Improving your English accent

Learn more about R.P. and say R.I.P to the regional accent!

If you’ re reading this, it means that you most probably have a somewhat strong  native accent when speaking in English and always, often, or occasionally (the frequency of the incident is irrelevant, at least in my book) find it difficult to make yourself understood by native English speakers solely because of your pronunciation and accent.

It is true that a non-native could have a very good command of the English language, impressively rich vocabulary and profound knowledge of the English grammar and never fail to apply it correctly both in written and verbal speech, and yet find themselves struggling when it comes to oral communication with native speakers.

At one time or another, a non-native speaker’s pronunciation or accent will impede effective communication in English …

The reason being that (a) they pronounce some words incorrectly, (b) their speech sounds ‘flat’ or fragmented and lacks a natural flow – in other words, their rhythm and intonation are quite poor, (c) they just talk with a very strong foreign accent, or (d) they have a combination of the aforementioned characteristics which only makes matters worse.

But don’t despair!

The good news is that, for you to be here, you have finally come to grips with this issue and you are minutes away from discovering the first building blocks of your improvement in that area.

But before you sail on that boat, I think you need to have some more background information.

One term.

Two words. 

Received Pronunciation.

RP for short.

RP is the bridge you have to cross so as not to drown in an ocean of awkwardness and anxiety

Hopefully, RP will be your friend helping you in your time of need communication-wise. RP will be the tool you’ll be using to cast the foreign accent off your English as well as to patiently ‘sculpt’ and shape your pronunciation and accent.

It doesn’t matter if you never master or learn RP to perfection. Very few people do. However, it’s important to realise that it is the study of Received Pronunciation that will be the bridge you’ll have to cross in order to achieve tension and embarrassment-free communication. 

What is RP anyway?

In a nutshell, RP is the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England. It’s a neutral, non-regional accent, so it’s no surprise that is so commonly used as a model by teachers of English as a foreign language and in dictionaries giving pronunciation. 

The story behind RP

Once upon a time...

Actually it was the 1900s when more and more students coming from middle class backgrounds were going to public boarding schools. These schools were populated with teachers from prestigious places and universities like Cambridge and Oxford.

Inevitably, the middle class students got influenced by their teachers and their peers and vice versa. One thing led to another and a new accent was born around the middle of the 19th century within the walls of those public boarding schools.

This newly-emerged accent was free from regional elements and therefore did not contain any clues about that speaker’s region of origin before attending the school.

Daniel Jones, British phonetician at UCL, named it for obvious reasons ‘Public School Pronunciation’ in his first edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary in 1917. It was in the second edition later on when he changed the name to ‘Received Pronunciation’. His definition of the term was the following: “everyday speech in the families of Southern English person whose men-folk had been educated at the great public boarding schools”.

Received Pronunciation is also known as BBC accent

In 1922, John Reith, the first General Manager of BBC, established a committee including Daniel Jones to decide on what type of speech should be used in the British Broadcasting Company. Should RP or a variety of regional accents be broadcast?

In the end, RP was adopted by the BBC and as a result this young accent gained popularity rapidly. Throughout the era before the second World War all the announcers spoke RP, thus explaining one of its alternative names, ‘BBC Pronunciation’.

Largely due to sociolinguistic factors. RP started to have connotations of prestige and authority. Soon it became the accent of those with power, money, and influence. The prestige it had gained was so great that working and lower social classes tried to learn or even imitate RP in order to move up socially.

With RP being one of the most recognisable and best-known UK accents, one would think that at the time it was widely spread throughout the UK. But in fact it was estimated that by the 1970s only 3% of the British people were RP speakers. 

And they all lived happily ever after. THE END.

Oh, hey! Wait.

Did they?

What happened next? What about the present day? Nothing changed? 

RP Today: prevalent or close to extinction?

Well, RP may still be widely known (it’s actually the accent most people typically associate with the UK) but it’s not widely spread since only 2% of British people are RP speakers.

To this day RP continues to be associated with educated speakers and formal speech, but it is by no means considered to be superior to the regional British accents. One might even say that its popularity has suffered a slight decline over the years as some arbitrarily like to think of this allegedly posh accent as indicative of that speaker’s privilege and arrogance.

More and more BBC announcers are speaking in their regional accents and teachers of English as a Second / Foreign Language are beginning to expose their students to a wider range of accents.

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It’s worth noting that, no matter what online course they’ve chosen, our students receive constant feedback regarding their pronunciation and intonation, as well as lots of resources and guidance to reduce their accent if they so wish. 

Contact us request more information or to schedule a speaking session in order to receive pronunciation-related feedback.

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