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Social Change, Linguistic Change and Sociolinguistic Change in Received Pronunciation

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Sociolinguistics in England

Abstract

This chapter summarises recent quantitative research on phonetic variation and change in Received Pronunciation (RP) as an elite sociolect, the vernacular of a multiplex socio-economically privileged group in the UK. The ‘elite sociolect’ is distinct from the ‘standard variety’, a term which should be reserved to refer to a socially generated mental ‘construct’, a set of expressed and tacit norms for ‘status-bearing’ language practice learned through the educational system and evident in the public domain. The chapter discusses variationist findings on word-final /t/, prevocalic /r/ and a range of vowel qualities. It also addresses evidence of sociolinguistic change, in the form of ongoing de-standardisation processes in the speech community of England, as well as the changing language-ideological and language-attitudinal place of RP in the sociolinguistic landscape.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/india.htm

  2. 2.

    All of which have in places somewhat ironic voiceovers, as a sign of a distancing ‘semi-ethnographic gaze’.

  3. 3.

    As Schwyter (2016) demonstrates, the task of pinning down a spoken standard was fraught from its inception.

  4. 4.

    Note that these terms differ in the extent to which one could interpret them to allow for generational renewal.

  5. 5.

    /sj/ can also exhibit similar patterns of coalescence to /ʃ/.

  6. 6.

    Perhaps we would contend that this decline has resulted in a reframing and repositioning of the establishment rather than its demise, given the present political climate in the UK.

  7. 7.

    ‘Standard’, as Nikolas Coupland has also pointed out many times, is itself a troubled term (e.g. in Coupland 2000).

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  1. Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Anne H. Fabricius

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  1. Anne H. Fabricius
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  1. School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    Natalie Braber

  2. Department of English and American Studies, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany

    Sandra Jansen

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Fabricius, A.H. (2018). Social Change, Linguistic Change and Sociolinguistic Change in Received Pronunciation. In: Braber, N., Jansen, S. (eds) Sociolinguistics in England. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56288-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56288-3_3

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