Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
But isn't that the point? In Britain, dialects are not just regional as they are in the U.S. There are also class dialects. Isn't Cockney almost universally regarded as low class because its origin is the London working class and street people? And aren't dialects from economically poor rural areas (none of which an American can name) regarded the same way?
"Received Pronunciation." Technically it's not really a dialect because it's only a way of pronouncing the words with no major variance in vocabulary, so it's just an "accent." It was invented artificially in the early 20th century by the upper class, as the Industrial Revolution provided ever-greater economic mobility and class distinctions were in danger of weakening. It was an academic extraction of the "proper" way of speaking among the aristocrats in London and perhaps other major cities, and it was then taught to children attending the best schools. For this reason it was often called "Oxford English" in the USA and perhaps also at home, but now with the influence of TV and movies we're more likely to call it "BBC English."
It's the way "upper class" people speak on "Mystery," "Masterpiece Theater," "Inspector Morse," etc., and in movies. It contrasts with the more vernacular speech of rock and roll stars, the only "common" British people most Americans ever hear speaking. Of course it all sounds foreign to us, particularly the vowels, because no matter how they pronounce them their paradigm is strikingly different from ours--so a listener who is not interersted in linguistics might not realize that the difference between the speech of Prince Charles and Amy Winehouse is much greater than that between Barack Obama and Fergie.
And don't try to take your cues from songs; no one pronounces their language the same when they're singing as they do when they're speaking. The vowels are longer, the junctions between the syllables are constructed differently, and in America singing coaches teach us to not pronounce a final R, which makes us all sound like Brits. Except rappers of course, because they are speaking, not singing.
Instead of arguing about whether Americans will always be willing to die to protect England, let's work toward a world in which that choice won't be necessary.
) are taught RP by immersion. Some of them come from aristocratic households where the adults speak only RP, but others hear a different accent at home. They grow up with the ability to speak either way as the situation merits. If they go into public service they probably end up speaking RP all the time, but otherwise they switch back and forth with the same ease with which so many African-Americans switch between Standard American and AAVE.