Received Pronunciation

Received Pronunciation (RP), commonly called BBC English in North America and Standard British pronunciation or Southern British pronunciation by North American scholars, is an accent of Standard English in the United Kingdom and is defined in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as 'the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England', although it can be heard from native speakers throughout England and Wales. Peter Trudgill estimated in 1974 that 3 per cent of people in Britain were RP speakers, but this rough estimate has been questioned by the phonetician J. Windsor Lewis. Clive Upton notes higher estimates of 5% (Romaine, 2000) and 10% (Wells, 1982) but refers to all these as 'guestimates' that are not based on robust research. Formerly colloquially called '(the) King's English', RP enjoys high social prestige in Britain, being thought of as the accent of those with power, money, and influence, though it may be perceived negatively by some as being associated with undeserved privilege. Since the 1960s, a greater permissiveness toward regional English varieties has taken hold in education. The study of RP is concerned exclusively with pronunciation, whereas Standard English, the Queen's English, Oxford English, and BBC English are also concerned with matters such as grammar, vocabulary, and style. The introduction of the term Received Pronunciation is usually credited to Daniel Jones. In the first edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917), he named the accent 'Public School Pronunciation', but 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 actually been used much earlier by P. S. Du Ponceau in 1818. 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 Daniel Jones, having said 'there is no such thing as a uniform eduction 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'. 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'.' RP is often believed to be based on the accents of southern England, but it actually has most in common with the Early Modern English dialects of the East Midlands. This was the most populated and most prosperous area of England during the 14th and 15th centuries. By the end of the 15th century, 'Standard English' was established in the City of London. 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'.