some interesting comments about GenAm and RP

"When a person learning another language perfects a native accent, that's a linguistic accomplishment.

But when a native speaker of one dialect deliberately impersonates the dialect of another with the intent of deceiving their listeners, it's no longer a purely linguistic thing. There's a psychological aspect to it. You are falsifying your identity. Now you may have your reasons, but it's still a type of fraud, because you are not being yourself."

You are quite right there, Uriel and I do agree with you on that aspect. My point, however, was that not all people who have mastered a second dialect speak it with the INTENT of deceiving their listeners. If a native speaker of GA is using RP while IN the US and speaking to an American then that's deception (or an RP speaker using GA in England). However, if someone has truly mastered RP and prefers NOT to be labelled as "American" or as a "foreigner" while visiting England than that is not deception. It WOULD be deception if he actually TOLD people he was from England but I have never done that. If the subject should come up,I simply explain to people that I am bi-dialectical. However, when I go into a store to buy something to drink, there is no reason for everyone to automatically know that I'm not from around there. You see, many people are quick to attach labels and stereotypes. If I walk into a bookstore in London and use RP my intent is not to "deceive" anyone. My intent is simply NOT to arouse any kind of attention. I do NOT need total strangers to know where I am or am not from. That is something which I CHOOSE to share when and with whom I want to share it with. You see, when talking to someone you don't know, you're never really sure if that peron is open-minded or not.

The point here is that not all people change their accent for some wicked purpose. For some it's simply a survival strategy. I know that if I were a native RP speaker and visiting the US I would make every effort possible to sound more American (since RP sounds ridiculous to most Americans except in museums and neighborhoods which have many foreign embassies). It would be insane of me to walk into a shop or to ask for directions in a rural area or in an urban working class neighborhood using an RP accent. Again, using GA in this case would be a "survival strategy". It would avoid me being labelled as weird or snooty (since that is, unfortunately, the label most Americans would attach to me). I would rather fit in to my sorroundings than be labelled as different or weird. However, if I had close friends in America who already knew me and knew about my background then I would use RP when speaking to them. Again it all goes back to whether you're talking to friends or strangers.

Not everyone who uses a different accent than his/her native one is a con-artist. Some people have deep and personal reasons for doing so. Some people would rather blend in than be labelled. Some people are just simply a lot more sensitive to being labelled as an outsider than others are and prefer to protect their privacy. Period.

>><<I'm not aware of any differences in British and American pronunciations of Mary / marry other than the fact that the r of British English is a little different than that of General American...according to some linguists, more like Japanese r thus 'very' pronounced by a British or Japanese speaker sounds like "veddy" to most Americans.>>

Have you heard of the Mary-merry-marry merger, which is predominant in the US but absolutely nonexistent in Britain? You *are* aware that "Mary" and "marry" aren't homophones in Britain...right?

And as Kirk pointed out, the tapped R is extremely rare in English English.

But then again, according to you, the only dialects of English are Scots, Cockney, and Queens. *rolls eyes*<<

At this point, I don't think that one should consider Brennus to be credible whatsoever with respect to any linguistics-related topics. If anything, I would consider him to be someone who show thinks that he knows far, far more than he actually does and that he is some kind of authority on these kinds of matters, which he most definitely is not.

>>Back in late June of this year (2005) I visited Eton and my entry to the school grounds happened to coincide with the beginning of a guided tour. This was on the afternoon after the last day of class. Anyway, our guide was an elderly lady who had taught at Eton for 38 years. When we entered the chapel she referred to a painting depicting the Virgin Mary. She pronounced it "Marey". The first syllable sounded identical to "mare" (the female horse). RP uses the "square" vowel where general American uses an "a" as in "trap" in words like Mary and Pharaoh. (This is also according to J.C. Wells). The elderly lady in question was a U-RP speaker and she a former teacher at Eton. Therefore her pronunciation of "Mary" must be considered correct.<<

If by "the 'square' vowel" you mean /e/ and by "the 'trap' vowel", you mean /{/, most North American English dialects definitely do not use /{/ in "Mary" in "Pharaoh", but rather /E/, or in some dialects, such as my own, /e/.

>>JC Wells does mention that even by liberal estimates only 10% of the population of England can be considered RP speakers. Some English people have literally told me that "no one" talks that way. Well, only after having spent a week in London and the sorrounding area did I realise just how bleak the situation is. You see, unlike the 'New York accent' (which today is only used by old people and macho Italian guys and pretty much limited to certain neighbourhoods), Cockney is EXTERMELY PERVASIVE in London. Also, its tentacles spread far and wide - way beyond the East End. To walk into a working class pub in a working class neighbourhood and to talk like Alec Guinness (Obi One Kanobi in Star Wars) is inviting trouble.<<

Of course, is that a problem? And why specifically "macho Italian guys"? And by the way, actually, not that many speak Cockney proper - what you are describing is not Cockney in most cases but rather Estuary English, which, yes, is very widespread today in southeastern England.

>>If you think I'm being overly dramatic you should walk into a working class pool bar outside central London and start up a conversation with a group of Cockney skinheads playing pool using a U-RP accent and see the reaction you will get. You see, unlike GenAm (which is tolerated by macho Italian guys in parts of the New York metro area) RP is NOT tolerated by many working class people in London or elsewhere in the UK.<<

That is because GA is an idealized version of formal registers of the native dialects of the non-Upper Midwest (I say non-Upper because one cannot include the dialects spoken in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at the time in this) about 75 to 50 years ago, and because many people from the Midwest throughout the twentieth century, especially after World War II, spread to other parts of the US, such as California, bringing their dialects with them. This is also because far more people speak vaguely "GA"-like dialects today in the US than people who speak dialects like the former formal variety in the US, the more RP-like formal speech of certain areas of the Northeast. Of course, one must take into consideration that "General American" is a very vague notion and is very unclearly defined as a whole.

>>You see, the US and Canada do NOT have an equivalent to RP. GA, the "correct" accent in the US, pretty much describes the way the average American speaks (about two-thirds of the population of the US). However, RP, the "correct" accent of the UK, is NOT the way the average Briton (or even the average Englishman for that matter speaks). I'm not even sure if mass education in RP would help since the working classes tend to reject RP on purpose because they identify it with "the establishment" and not with themselves. Many non-RP speakers are not necessarily people who CAN'T speak RP but rather people who WON'T speak RP. Many others cannot speak RP and wouldn't choose to speak it even if they could. At the same time, it is pretty obvious that no RP speaker is suddenly going to start speaking "popular London" or Scouse or anything other than RP. It's just how the mentality is in Britain (and has been for the last 500 years or so). There is snobbishness on both sides.<<

Hmm... so why have many RP speakers as of like been trading their RP in for Estuary English, or at least adding Estuary English features to their RP, as of late then? Of course, I don't understand your problem with Estuary English's ongoing eclipsing of RP.

>>Final comment: It would take an act of God to get even half of England (never mind ALL of BRITAIN) to speak RP. As far as getting the entire English-speaking world to use RP... Well, that would take a REALLY great act of God to come about. <<

Of course, that begs the question of why someone would want to do that in the first place.

>>The point here is that not all people change their accent for some wicked purpose. For some it's simply a survival strategy. I know that if I were a native RP speaker and visiting the US I would make every effort possible to sound more American (since RP sounds ridiculous to most Americans except in museums and neighborhoods which have many foreign embassies).<<

RP certainly does not sound ridiculous to Americans! Many Americans think that this is *the* 'British accent', and some can barely distinguish it from Cockney. It is true that British accents sound posh to Americans--but not just RP: even a Cockney-sounding accent sounds posh to my uncle!

Let's get one thing straight, this post is not comparing like with like.

As I said before the there is a snooty sounding accent in New England that many Americans seem to forget about. This is the equivalent of British RP.

British standard English is spoken by large amounts of British people (such as myself) who are educated and generally middle class. This is the same socio-economic group who speak GA in the US. There are greater differences between speech in different socio-economic groups, than there are between similar groups in different nations.

In Britain working class accents can change significantly in as little as 3 miles, but middle class accents change much more slowly.

<<As I said before the there is a snooty sounding accent in New England that many Americans seem to forget about. This is the equivalent of British RP.>>

I dunno. Even if there are snooty accents there, they would definitely be perceived as being regional (as in undeniably from New England) so they aren't the equivalent of British RP, because RP is theoretically non-regional. Also, RP is still a prestigious form of speech in the UK, while you are very unlikely to hear a "snooty" (or even an obviously New England) accent in national broadcasts or TV, unless an actor is playing a role which requires an accent from that region.

>>British standard English is spoken by large amounts of British people (such as myself) who are educated and generally middle class. This is the same socio-economic group who speak GA in the US.<<
Actually I think that it's more of a regional thing than a class thing. Upper class southerners still have a southern accent (or non-General American accent), and western lower class people tend to have a western General American accent.

Is the snooty accent the Boston Brahmin accent (Thurston Howle) or the Mid-Atlantic accent (Frasier)?

I don't know that British accents provoke much ire in the US; I've heard many people use them here without looking like they were in fear for their lives. And I used my own accent when I was in England ... 'cause I don't have another one for special occasions. I know people like to hate us on sight (or sound, I suppose), but I can't see taking paranoia to extremes. But then, I'm female; strangers don't tend to pick fights with me very often. [Well, on the other page, sure.... ;) ] Maybe it's different for men.

"Is the snooty accent the Boston Brahmin accent (Thurston Howle) or the Mid-Atlantic accent (Frasier)?"

I would assume it is the Boston Brahmin accent, as I mentioned earlier the only person I've heard with this type of accent is a guy on British TV called Loyd Grossman who is originally from Boston.

"Even if there are snooty accents there, they would definitely be perceived as being regional (as in undeniably from New England) so they aren't the equivalent of British RP, because RP is theoretically non-regional."

I live in Britain's 3rd largest city and am yet to hear an RP accent locally. If anyone spoke like that in Manchester, people would immediately presume they were from the South East- then nab their wallet!!

Okay... Let's say someone is of mixed parentage (English-American) or has grown up on both sides of the Atlantic. Let us further assume that this person is fluent in both GenAM and RP. Let us even further assume that this person is NOT fluent in any other American accent other than GA and is also not fluent in any other English accent other than RP. How should that person speak when in Manchester? (Assuming he is not fluent in Mancunian). How do Mancunians feel about non-RP accents from the south of England?

One more question: Why do so many people have such an aversion to RP if this is Standard, non-accented, non-regional, British English??? This is what's used by the BBC and this is the pronunciation used in audio materials which accompany most British ESL learning programmes which are widely used throughout Europe and elsewhere (except, of course, in other English speaking countries which have their own version of standard English).

Why does RP have to be looked at as a snooty, snobbish, "looking down your nose at other people" accent and not simply accepted as Standard British English (the way English is supposed to be spoken, at least in England).

I'm sure if God came down from the sky and spoke English, it would be RP and not Cockney, Mancunian, Scouse or any of those other weird English accents. I say weird because "look" and "luck" are pronounced the same in Scouse. For crying out loud!!! Even working class Americans with little education are able to correctly pronounce and differentiate between the "foot" and "strut" vowels. Why shouldn't an Englishman from the north be able to??? People should not have to raise their brows when they hear the expression "good luck".

A good compromise would be for Northerners to accept RP and to speak it with one minor modification: they may continue to use the "trap" vowel for the "bath" words rather than the the vowel in "palm" or "father" (the broad "a"). I will admit that that one aspect of RP does sound a little uppity (although Cockney also has "bath" raising but differs substantially from RP in other ways).

I certainly have no great aversion to RP, and while not a speaker of it in every respect, having consciously rejected the broad A in a few words in which I consider its use etymologically inappropriate, I certainly prefer it to most versions, particularly to the other version to which Linda referred in her first paragraph.

As for the Northerners, why should the broad A be unattainable for them or for anyone else? If they can get to grips with "palm" and "father", surely correct rendering of "can't" and "fast" are goals achievable within a few lifetimes.

"As for the Northerners, why should the broad A be unattainable for them or for anyone else? If they can get to grips with "palm" and "father", surely correct rendering of "can't" and "fast" are goals achievable within a few lifetimes."

Because they already render them correctly. Besides, it's only logical that "can't" rhymes with "can".

Oh, and they don't need snotty types to tell them otherwise. :)

<<I'm sure if God came down from the sky and spoke English, it would be RP and not Cockney, Mancunian, Scouse or any of those other weird English accents. >>

If God came down????!!!!! WTF are you talking about??? Do you think that Santa Claus and the tooth fairy speak RP too?

<< I say weird because "look" and "luck" are pronounced the same in Scouse. For crying out loud!!! Even working class Americans with little education are able to correctly pronounce and differentiate between the "foot" and "strut" vowels. Why shouldn't an Englishman from the north be able to??? People should not have to raise their brows when they hear the expression "good luck".>>

You seem to be implying that people from the North of England are stupid because of their pronunciation of certain vowels. As a Northerner myself, I find that offensive. I could equally argue that 'people' would raise their eyebrows at an American saying 'I'm going to marry Mary'. What, you can't differentiate these sounds? Are you stoopid?

<<A good compromise would be for Northerners to accept RP and to speak it with one minor modification:>>
Ain't never gonna happen, sweetheart. Millions of people aren't going to change their entire way of speaking because some snotty moron thinks they speak incorrectly.

<<they may continue to use the "trap" vowel for the "bath" words rather than the the vowel in "palm" or "father" (the broad "a"). >>

We *may* continue to use? How very gracious of you, my dear.