UPDATING THE MODEL ACCENT:Pronouncing Dictionaries in the 21st

century

Giovanbattista FicheraUniversità degli Studi di

Catania

What’s behind today’s title:

• EPD, LPD, OPD: a brief introduction to contemporary pronouncing dictionaries.

• RP: what is it and how is it changing.

• Changes within RP: T-glottaling, L-vocalisation and some further innovations.

• Estuary English: the future standard of BrE pronunciation?

What’s new in contemporary pronouncing dictionaries?How to search for clues

• The foreword: what is the model adopted? How is it described? Do they adopt a specific label? (e.g. ‘modernized RP’?)

• Are alternative pronunciations recorded? If not, why?

• Information about ongoing changes within the model accent adopted (e.g. ‘t-glottaling’).

EPD, LPD, ODP - Introduction

English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD): first edition in 1917 by Daniel Jones – revised several times. Up until the late XX century it was the only authoritative guide to English Pronunciation. 17th edition cured by P. Roach, J. Hartman and J. Setter.

Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD): first published in 1990 by J.C. Wells, it was the first to introduce pronunciation polls, taboo words, non-standard pronunciations.

The Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (ODP): cured by C. Upton, W.A. Kretzschmar, R. Konopka. Different IPA symbols to represent the vocalic system: /ɛ a ə: ʌɪ ɛ:/ instead of /e æ ɜ: aɪ eə/ and barred /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ for /ɪ~ә/ and /ə~ʊ/ variation.

‘Received Pronunciation’

“The pronunciation used in this book is that most usually heard in everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose men-folk have been educated at the great public boarding-schools. This pronunciation is also used by a considerable proportion of those who do not come from the South of England but who have been educated at these schools.”

(Daniel Jones, 1917 p.viii)

Speakers with a public school education – ‘Public School Pronunciation’ (PSP) RP (1926)

Prestigious schools = Prestigious accent (‘Received’ = generally accepted as correct.)

note: RP is an accent spoken natively only by a small minority (3-5% according to Trudgill, 1974)

Still used as a model for British English pronunciation because:

widely intelligible within Britain

thoroughly described by many phoneticians and scholars

First look inside: How is the model accent described?

EPD: “For this edition a more broadly-based and accessible model accent for British English is represented [...]. The time has come to abandon the archaic name Received Pronunciation. The model used for British English is what is referred to as BBC English; the pronunciation of professional speakers employed by the BBC as newsreaders and announcers.” (2006: v)

LPD: “The model of British English pronunciation recorded in LPD is a modernized version of the type known as Received Pronunciation. (2008: xix)

OPD: “each transcription is descriptive of a pronunciation which would be judged to be unexceptionable by native speakers of British English generally. [...] the criterion for inclusion being what is heard used by educated, non-regionally-marked speakers rather than what is ‘allowed’ by a preconceived model” (2000: xii)

RP: changing accent, changing dictionaries. Like all languages, even RP changes over time.

Consequently, Jones’ early 20th century RP is different from today’s RP and his EPD has been revised several times.

The biggest revision of the EPD was made by phonetician A. C. Gimson (1967) and led to the 13th edition. Qualitative-quantitative IPA notation system system used nowadays for the phonetic notation of RP.

At the end of the 1990s, Clive Upton further upgraded Gimson’s notation:

/e/ /ɛ/ /ɜ:/ /ə:/ /eə/ /ɛ:/

/æ/ /a/ /aɪ/ /ʌɪ/

‘Happy tensing’

This name refers to the tendency among speakers to produce a closer quality [i(:)] in words like happy, coffee, lucky, etc. Wells (1998: 258) avers that this pronunciation “has probably been in use in provincial and vulgar speech for centuries”.

[ɪ] > [i(:)]

Nowadays this variant is so widespread that all three pronouncing dictionaries chose to adopt the symbol [i] in place of [ɪ] in word-final unstressed position. Thus we have /'hæp-i/, /'leɪd-i/, /'prɪt-i/ for happy, lady and pretty.

This choice has generated some inconsistencies: as Monroy (2004: 278) stresses, the EPD and LPD entries for happi -ly, readi -ly present /ɪ.li/ which is quite an awkward solution, given that the adverbial suffix is <–ly> and not <–ily>.

Lowering of [æ]

Bad, that, stand…

[æ] > [a]

Cruttenden: “This vowel has become more open recently, previously being nearer to C. [ɛ] where now it is now close to C. [a]. Only tradition justifies the continuing use of the symbol ‘æ’ for this phoneme.” (2008: 112)

Well’s choice to retain the ‘æ’ symbol in his LPD is jusfied by the fact that “it preserves the parallelism with American and Austrialian English, in which the movement towards an opener quality has not taken place”.

Currently, only Upton’s ODP has changed the notation to [a].

Monophthongization of [eə]Share, square, compare…

[eə] > [ɛː]

J. Windsor Lewis (2011): “No statistical research has been published of an adequacy to persuade one that the speakers who have [ɛː] in all situations constitute a majority among GB speakers”.

J. Maidment (2010): “To retain the standard symbol for very much longer runs the risk of causing confusion, both for native speakers [and] non-native speakers who consult pronouncing dictionaries”.

In their Practical Phonetics and Phonology (2003) Collins and Mees adopt the monophthong [ɛ:] instead of [eə].

Monophthongization of [ʊə] Sure, poor, moor…

[ʊə] > [ɔ:]

This process, as Sturiale (2002: 102) remarks, can “still be considered in progress, even though /ɔ:/, from its position of ‘possible realisation’ has gradually moved to the position of an ‘attested’ one.”

J. Windsor Lewis: “[We need to hesitate] before starting to toll the death-bell for /ʊə/”

J. Maidment: “At some date in the future, maybe not too distant, GBE will have no centring diphthongs. /ɪə eə ʊə/ are doomed to extinction.” 

Monophthongization of [eə] and [ʊə]:Results

EPD and LPD show the canonical [eə] while the ODP, as a result of Upton’s reform, .

In the second group of words, the oscillation between [ʊə] and [ɔ:] concerning the diphthong [ʊə] show that this sound change is still in progress.

T-glottaling (glottal replacement)

It consists in the replacement of the /t/ sound by a glottal stop /Ɂ/ between vowels or at the end of a word. It is now considered to be part of ‘mainstream RP’.

Jones (1960):It can occur “at the termination of a syllable when a consonant follows, especially before m, n, j, r or w” (1960: 156).e.g. rabbit [‘ræbɪɁ]; network [‘neɁwɜ:k]: apartment [ə’pɑ:Ɂmənt]

Cruttenden (2008): “[the glottal stop] replaces /t/ when the following consonant is homorganic, i.e. /t, d, tʃ, dʒ, n, l, r/”.eg. Scotland [‘skɒɁlənd]; that table, get down, great joke, at least etc.

Wells: “as long as it remains an allophone of /t/, the phonemic principle means that we do not need to transcribe it distinctly”.

Dark L-vocalizationIn RP, the consonant L is realized as a clear /l/ only when a vocal or /j/ follows and as /ɬ/ (‘dark l’) in all other positions.

The main distinction between /l/ and /ɬ/ is that the first is a coronal consonantal sound, while the latter has a velarized gesture ([+back]).

The result of the vocalization is a high vocoid [ɤ], conventionally symbolized as [o] or [ʊ].

e.g. milk [‘miʊk], doll [‘doʊ], middle [mido],

Cruttenden (2008) includes L-vocalization among the features typical of London Regional RP (‘Estuary English’) but “as on the verge of being accepted as part of General RP” (: 82)For they are not common to other parts of GB, the vocalized variants are not yet transcribed.

Yod coalescence in stressed syllables

Yod coalescence is a process that changes the clusters [dj], [tj], [sj] and [zj] into [dʒ], [tʃ], [ʃ] and [ʒ] respectively. It is well established in unstressed syllables (soldier, culture, creature, etc.)

Wells (1994) reports observations of “an increased tendency towards the coalescence of yod” involving the clusters [dj] and [tj] in strong syllables, particularly in words like due, Tuesday, reduce, endure.

1. [dj] > [dʒ] eg. due [dju:] > [dʒu:] also during, dune, duel etc.

2. [tj] > [tʃ] eg. Tuesday [tju:zdeɪ] > [tʃu:zdeɪ] also tune, tumour, tuition etc.

Yod coalescence - findings

The /tj/ - /dj/ form is usually prioritized in all three dictionaries, the coalesced

variant being usually the second entry.

The LPD uses a mark to signal the sound change in progress.

The LPD is the only one that lists both the coalesced and the [ɛː] realizations.

Estuary English: a good candidate for the new standard pronunciation?

PROS:

Same geographical origin of RP – Southeast of EnglandNot same sociolinguistic background – middle/working

class speakers.More ‘democratic’ than RP (which is spoken natively

only by a small minority)

D. Rosewarne (1984) placed this alleged variety in a continuum between RP and the basilectal variety of English spoken in London (Cockney).

RP EE Cockney

Why not Estuary English then?

CONS: Estuary English is also a product of media-hype, an exaggerated

coverage of an en-route linguistic phenomenon of change:

“Scouse is threatened by the rising tide of Estuary English”

The Independent, London, 1 June 1999

“Glasgow puts an accent on Estuary”The Times, London 20 February 1999

Attempts to find evidences of specific features that could identify a uniform variety were carried out by Altendorf (1997), Schmid (1998), Przedlacka (1998/99), Altendorf (1998/99) gave the following results:

There is not one clearly identifiable variety - some phonetic features are present in some areas while scarce or absent in others.

As a result, ‘Estuary English’ speakers are, in fact, non-native, and shifting their speech styles according to their communicative needs.

To conclude:RP (a modernized form of it) is used in all three

dictionaries scrutinized.

More conservative pronunciations are generally prioritized but new trends are also recorded.

The phonemic transcription adopted sometimes constitutes a barrier to a full understanding of some speech phenomena (t-glottaling).

Estuary English is not a suitable substitute for RP.

Thanks for your attention...

References (1):AGHA, Asif, 2007, Language and social relations, Cambridge University Press.ALTENDORF, U. (1999). Estuary English: Is English going Cockney? Moderna-Sprak v

93 (1)COGGLE, Paul, 1993, Do you speak Estuary?, Bloomsbury

COLLINS, Beverley / MEES, Inger, M., 2003, Practical Phonetics and Phonology: a resource book for students. Routledge.

CRUTTENDEN, Alan, 2008, Gimson’s Pronunciation of English, Hodder Education.FABRICIUS, Anne. H. (2000). T-glottaling between stigma and prestige: a

sociolinguistic study of modern RP.  Unpublished PhD thesis, Copenhagen Business School

JONES, Daniel, 1909, The Pronounciation of English, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

ROACH, Peter / James Hartman / Jane Setter (eds), 2003, English Pronouncing Dictionary. Daniel Jones. Sixteenth Edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

MAIDMENT, J., A. (1994). Estuary English: Hybrid or Hype? Paper presented at the 4th New Zealand Conference on Language & Society, Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand

MILROY J., MILROY L. (1991). Authority in Language: investigating language prescription and standardization. Routledge, New York

MONROY, Rafael, C., 2004, “New transcriptional policies in the latest English pronunciation dictionaries. A help or hindrance to the foreign learner?”, International Journal of Lexicography, 17/3, pp. 275-290.

MUGGLESTONE, Lynda, 2003 (1995), Talking Proper: the rise and fall of the English accent as a social symbol, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

References (2):PRZEDLACKA, J. (2001). Estuary English and RP: some recent findings, Studia

Anglica Posnaniensia 36.PRZEDLACKA, J. (2005). Models and Myth: Updating the (Non)standard Accents, in

K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk / J. Przedlacka (eds.), English Pronunciation Models: A Changing Scene, Bern

ROACH, Peter / HARTMAN, James / SETTER, Jane (eds.), 2006, English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge University Press.

ROSEWARNE, D. (1984). "Estuary English: David Rosewarne describes a newly observed variety of English pronunciation". The Times Educational Supplement, 19 October 1984, 29.

RYFA, J. (2003). Estuary English: A controversial issue? Unpublished PhD thesis, Poznan: Adam Mickiewicz University

STURIALE, M. (2002). RP: Received or Reference Pronunciation? In Linguistica e Filologia 15, Università degli studi di Bergamo.

UPTON, Clive / W. A. Kretzschmar / R. Konopka , 2003, The Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

WELLS, J. (2005). Abbreviatory conventions in pronunciation dictionaries, in K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk / J. Przedlacka (eds.), English Pronunciation Models: A Changing Scene, Bern, Peter Lang

WELLS, J. (1998). Accents of English, Cambridge University Press.WELLS, J. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary,

WINDSOR LEWIS, J., 1999, “Review of D. Jones English Pronouncing Dictionary 15th edn.” ELT Journal 53/3: 225-227.