AJL22066 Pronunciation Varieties of English
 Mariia Minaeva
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RP
R.I.P.

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•Accent as a social maker
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•Countermovement
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•1974 Tony Harrison “Them and [uz]”
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•The poet was told off for reciting Keats in his native Leeds accent instead of RP
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•“All poetry (even Cockney Keats?) you see
•‘s been dubbed by [Λs] into RP,
•Received Pronunciation, please believe [Λs]
•your speech is in the hands of the Receivers.’ “
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•“You can tell the Receivers where to go
•(and not aspirate it) once you know
•Wordsworth’s matter/water are full rhymes”
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•“(I …) spoke the language that I spoke at home.
RIP RP, RIP T.W.
I’m Tony Harrison no longer you!”
•reading
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•1988 Paul Tench English Pronouncing Dictionary (15th edition )
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•asks to replace the phrase RP with BBC English
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•1991 David Abercrombie “RP RIP?”
•notes that many regular BBC speakers have a local accent and RP is “on its way out”
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1991 David Abercrombie “RP RIP?”
•“No accent or dialect remains static”         it is normal that RP undergoes changes
•“accent bar” (from “colour bar”)
•RP as a sign of privilege is hated more and more
•Young people choose to speak with their local accent
•Scottish accent as a pronunciation model for the learners

2011 Melvyn Bragg  BBC programme “RP RIP?“
•For the foreign listeners,  RP is associated with "lovable fops" as Hugh Grant and Stephen Fry
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•VS
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• with villains, such as Ralph Fiennes in Harry Potter, Terence Stamp in Superman 2, Ian McKellen
as Magneto in the X-Men films, Paul Bettany in The Da Vinci Code
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To prove that RP is already gone
•2015 letter to the Times
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•“Sir, I was alarmed to hear on the news about the rapidly growing
number of psychopaths in London. Halfway through the story I
realised that they were reporting an increase in cycle paths. I miss
Received Pronunciation.”
•psychopath in SBE, including RP, is [ˈsaikəˌpæθ]
•cycle path Home Counties SBE [ˈsaikwˌpɑθ]

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Chumbawamba “RIP RP”
•“Goodbye RP,
•Let our words go free,
•Coo and howl,
•Lay flat your vowels
•Ah ay ee”
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•Home Counties SBE:  open [æ] instead of [aʊ] in RP
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Sources
•RIP RP – RP RIP? Swphonetics, 2018. https://swphonetics.com/2018/12/14/rip-rp-rp-rip/
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•Them and [Uz] by Tony Harrison. The English and Media Centre.
http://poetrystation.org.uk/poems/them-and-uzhttp://poetrystation.org.uk/poems/them-and-uz
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•RIP RP by Chumbawamba. 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFhdS21E7qs
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•RP RIP? BBC Radio 4, 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012zy1c
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•Ghost picture. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC
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•Skeleton picture. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC
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•Voldemorte picture. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
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