Page 280 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes Gimson observes that “the English today are particularly sensitive to variations in the pronunciation
of their language and a kind of unofficial standard exists in England.”
20.2 The Emergence of a Standard in England

The credit of making the East-Midland dialect standard English goes to Chaucer, the father of English
poetry. While a standard form of written English has existed for hundred of years, there has been
even within England a great diversity in the pronunciation of people belonging to different regions
and different sections of the community. One particular regional accent, however, has over the last
five hundred years, acquired social prestige. It is the pronunciation of the southeast of England,
particularly of the London region, to which this prestige was attached. It gradually lost some of the
local characteristics of London speech and became the speech of the ruling class through the influence
of the public schools in the nineteenth century. It thus got established as a ‘class’ pronunciation
throughout England and was recognized as characteristic of a social class rather than a regional
pronunciation. Those who wanted social advancement, had therefore to modify their speech to bring
it nearer the social standard.
20.3 Received Pronunciation

According to Gimson, “great prestige is still attached to this implicitly accepted social standard
pronunication.” It is often called “Received Pronunciation” to indicate that it is the result of social
judgment and wide acceptance because of its use by the BBC announcers. It is basically “educated
Southern British English”, and is the form of pronunciation generally described in books on the
phonetics of British English and the one generally taught to foreigners.
‘RP today is no longer the exclusive property of a particular social class In England and is generally
equated with the correct pronunciation of English. Regional forms of pronunciation continue to exist.
Some young people, however, have begun to reject RP as they wish to challenge traditional authority
in every form.
Some forms of regional pronunciation are firmly established in Britain. Some of them, particularly
Scottish, are accepted throughout the country, while others—popular London speech, for instance,
are less acceptable. American pronunciation is now completely accepted in Britain. Speakers of RP
now realize that their type of pronunciation is used by only a very small minority in the English-
speaking world.
20.4 Indian English is not Always Intelligible to British Listener

Faulty pronunciation of the sounds of English, replacements of English sounds by their Indian
equivalents, wrong accentual pattern, leaving important words unaccented in connected speech,
faulty rhythmic patterns, faulty division of a long utterance into tone groups, wrong location of
nucleus or the tonic syllable in a tone group are the main reasons of the unintelligibility of Indian
English to native speakers of English in the U.K. and the U.S.A.
20.5 Difference between General Indian English and British R.P.

On the basis of the research conducted by Dr. R.K. Bansal at the Phonetics Department, University of
London and by Mr. Colin Masica at CIEFL, Hyderabad, the difference between General Indian English
and educated Southern British English known as Received Pronunciation (R.P.), is summarished
below:
1. General Indian English lacks the category/z/. It is variously replaced by /s/ or /z/ as in words
such as measure and garage.
2. General Indian English lacks the distinction between /v/ and /w/ Most speakers replace English
/v/ and /w/ by [v]. Consequently the contrast between vest, and west, vine and wine, is lost.

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