XV Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2023

RP (Received Pronunciation) is, according to the Collins Dictionary, a way of pronouncing British English that is often used as a standard in the teaching of English as a foreign language. It is also considered as the national standard of Great Britain.

However, RP is not stable. It has some changes because of the gender, position in the society, age. Some of the changes are widely-spread while the others are onlу found in some circumstances. According to the A.C. Gimson there is a classification of changes within RP [1]:

Changes almost complete;

Changes well-established;

recent innovations;

innovations on the verge of RP.

Let’s analyze them more precisely:

Changes almost complete.

These changes are typical for the vast majority of the population; they are used very often. Even in some dictionaries (Oxford and Cambridge online dictionaries) you will find the modern variant. For example, sonorant j is lost after [l,s,z]— the word suit is nowadays pronounced like [su:t] but not [sjʊt] [3]; the next example is: [eə] became a monophthong [е:] – share is pronounced this way - [ʃe:] but not this [ʃeə] [2].

Changes well-established.

These changes are typical for the majority of the population. One of such changes is, for example, tensing of the final [ɪ]- instead of final sound “kit” we observe [fʌni] [4].

Recent innovations.

These changes are typical for socially mobile classes (middle - middle, lower -middle, upper - working). Here we can observe the monophthongization of centering diphthongs such as [ɪə] and [əʊ]. That means that some people use [i:] instead of [ɪə] and [u:] instead of [əʊ]. For example, the pronunciation of the word weird is changed from [wɪəd] into [wi:d], tourist – from [ˈtʊərɪst] into [‘tu:rist].

Innovations on the verge of RP.

These changes are typical for young generation from urban areas. The greatest example is [l] vocalization. In accents with l-vocalization, what happens is that the actual “l” itself disappears, leaving only the sound created by the lifting of the tongue toward the velum. Depending on how rounded the lips are, it creates sounds such as w, oo, oh or any number of other variations. [ˈbɒto] (for bottle), [miok] (for milk) etc.

All in all we have to admit that even there is a model of British pronunciation, it is changing. Some of the changes are widely-spread, some of them are not so popular. But the language is a constantly developing system and it is true for all the aspects of the language.

Bibliography:

Cruttenden A. Gimson's Pronunciation of English. 8th ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. 83 p.

Jones D. English Pronouncing Dictionary. 15th ed. – Cambridge, 1997.

Cambridge online dictionary URL: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/ (датаобращения 10.01.2023)

Oxford online dictionary URL: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ (датаобращения 10.01.2023)

Научныйруководитель – Светлана ПетровнаХорошилова, канд. псих. наук, доц. кафедрыанглийского языкаФИЯ, Новосибирскийгосударственныйпедагогическийуниверситет