡɹ+ː ʔˈʌ
ɦu ˈfɜːs səkˈsiːdɪd ɪmˈmeɪxɪŋ ðə ˈtɹævlə + tˌʰeɪkx ɪ s ˈkləʊk ɒf ʃʊbbi kʰənˌsɪdəd ˈstɹɒŋɡə
ənn i ˈʌðə. ˈðen
ð n ə ˌnɔːθ w ɪ nd ˈbluː əzˈhɑːd əs i ˈkʊd, bət ð ə
ˈmɔː hi ˈbluː ðə ˌmɔ ˈklə ʊsl iɨ dd ðə ˈtɹæv lə + fəʊldˈ h ɪz ˌkləʊkʰ əˈɹaʊnd hɪm, ænd
ət ˈɑː ˈ ɔː ɪ ˌ .ɪ ɡ ˈʌ ˈʰ ʔ ˈ ˈ ʌ ˌʃɒ ʊ ˈ ɔː
ænd əˈmiːdiətli ðə ˈtɹævlə + tˈʰʊk ɒf ɪz ˈkləʊkˣ. nˌsəʊ ðə ˈnɔːθ ˈwɪ n wəz ə
ˈblaɪdʒ . t kʰən
ʰɵˈfes ʔðəðəˈsʌn wəzz əˈstɹŋ + əv ð ɒɡ
təuɹ0 ./ ˈ ʰ ː

Orthographic

The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveller
came along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one who first succeeded
in making the traveller take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the
other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more
closely did the traveller fold his cloak around him, and at last the North Wind gave up
the attempt. Then the Sun shone out warmly, and immediately the traveller took off
his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the
stronger of the two.
Notable speakers
The following people have been described as RP speakers:

•The British Royal Family[60] [61]

•David Attenborough, broadcaster and naturalist[62] [63]
•Gyles Brandreth, broadcaster, writer and former politician[64] [65]
•David Cameron, former Prime Minister of the UK (2010–2016)[66]
•Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, aristocrat and writer[67]
•Judi Dench, actress[68]
•Rupert Everett, actor
•Lady Antonia Fraser, author and historian[67]
•Colin Firth, actor[69] [70]
•Stephen Fry, actor and writer[71]
•Hugh Grant, actor[72] [73]
•Christopher Hitchens, late author and journalist[74]
•Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the UK (2019–2022)[75]
•Vanessa Kirby, actress[68]
•Joanna Lumley, actress[76]
•Theresa May, former Prime Minister of the UK (2016–2019)[77] [78]
•Helen Mirren, actress[79]
•Carey Mulligan, actress[68]
•Jeremy Paxman, broadcaster and TV presenter[67]
•Jacob Rees-Mogg, former leader of the House of Commons (2019–2022)[80]
•Brian Sewell, art critic[81] [82]
•Edward Stourton, broadcaster and journalist[83]
•Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the UK (1979–1990)[84]
•Emma Thompson, actress[85] [70]
•Emma Watson, actress[86]
•Justin Welby, Former Archbishop of Canterbury (2013–2025)[60]
•Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury (2002–2012)[60]

See also
•The King's English
•Accents (psychology)
•English language spelling reform
•Good American Speech
•Linguistic prescription
•Prestige (sociolinguistics)
•U and non-U English

External links
•BBC page on Upper RP as spoken by the English upper-classes
•Sounds Familiar? Listen to examples of received pronunciation on the British Library's
'Sounds Familiar' website
•'Hover & Hear' R.P., and compare it with other accents from the UK and around the
World.
 •Whatever happened to Received Pronunciation? – An article by the phonetician J. C.
Wells about received pronunciation
Sources of regular comment on RP

•John Wells's phonetic blog

•Jack Windsor Lewis's PhonetiBlog
•Linguism – Language in a word, blog by Graham Pointon of the BBC Pronunciation Unit
Audio files

•Blagdon Hall, Northumberland

•Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk
•Harrow
•Hexham, Northumberland
•London
•Newport, Pembrokeshire
•Teddington

Notes and References

[Link]: Lindsey . Geoff . English after RP: standard British pronunciation today . Wells .
John C. . 2019 . Palgrave Macmillan . 978-3-030-04356-8 . Cham, Switzerland.
[Link] site: 2023-10-31 . English accents have changed so much that two big ones are
brown bread . 2025-01-25 . Metro . en.
[Link] site: 2025-01-17 . Brits still associate working-class accents with criminal
behaviour – study warns of bias in the criminal justice system University of Cambridge .
2025-01-25 . [Link] . en.
[Link] site: Oxford English Dictionary . Oxford English Dictionary (subscription required).
Oxford University Press . 31 August 2022.
[Link] site: Robinson . Jonnie . Received Pronunciation . British Library . 22 November
2019 . [Link]
and-dialects/articles/received-pronunciation . 29 August 2019.
[Link] site: Regional Voices – Received Pronunciation. British Library. 12 June 2007. 22
March 2019.
[Link]
ind-out-more/received-pronunciation/. dead.
[Link] site: Jack Windsor Lewis . Review of the Daniel Jones English Pronouncing
Dictionary 15th edition 1997 . [Link] . 24 August 2011.
[Link] site: Jack Windsor Lewis . Ovvissly not one of us – Review of the Longman
Pronunciation Dictionary . [Link] . 24 August 2011.
[Link] site: Jack Windsor Lewis . British non-dialectal accents . [Link] . 19 February
1972 . 24 August 2011.
[Link]: Windsor Lewis . Jack . A Concise Pronouncing Dictionary of British and American
English . 1972 . Oxford . 0-19-431123-6.
[Link] site: Jack Windsor Lewis . Review of CPD in ELTJ . [Link] . 24 August 2011.
12.[Link] exotic spices
[Link]: Kortmann, Bernd . 2004 . 217–230 . 978-3110175325 . Mouton de
Gruyter . Handbook of Varieties of English: Phonology; Morphology, Syntax . 29 March
2017.
[Link] site: British Library. Sounds Familiar. 29 March 2017. 10 April 2017.
[Link]
case-studies/received-pronunciation/. dead.
[Link]: Burrell . A. . Recitation: a Handbook for Teachers in Public Elementary School .
1891 . London.
[Link]'s speech was the subject of a book The Best English. A claim for the
superiority of Received Standard English, together with notes on Mr. Gladstone's
pronunciation, H.C. Kennedy, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1934.
[Link] site: Trudgill . Peter . Sociolinguistics of Modern RP . University College London . 8
December 2000 . 3 October 2012.
[Link] site: Windsor Lewis. Jack . A Notorious Estimate . JWL's Blogs . 17 January 2017.
[Link]: Upton, Clive . Reed. Marnie . Levis. John . The Handbook of English
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[Link] site: Crystal. David. Language and Time. BBC voices. BBC . 18 April 2011. March
2007.
[Link]: Stuart-Smith, Jane. Urban Voices. Glasgow: accent and voice quality. 204.
Foulkes. Paul. Docherty. Gerard. 1999. 0340706082. Arnold.
[Link]: Scottish and Irish accents top list of favourites . The Independent . 13 May
2007.
[Link] site: 2022-11-03 . Bias against working-class and regional accents has not gone
away, report finds . 2022-11-03 . The Guardian . en.
[Link] site: Schwyter, J.R. 'Dictating to the Mob: The History of the BBC Advisory
Committee on Spoken English', 2016, Oxford University Press. 2016.
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Press. 978-0-19-873673-8.
[Link], Catherine, 'The BBC, its Pronunciation Unit and 'BBC English' in Roach, P.,
Setter, J. and Esling, J. (eds) Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing Dictionary, 4th Edition,
Cambridge University Press, pp. xxviii-xxix
[Link] in, but even then Pickles modified his speech towards RP when reading the
news.
[Link] Thornton, The Pickles Experiment – a Yorkshire man reading the news,
Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society 2012, pp. 4–19.
[Link]: Roach . Peter . Setter . Jane . Esling . John . Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing
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[Link]: Upton . Clive . Kretzschmar . William . The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation
for Current English . 2017 . Routledge . 9781138125667.
[Link] site: Case Studies – Received Pronunciation . British Library . 13 March 2007 . 27
January 2019 . As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic concept.
It is the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is widely
used (in competition with General American) for teaching English as a foreign language. .
22 July 2019 .
[Link]
case-studies/received-pronunciation/ . dead .
[Link]: Brown . Adam . Pronunciation Models . 1991 . Singapore University Press .
9971-69-157-4.
[Link] and lenis obstruents in English. Herbert F. W.. Stahlke. 1 January 2003. WORD.
54. 2. 191–216. 10.1080/00437956.2003.12068832. 141381109 . free.
[Link] site: A World of Englishes: Is pronounced as //ə// "real"?. 19 June 2013. 5 March
2016.
[Link] site: Wells. John. Blog July 2006. 24 March 2014.
[Link] site: Wells. John. Blog July 2009. 24 March 2014.
[Link] site: Wells. John. Blog Nov 2009. 24 March 2014.
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1990.
[Link] site: Wells . John . English places . John Wells's phonetic blog . 16 March 2012.
[Link] 18 in Web site: The General Central Northern Non-Dialectal Pronunciation of
England . Jack Windsor Lewis . 4 July 2011.
[Link] site: Pointon . Graham . Olivia O'Leary . Linguism: Language in a word . 20 April
2010.
[Link] site: Lindsey . Geoff . The British English vowel system . speech talk . 8 March
2012.
[Link] site: Wells . John . the Lindsey system . John Wells's phonetic blog . 12 March
2012.
[Link] site: Happy-tensing and coal in sex. Language Log. Language Log. 5 December
2006.
[Link] site: Enfield . Harry . Mr Cholmondley-Warner on Life in 1990 . . 30 July 2007 .
[Link] 2021-10-30. 14 May
2020.
45.[Link] The Queen's speech to
President Sarkozy
[Link] site: Wells . John . Whatever happened to Received Pronunciation? . 27 January
1994 . 24 August 2011.
[Link] site: Geoff . Lindsey . Funny old vowels . 3 June 2012 . 2 October 2016.
[Link] site: Geoff . Lindsey . The British English vowel system . 8 March 2012 . 22
December 2024.
[Link], Jonnie (24 April 2019). "Received Pronunciation". The British Library.
Retrieved 16 December 2019.
[Link]: Jones . Daniel . An outline of English phonetics . 1957 . Heffer . 978-
0521210980 . 101, para 394 . 9th.
[Link] site: Morgen – a suitable case for treatment. Lindsey. Geoff. 2012-07-15.
[Link]: Ward . Ida . The Phonetics of English . 1939 . 135–6, para 250 . 3rd.
[Link]: Collins . Beverley . Mees . Inger . Practical English Phonetics and Phonology .
2019 . Routledge . 978-1-138-59150-9 . 67 . 4th.
[Link]: Collins . Beverley . Mees . Inger . Practical English Phonetics and Phonology .
2019 . Routledge . 978-1-138-59150-9 . 69 . 4th.
[Link]: Walker, John. A critical pronouncing dictionary. 1824. 25. en.
[Link]: The Chambers Dictionary. Chambers. 2003. 0-550-10105-5. 9th. an.
[Link], J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (Second ed.). New
York: Oxford University Press.
[Link] site: Wordsworth. Dot. An historic . 2022-02-17 . The Spectator . subscription . 8
April 2017 . en . live .
[Link]
historic . 2022-02-17 .
[Link]: Collins . Beverley . Mees . Inger . Practical English Phonetics and Phonology .
2019 . Routledge . 978-1-138-59150-9 . 52 . 4th . "A tap was also to be
heard intervocalically... from old-fashioned traditional RP speakers... It was used for /r/
after a stressed vowel, e.g. carry, very, Paris.".
[Link] site: Wells . John . the evidence of the vows . John Wells's phonetic blog . 3 May
2011.
[Link] site: Wells . John . Any young U-RP speakers? . 11 July 2007 .
[Link] site: Wells . John . David Attenborough . John Wells's phonetic blog . 8 November
2010.
[Link] . Juhyung . Vowel changes in the speech of Sir David Attenborough . SNU Working
Papers in English Language and Linguistics . 1 January 2022 . 18 . 10371/176946 . 18
March 2022 . en.
[Link] site: 7 Best English Podcasts (Free and Paid) . TruFluency . 23 May 2022 . 3 July
2023. "Gyles Brandreth and Susie Dent are the hosts of Something Rhymes with Purple,...
the speech of the hosts tends to show features of the Received Pronunciation (RP) English
accent,...".
[Link] site: Am I posh? Is David Dimbleby? Are you?. Brandreth. Gyles. 23 December
2018. GYLES BRANDRETH. 3 July 2023. "...I have a 'posh' accent. In fact, I sound much
less fruity and plummy than I used to do. (So does The Queen, incidentally.) I sound very
like my father, and English middle class professional people of his generation (he was born
in 1910) sounded like he sounded and I sound now.".
[Link] site: Wells . John . EE, yet again . John Wells's phonetic blog . 8 April 2010.
[Link]: When I didn't know owt about posh speak.
[Link]
dio/8684273/[Link] . 11 January 2022 .
subscription . live. Vicki. Woods. 5 August 2011. The Daily Telegraph.
[Link] site: Lawson. Lindsey. 14 October 2013. A popular British accent with very few
native speakers. The Voice Cafe. 12 December 2017.
[Link] site: [Link]
[Link].
[Link]: In British politics, posh pronunciation reigns . The Economist .
[Link] site: RP: A popular British accent with very few native speakers . 13 October 2014
. Examples of speakers of the more "conservative" type of RP are Stephen Fry and Dame
Judi Dench..
[Link] site: BBC - Voices - Your Voice .
[Link] site: [Link]
[Link] site: British Accents. 25 January 2011. [Link].
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