XVI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2024

The common pronunciation, also known as received pronunciation (RP), is a Standard British Pronunciation that serves as the initial foundation for students learning English as their second language. And due to the fact that said pronunciation standard has no specific influence on language syntax or vocabulary, it is important to note and remember that Perceived Pronunciation is an accent and not a dialect.

Under the influence of time and society changes, Received Pronunciation has undoubtedly changed significantly during the many decades that it has existed. Certainly, according to British linguist and phonetician J. Wells, not only professional linguists and teachers, but also ordinary English language learners ought to be aware of these changes and the significance they hold. [1]

According to J. Wells, there have been a lot of changes in the phonetic aspect of the language since the middle of the 20th century. Specifically, he points out and talks about the fact that in Standard British Pronunciation, the diphthong /ʊə/ has become less and less common and, therefore, has “disappeared” from the spoken speech. As of now, this change varies depending on the type of RP and hasn't been fully established among the majority of the population. It is also mentioned that originally, the CURE lexical set is defined as “comprising those words whose citation form contains the stressed vowel /ʊə/ in conservative RP and the sequence /ʊr/ in GenAm (General American).” And phonetically, RP displays a diphthong moving from “a weakly rounded, somewhat close and back, /ʊ/, moving towards a mid-central quality”. [2] However, in the article “The demise of ʊə as in CURE”, Geoff Lindsey highlights the several tendencies or “fates” that are the direct result of the demise of the said diphthong. Let’s examine each one in further detail:

Fate 1: Merger.

There has been a long-standing practice in many regions of England of combining CURE words into other lexical sets. For instance, in Cockney, the tendency is for CURE to merge with THOUGHT - in this case, the merger is with /ɔː/ or /oə/ as a result of the so-called “THOUGHT-Split”. [2] Therefore, nowadays, a lot of native British speakers pronounce CURE as /kjɔ/ rather than /kjʊə/ by implementing /ɔ:/ (THOUGHT). As stated by G. Lindsey, this change in pronunciation isn't acknowledged by several dictionaries. In the "Oxford Learner's Dictionary", for example, the word CURE continues to be transcribed as /kjʊə(r)/ for BrE (British) and /kjʊr/ for NAmE (American). He also notes that certain CURE words have blended into NURSE or GOOSE rather than THOUGHT for some individual speakers, although this phenomenon is quite widespread - specifically in rhotic American English. [3] Comparing different pronunciations of the CURE diphthong on the educational website “YouGlish” shows that it is more common for most of the speakers to merge CURE in their speech.

Fate 2: Varisyllabicity.

The phenomenon of varisyllabicity is described in the changes of CURE to a disyllabic sequence of GOOSE + schwa (/ə/) and a smoothed monosyllable. That basically indicates that there are two distinct sounds in the pronunciation of the diphthong CURE. By choosing a minimal pair like secure and security, it is simple to identify the following tendency. Nonetheless, for beginning students that are only starting to learn English as their second language, it is advantageous to exclude this extra vowel from the vast and complicated vocabulary of English, regardless of whether they are taught in a fully merged system which is often considered to be the most straightforward alternative or in both merged and varisyllabic forms. But even though eliminating a characteristic CURE vowel has educational benefits, G. Lindsey argues there's still an uncertainty about how many common BrE speakers actually communicate by implementing it in their everyday speech. [3]

Fate 3: Monophthonging.

The third and last modern tendency includes the process by which a diphthong transforms into a monophthong. It is also known as “monophthongization”. Similar to SQUARE that has shifted from /eə/ to /ɛː/, the status of CURE as a monophthong or a diphthong can be considered to be rather controversial and uncertain. In this case, monophthonging comes with a rounded central quality which can be transcribed as /ɵː/, for example, in the pronunciation of the word pure. [4] Additionally, Hannisdal describes this as “The analysis of CURE lowering [= THOUGHT-merger] shows that both /ʊə/ and /ɔː/ are used in CURE, but the centring diphthong is three times as frequent as the monophthong.” Consequently, in the Received Pronunciation, some speakers maintain the use of a residual CURE vowel in words that are neither varisyllabic nor THOUGHT / GOOSE / NURSE in their speech in which it has completely monophthonged.

To that extent, G. Lindsey ultimately concludes that there is no educational necessity for the distinctive CURE vowel due to the fact that removing it completely decreases the total number of vowels that needs to be taught, making it easier for both teachers and learners. Furthermore, in the same manner as most SSB speakers do, he claims that it is much more preferable for students to pronounce such words as, for example, pure and Europe with THOUGHT rather than being taught to pronounce CURE diphthong.

СПИСОК ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ:

1. Джафарова П. НОВЫЕ ТЕНДЕНЦИИ В ОБЩЕПРИНЯТОЙ ФОРМЕ ПРОИЗНОШЕНИЯ // ФИЛОЛОГИЯ Учредители: Издательство Научное обозрение. – 2019. – №. 3. – С. 51-56.

2. Bekker I. Nursing the cure: a phonetic analysis of /ʊə/ in South African English // Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. – 2013. – Т. 42.

3. [Электронный ресурс] Lindsey Geoff. The demise of ʊə as in CURE. URL:https://www.englishspeechservices.com/blog/the-demise-of-%ca%8a%c9%99-as-in-cure/ (Дата обращения: 23.01.2024)

4. YUZAWA N. et al. Transcription of Vowels in the Standard Southern British English Accent1 //Journal of the Faculty of International Studies, Utsunomiya University. – 2020. – №. 49. – С. 173-184.