Traditional RP

INTRODUCTION

My breakdowns are structured around accent features and influences described by Knight-Thompson Speechwork, a 21st-century, skills-based approach to speech and accents that celebrates language diversity. KT Speechwork offers the “4 Ps” below as a framework for exploring many different facets of an accent:

    • PEOPLE. Who speaks with this accent? Where does this accent come from, historically? What common cultural elements might influence people’s manner of speaking?
    • POSTURE. What is the habitual shape of the vocal tract for speakers of the accent? We all have a habitual way of resting our mouths that allows us to move it into the speech actions of our accent as economically as possible. The posture of this accent might be different from your habitual one.
    • PRONUNCIATION. What are the sounds of this accent? I’ll be using both recordings and the International Phonetic Alphabet to describe speech actions and the sounds they produce. As you listen and read, listen with your mouth–can you make the shapes the speaker is making as you listen?
    • PROSODY. What are the musicality and rhythm of the accent like? What are the intonation, stress, and pitch patterns that speakers might use? This is the soul of the accent. We could nail the pronunciation, but it’s not a manner of speaking until we find how it flows.

 

PEOPLE

The accent historically called “Received Pronunciation (RP)” is a standardized accent. “Received” in this context means “acceptable” or “approved,” as in “received wisdom.” The sound patterns of this dialect began to coalesce in the 19th century, and it was first described in the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917) by phonetician Daniel Jones, who wrote that his dictionary reflected the “everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose menfolk have been educated at the great public boarding schools.” Although Jones originally wrote the dictionary from a descriptive perspective, describing the way real people actually spoke, it quickly became prescriptive, and began to be used everywhere from elocution classes to acting schools for training speakers in the most “cultured” and “desirable” manner of speaking British English. As happened with language standardization in the United States, RP became the accent favored when regional “neutrality” was desired. It was for many decades required of broadcasters at the British Broadcasting Corporation (this is why it is sometimes called “BBC English”) and actors at the major classical repertory companies of England. It remains to this day the accent many audiences expect to hear Shakespeare performed in.

Like “Standard American”, RP is of course not neutral. At its inception, it was strongly associated with whiteness, maleness, and elite education and class. Today, only around 3% of residents of the British Isles natively speak accent variations that fall under the RP umbrella. It continues today to connote a very specific kind of elite education (you’ll also hear it called “Oxford English,” after the exclusive and ancient Universities of Oxford and Cambridge) and high social class, which in England often means hereditary titles (you might also hear it called “the Queen’s English” or “posh accent”—posh means classy in British English). Even within RP, slight variations can indicate higher social standing: for example, in “Conservative RP,” an older variation of the accent, an intervocalic /ɹ/ is realized as a tap [ɾ] rather than an approximant [ɹ].

    • Here is Queen Elizabeth speaking conservative RP. Starts at 0:30.
    • Here is Patrick Stewart speaking more contemporary RP. And here is Ian McKellen, his best pal.

When will you use RP? Classic British playwrights like Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Noël Coward will almost always call for RP, usually in a more conservative form. You might also have a director ask for RP for a more contemporary British play where the setting is generalized rather than a specific region, as in some Tom Stoppard or Caryl Churchill plays. And lately, film and television set in fantasy or stylized worlds have called for RP, perhaps most notably the royal characters in Game of Thrones and almost everyone in Bridgerton.

 

POSTURE

Relative to many American accents, the general vocal tract posture of RP is very far forward, close, and lip-rounded:

    • jaw: raised and advanced
    • lip corners: very nimble and involved
    • tongue tip and front of the body of the tongue: active and precise
    • resonance: forward in the mouth, in the “mask”: the front teeth and the sinuses, producing a potential nasality in some speakers
    • Speakers of many American accents tend to allow a more relaxed jaw, drawing resonance backwards in the mouth. If you’re moving from an American accent to RP, be interested in the classic tongue twister:

The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue.

(Repeat. Try for detail more than speed.)

 

PRONUNCIATION

As you play the example recordings below, listen with your mouth. Try the speech gestures physically. Take them slowly at first, then build up to fluency.

 

CONSONANTS

/t/ → [tʰ]

The unvoiced alveolar stop-plosive occurs in all positions (initial, medial, and final). Aspiration is common.

Practice words:

initial:        tea        time        too        tall

medial:        better        writer        situation        attitude        at all

final:        sit        cat        boot        lot

For the bold hearted:

What a to do to die today at a minute or two to two:

A thing distinctly hard to say but harder still to do,

For they’ll beat a tattoo at twenty to two,

A ra-ta-tat, ta-ta-tat, ta-ta-tattoo,

And the dragon will come

When he hears the drum

At a minute or two to two today,

At a minute or two to two.

 

No r-coloring

The RP accent, like many English accents, is non-rhotic. When /ɹ/ follows a vowel (when it is post-vocalic), it has no rhoticity: it does not “color” the vowel. A simpler way of saying this is that this is an accent without r-coloring.

Practice words:

 

The alveolar approximant /ɹ/

In the initial position, RP speakers might use the alveolar approximant that eludes some American speakers, who often use a “molar [ɹ].”

Practice words: really        ritual       red rose       tree       cry       frequent

It is also used when /ɹ/ ends a word that is followed by a word beginning with a vowel. This is called a linking /ɹ/. Speakers of Conservative RP might use the alveolar tap [ɾ] in this case.

Practice words: there are       here it is       queer idea       farther off

Sometimes /ɹ/ “intrudes” between a word that ends with a vowel and a word that starts with a vowel where this is no “R” in the spelling.

Practice words: Whose idea is it?       drawing room       Teresa is       draw on

Finally, RP speakers use [ɹ] or [ɾ] in medial positions, without letting it “color” the preceding vowel, as in hurry [ˈhɐ.ɹɪ] or marry [ˈmæ.ɹɪ].

Practice words: hurry        worry       sorry       courage       very       marry       Harry       Paris       carriage       character

 

Voiceless /ʍ/

In words spelled wh-, RP speakers use a voiceless labial velar approximant.

Practice words: what       whale       when       wherever       whether       whiskers

 

“Clear” /l/

RP speakers use an alveolar lateral approximant or “clear /l/” rather than a “dark /l/” [ɫ] in the initial, medial, and final positions.

Practice words: all       call       pill       pull       will you       little

 

VOWELS

To organize the vowel sounds I’m introducing, I’ll be using a tool called “lexical sets.” These sets, created by J.C. Wells, are lists of words whose vowel sounds tend to “behave” similarly within distinct dialects of English. For a full linguistic discussion of lexical sets, see Accents of English I: An Introduction by J.C. Wells (Cambridge University Press 1982). Or, for something geared specifically towards actors, check out Eric Armstrong’s (new!) open-source book, Lexical Sets for Actors. Or just google it! Believe it or not, the Wikipedia article on lexical sets will give you a decent introduction.

 

TRAP/BATH/PALM

In most American accents, BATH and TRAP words are realized as [æ], and PALM words as [ɑː]. In many British accents, including RP, BATH and PALM words are realized as [ɑː]. Here’s the sticky wicket: the TRAP set in RP is realized as [æ] or perhaps [æ̞]. So you cannot simply pronounce all words spelled with an a as [ɑː]. How do you know when to “go long”? There is a complex etymological answer that I think Eric Armstrong offers a great summary of in his online textbook on lexical sets. Check it out here. You can also simply consult the “Ask List,” a list of BATH words compiled by Edith Skinner. If it’s on the Ask List, use [ɑː]. If it’s not, use [æ̞].

Download the “Ask List” here: Ask List for Brit Dialect

Practice words (an amuse-bouche, pulled from the “Ask List”): staff        laugh        gasp        France        ask        half        grass

Just to keep things interesting, RP speakers pronounce can as [kʰæ̞n], but can’t as [kʰɑːnt].

Don’t be extra. Be careful not to use [ɑː] in TRAP words, like that.

 

THOUGHT → [ɔː]

It’s hard to be too lip-rounded or too long with this vowel. It requires more muscular engagement than many American speakers give this set.

Practice words: all       talk       naughty       daughter       abroad       small

 

LOT/CLOTH → [ɒ]

These lexical sets are merged in RP, and call for a very lip-rounded vowel, but much shorter and more open than [ɔː]. Some American speakers may not use this sound in their native accents.

Practice words: stop       odd       dog       God       cough       often

This vowel also appears in the word was, but only when the word is stressed. As in: She wasn’t there, but he was. When the word is unstressed, it still uses a schwa [ə] as in He was there.

 

STRUT → [ɐ]

This vowel is perhaps more open and centralized than in many American accents.

Practice words: cup       much       love       stomach       mother       country

 

GOAT → [əʊ̆]

RP speakers start this diphthong from the central schwa [ə], or even, in more Conservative RP, from [ɛ].

Practice words: boat       explosion       gauche       old       bowl       although

 

HAPPY → [ɪ]

When a -y (or sometimes -ie, -ey, or -ee) appears in an unstressed syllable at the end of a word, RP speakers might realize it as [ɪ].

Practice words: city       busy       tetchy       lovely       silly       twenty

RP speakers also use this sound in unstressed pronouns: he saw, she left, we meant.

Speakers of more conservative varieties of RP might use this sound in the suffix -day, as in Monday, Tuesday, etc., and holiday, yesterday, etc.

 

Liquid /u/: [ju]

RP speakers “liquify” or glide into /u/ when it is spelled -u, -ui, or -ew and preceded by the alveolar consonants: /t/, /d/, /n/, /l/, /s/, and /z/.

Practice words: suit       tune       student       lewd       nude       new/knew

Don’t be extra. Be careful not to use [ju] in the words do and to.

 

BITS’N’BOBS

Suffixes

RP speakers condense suffixes spelled -ary, -ery, and -ory to [əɹɪ] or [ɹɪ].

Practice words: secretary       necessary       cemetery       blueberry       laboratory       satisfactory

But, they extend suffixes spelled -ile and -ization to [aɪ̆].

Practice words: hostile        futile       mobile       organization       weaponization       dramatization

 

Syllabic stress

Syllabic stress may be different in some words than in other dialects of English.

Practice words: weekend       detail       television       cigarette       umbrella       magazine

 

Sneaky words

Some words simply have a different general pronunciation in RP, following no particular pattern or rule. If you’re uncertain, the Oxford English Dictionary or a native speaker is your best resource. Just a few examples are below.

Practice words:

 

PROSODY

RP speakers are very willing to vary their pitch throughout a phrase. They tend to raise the pitch of a word for emphasis, rather than raising volume or “vocal energy.” This pitch variation is not arbitrary—avoid the trap of going randomly up and down your range in a sing-song pattern. Instead, think carefully about one operative word to lift.

The vocal energy of RP speakers tends to “drive through” to the ends of thoughts. Americans sometimes begin a phrase with a strong attack, and let the energy drop by the end. RP speakers let the attack, emphasis, or energy build towards the end of the thought.

Because RP speakers give more energy and attention to consonants, the dialect sometimes strikes the ear as being faster paced than other dialects of English—but it isn’t. You can still afford to linger on vowels.