Standardisation

As with English around the world, the English language as used in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland is governed by convention rather than formal code: there is no equivalent body to the Académie française or the Real Academia Española, and the authoritative dictionaries (for example, Oxford English Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Chambers Dictionary, Collins Dictionary) record usage rather than prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other strains of English, and neologisms are frequent.

For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the 9th century, the form of language spoken in London and the East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education within Britain. Largely, modern British spelling was standardised in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), although previous writers had also played a significant role in this and much has changed since 1755. Scotland, which underwent parliamentary union with England only in 1707, still has a few independent aspects of standardisation, especially within its autonomous legal system.

The form of English taught across Europe is mainly that used in England and the subject is simply called "English". Received Pronunciation

Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language which has been long perceived as uniquely prestigious amongst British accents.

Received Pronunciation may be referred to as the Queen's (or King's) English, on the grounds that it is spoken by the monarch. It is also sometimes referred to as BBC English, because it was traditionally used by the BBC, yet nowadays these notions are slightly misleading. Queen Elizabeth II uses one specific form of English, whilst BBC presenters and staff are no longer bound by one type of accent, nor is "Oxbridge" (the universities of Oxford and Cambridge).

RP is an accent (a form of pronunciation), not a dialect (a form of vocabulary and grammar). It may show a great deal about the social and educational background of a person who uses English. A person using the RP will typically speak Standard English although the reverse is not necessarily true (i.e., the standard language may be spoken in regional accents).

In recent decades, many people have asserted the value of other regional and class accents. Many members (particularly the younger) of the groups that traditionally used Received Pronunciation have, to varying degrees, begun to use it less. Many regional accents are now heard on the BBC.

RP is often believed to be based on Southern accents, but in fact it has most in common with the dialects of the south-east Midlands: Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire.^[3][4] Migration to London in the 14th and 15th centuries was mostly from the counties directly north of London rather than those directly south. There are differences both within and among the three counties mentioned, but a conglomeration emerged in London, and also mixed with some elements of Essex and Middlesex speech. By the end of the 15th century, Standard English was established in the City of London.^[5]

Usage

Researchers generally distinguish between three different forms of RP: Conservative, General, and Advanced. Conservative RP refers to a traditional accent associated with older speakers with certain social backgrounds; General RP is often considered neutral regarding age, occupation, or lifestyle of the speaker; and Advanced RP refers to speech of a younger generation of speakers.^[6]

The modern style of RP is the usual accent taught to non-native speakers learning British English. Non-RP Britons abroad may modify their pronunciation to something closer to Received Pronunciation in order to be understood better by people who themselves learned RP in school. They may also modify their vocabulary and grammar to be closer to Standard English, for the same reason. RP is used as the standard for English in most books on general phonology and phonetics and is represented in the pronunciation schemes of most dictionaries.

Status

Traditionally, Received Pronunciation was a manufactured accent of English published as the "everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose men-folk have been educated at the great public boarding-schools" and which conveys no information about that speaker's region of origin prior to attending the school. However, this form of Received Pronunciation is a construct of its period of creation during the 19th Century, its pronunciation based upon Court English, and aimed at a rising educated middle class.

For many years, the use of Received Pronunciation was considered to be a trait of education. As a result, at a time when only around five percent of the population attended universities, elitist notions sprang up around it and those who used it may have considered those who did not to be less educated than themselves. Historically the most prestigious British educational institutions (Oxford, Cambridge, many public schools) were located in England, so those who were educated there would pick up the accents of their peers. (There have always been exceptions: for example, Leeds University in Leeds using an RP accent; Morningside, Edinburgh and Kelvinside in Glasgow had Scottish "pan loaf" variations of the RP accent aspiring to a similar prestige).

From the 1970s onwards, attitudes towards Received Pronunciation have been slowly changing. Among one of the primary catalysts for this was the influence in the 1960s of Labour prime minister Harold Wilson. Unusually for a prime minister, he spoke with a strong regional Yorkshire accent. The BBC's use of announcers with strong regional accents during and after WW2 (in order to distinguish BBC broadcasts from German propaganda) is an earlier example of the use of non-RP accents.