Accents, Dialects & RP

In different regions, factors change language so that it becomes synonymous with that region. This is usually due to historical invasions that have led to the native people adopting some of the invaders terms and accents.

The main change will be in the dialect, a specific variety of English that is used predominately in that region. It influences the language in three ways; lexis (vocabulary), grammar (structure) and phonology (pronunciation). This phonological influence is what changes the sounds of certain words and gives the accent to a place.

It is hard to define what the default accent for Britain is, with so many accents, but the widely accepted British accent is Received Pronunciation (or RP). Otherwise known as Queen's English or BBC English, though these are misleading names as the Queen is known to speak her own kind of English and the BBC  now represents even the most diverse parts of the UK, so doesn't have a universal accent. A better way to describe the accent is as the traditional English with the absence of non standard constructions and it has no regional dialects.

Though it is what would be described as the default accent, it is only spoken by 2% of the UK, making it a poor representation of the collective UK accent. RP does have uses, however; RP is the accent used to teach English to foreign speakers and is also the accent considered when Dictionaries are colected.

It may be scarce in modern times but back in the early days of Radio and Television in 1922, RP was chosen by the BBC as their accent and formed their identity. All speakers involved with the BBC would speak in an RP accent because the BBC beleivived this to be the most easily understanable accent. And that is how RP came to be associated with the BBC.

RP takes many forms. The three main forms being:

1. Conservative, which is the traditional form of RP spoken by older generations.
2. Contemporary, which is the way it would be used by the younger generations.
3. Mainstreme, which is the neutral form.