- •Introduction 4
- •Introduction
- •British English
- •History
- •Standardisation
- •The form of English taught across Europe is mainly that used in England and the subject is simply called "English". Received Pronunciation
- •Phonology Consonants
- •Historical variation
- •Comparison to other varieties
- •What is bbc English?
- •Is there such a thing as bbc English?
- •Prestige dialect
- •Social prestige and the role of language
- •Estuary English
- •Features
- •Use of Estuary English
- •Blurring of accents
- •Royal stereotypes
- •English English
- •General features
- •Some of the features of English English:
- •Change over time
- •References
Change over time
The Survey of English Dialects was undertaken in the 1950s and 1960s to preserve a record of the traditional spectrum of rural dialects that merged into each other. The traditional picture was that there would be a few changes in lexicon and pronunciation every couple of miles, but that there would be no sharp borders between completely different ways of speaking. Within a county, the accents of the different towns and villages would drift gradually so that residents of bordering areas sounded more similar to those in neighbouring counties.
As a result of greater social mobility and the teaching of Standard English in secondary schools, this model is no longer very accurate. There are now certain English counties within which there is little change in accent/dialect, and people are more likely to categorise their accent by a region or county than by their town or village. As agriculture became less prominent, many rural dialects were made redundant. Some urban dialects have also declined.
References
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Queen's speech 'less posh' - BBC News
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Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 239-245
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“In the English-speaking world”, Carol Goodwright, Janet Olearski, Chancerel International Publishers, 1998, ISBN 5-86866-106-0
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Теоретическая фонетика английского языка. / М.А. Соколова, К.П. Гинтовт, И.С. Тихонова, Р.М. Тихонова. — 3-е изд. — М.: Владос, 2004
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Crystal D. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language. CUP, 1995
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Wilkinson J. Introducing Standard English. London, 1994
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_English
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestige_dialect
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English English
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/
1 Spotlight on Britain, Second Edition, Susan Sheerin, Jonathan Seath, Gillian White, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-432788-4, page 3, Language
2 Miss G.M. Miller, BBC Pronunciation Unit preface to the BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names, 1971