~ (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Scot LaFaive]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation



On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 2:03 PM, David Metevia <djmetevia at chartermi.net>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       David Metevia <djmetevia at CHARTERMI.NET>
> Subject:      Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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>
> If it was defined earlier in the thread I missed it.  What is RP?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
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> -------
>
> I did a study a few years back (as yet unpublished, and preliminary)
> actually looking at the pronunciations of national and local
> newscasters and talk celebrities (local=Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids,
> MI, an area where people think they speak with the Standard American
> accent), and although my results are very tentative, found out that
> there is quite a bit of  variation among newscasters, though all
> could be looked at as koineized relative to the vernaculars of where
> they really come from,, even localizable ones like even fairly
> localizable ones like Larry King or Bsrbara Walters.  This is
> obvious, as you have stated.  What isn't is that the tendencies
> toward common features don't really equate to any specific accent,
> Midwestern or otherwise, but rather a composite of the most widely
> distributed features.  This is exactly how koine-Standards start out
> (like 14th century Central Midland Standard, 15c. Chancery English or
> Early Modern Standard English).  I'm always pointing out to my
> students that most newscasters don't pronounce words like on (and its
> rhymes) the way they do, but it extends to other features.  There are
> exceptions, but most newscasters don't seem to have features like
> raised /ae/, say, never mind raised and diphthongized /ae/, except
> maybe before nasalls.
> You're more likely to hear little bits of the New York or Southern
> vowel shifts in their speech, than really shifted Northern Cities-
> style vowels, if there is any shifting at all.  Nor does this have
> anything to do with the early radio pronunciation guides, which may
> give rules for phonemic pronunciations of words, mostly rare, learned
> vocabulary, place names or personal names, but don't say anything
> about fine detail, bar a few highly-localized stereotypes.  The model
> is basically non-Eastern, non-Southern from the looks of things, but
> otherwise, there's a lot of latitude.  So the idea of a Standard
> American accent based on any one place is pretty much a myth, if
> believed by many.
>
> And, actually, I'm not sure our perceptions in our daily life of who
> has a proper accent isn't more locally determined than we figure--if
> someone speaks like prestigious people in our OWN community, they
> will probably be judged positively, and this judgment may even show
> signs of transferring to other communities more than it did, say, 50
> years ago.  Bill Clinton wasn't as laughed at for his accent by
> Northerners as Lyndon Johnson was, though both were recognizably
> Southern.  I don't think Michiganders would be as ridiculed in New
> Jersey as much as when I was a child, and the Michiganders would
> expect that result; but neither is it so bad for transplanted
> Jerseyites in Michigan.  As long as you don't sound like Tony
> Soprano, you're fine.  So we really have a set up where there isn't a
> national Std. accent, but a range of local Std. accents, all watered
> down, maybe a compromise between local vernaculars and some "ideal"
> made up of only the most widespread features that de facto, between
> them serve as markers of education and prestige.  The influence of
> dictionaries (through schooling) is there, but indirect, and the
> influence of newscasters is miniscule, except among those of a
> prescriptive persuasion who are into that sort of thing.
>
> Britain itself, though they do have RP, is tending in this direction
> of local Stds. of pronunciation too.  The Scots have been there all
> along, and the Northern English, largely so.  But all the kafuffle
> you get among Britishers about "Estuary English" concerns the rise of
> a specifically Southeastern standard of pronunciation formed in the
> same, compromised way, that upscale Scottish English or Northern
> English is--a compromise between RP and Cockney and its relatives.
> The people who think it's shameful are simply like those who can't
> come to terms with a development like this.  But we Americans have
> been doing this since we abandoned the Transatlanrtic accent so
> prestigious in the early 20c --which, I suspect was OUR compromise
> between our local speech habits and RP, or an 18c-early 19c.
> predecessor.
>
> Dictionaries can have localisms in them too.  One teacher of mine got
> laughs when she insisted that cat and ask have two different vowels
> because schoolroom dictionaries designated them by different
> symbols.  But in Transatlantic speech (and even Noah Webster's), they
> DID have two different vowels.  Makes no sense in suburban Chicago,
> however.
>
> Paul Johnston
>
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