[Ads-l] In UK is RP now CGB?

[Tom Zurinskas]

http://bit.ly/1DGvxfW
Hostility to Received PronunciationThe accent which excites prejudiced reactions in me is the one that has been recently named Conspicuous General British (CGB) -- referred to in the past as Refined Received Pronunciation. It is the accent that has been held up as ‘the one to learn’ since the early decades of the twentieth century. Very few people speak it, thank goodness. And those who are said to do so (senior members of the royal family, officers in the Royal Navy) are unlikely to wield influence over my employment prospects.But I am not alone in my reactions to this accent. As CruttendenOpens in a new tab or window. tells us, there is a considerable amount of hostility to it. Jacob Rees MoggOpens in a new tab or window. (Member of Parliament) recalls when he first stood unsuccessfully for election in Fife, Scotland: 'I gradually realised that whatever I happened to be speaking about, the number of voters in my favour dropped as soon as I opened my mouth.'Accents and social groupsAnd Sky News ran a reportOpens in a new tab or window. recently in which an eighteen-year-old woman was trying to sound less posh, because she didn’t like ‘random people’ telling her that she must be rich and from a privileged background.The trouble for me is that one of the social groups I have the strongest family and emotional ties to are my cousins in the West of Ireland. And to them, my accent sounds ‘posh’, that is RP-like. Yes, some people would say that my accent is the very one that I have these prejudices about. Hey ho!
Tom Zurinskas,  Originally SWConn 20 yrs,  college Tenn 3,  work NJ  33,  now FL 12.The need for truespel phonetics - http://justpaste.it/truespelnow 


 
 


 		 	   		  
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org