DO R.P. AND G.I.E. REALLY EXIST? OR ARE THEY MYTHS?
I would like to raise the issue of pronunciation before the learned English language experts, the ELT experts, the TESOL experts, the native and non native teachers of English. I wonder there is any such kind of pronunciation as can be called Received Pronunciation because different B.B.C announcers speak with different accents and intonation. Even different dictionaries show different phonemes for certain words. The pronunciation of Americans is different from that of England. The same is true of Australian ,Canadian, West Indian and South African pronunciation of English.
There are more speakers of English in India than there are in England..Although English is the mother land of England even the Britishers scan not claim English to be their exclusive property. Now English is the language of the world. Every educated person should acquire it either as a native, second or foreign language. Under these circumstances is it feasible or desirable to think of having Received Pronunciation anywhere in the world.
THE CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES in INDIA coined another word G.I.E which means the English spoken by the educated Indians .If we observe the linguistic scenario in India, G.I.E seems a myth. The English spoken by an Andhraite is different from that of a Tamilian. The English spoken by the South Indians contrasts with that of the North Indians. The accent and intonation change from state to state and region to region. The difference in pronunciation is so varied and typical that one can submit a thesis for a research paper.
I am not against a standard or a yardstick for pronunciation. But I personally feel that intelligible pronunciation is what we can dream of for a living, resourceful and ever changing language like English.
My personal experience: I have talked to native speakers of English-both the Americans and the British during the International conference recently held in Chennai and during my teaching experience with the Britishers who come to my school every year to teach English in rural areas under the collaboration of VESL a voluntary organization based in England. We have not encountered any problems regarding our pronunciation. The experience convinces me to the fact if a native speaker speaks to a non-native speaker like me, both of them have profitable learning experience. The former excuses the latter’s pronunciation and starts understanding him/her and the non-native speaker quickly adapts to the correct accent and intonation of the native speaker .I have repeatedly been asking the questions ‘how is my pronunciation’?, ’is my English intelligible’? .The answers always are good and yes .I have benefited more from speaking to the native speakers than from attending the language labs and learning the phonetic symbols ,practicing the sounds in isolation and as words, the stress, intonation, tone and the like at the reputed Institutes like C.I.E.F.L.
My personal experience with the professors of Phonetics; I have talked to the m formally and informally. I have noticed they tend to be artificial in the labs and in the class and they sacrifice fluency and felicity of expression to the correctness of accent and intonation. They are extremely conscious of their pronunciation. During their informal conversations they speak with normal Indian accent. I am of the opinion that despite mastering the phonology of English, no non-native speaker speaks like the Britisher or the American unless and until one lives in the respective countries and speak with them for a considerable period of time. Now I would like to go back to my question “Is it necessary to speak like the American or the Britisher’?.
I hope the TESOL experts, the ELT experts, the teachers of English across the world respond to my question and make the topic an enlightening and educative one for all the enthusiastic learners of English.
Thank you all, I am eagerly waiting for your comments.
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Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language (specifically British English) which has long been perceived as uniquely prestigious amongst British accents. About two percent of Britons speak with the RP accent in its pure form.
Received Pronunciation may be referred to as the Queen's (or King's) English, on the grounds that it is spoken by the monarch. It is also sometimes referred to as BBC English, because it was traditionally used by the BBC, yet nowadays these notions are slightly misleading.
Queen Elizabeth II uses one specific form of English, whilst BBC presenters and staff are no longer bound by one type of accent. There have also long been certain words that have had more than one RP pronunciation, such as again, either, and moor.
It is sometimes referred to as Oxford English. This was not because it was traditionally the common speech of the city of Oxford, but specifically of Oxford University; the production of dictionaries gave Oxford University prestige in matters of language. The extended versions of the Oxford Dictionary give Received Pronunciation guidelines for each word.
RP is an accent (a form of pronunciation), not a dialect (a form of vocabulary and grammar). It may show a great deal about the social and educational background of a person who uses English. A person using the RP will typically speak Standard English although the reverse is not necessarily true (e.g. the standard language may be spoken by one in a regional accent, such as a Yorkshire accent; but it is very unlikely that one speaking in RP would use it to speak Scots or Geordie).
In recent decades, many people have asserted the value of other regional and class accents. Many members (particularly the younger) of the groups that traditionally used Received Pronunciation have, to varying degrees, begun to use it less. Many regional accents are now heard on the BBC.
RP is often believed to be based on Southern accents, but in fact it has most in common with the dialects of the south-east Midlands: Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire.Migration to London in the 14th and 15th centuries was mostly from the counties directly north of London rather than those directly south. There are differences both within and among the three countries mentioned, but a conglomeration emerged in London, and also mixed with some elements of Essex and Middlesex speech. By the end of the 15th century, "Standard English" was established in the City of London. Queen's English is a particular pronounciation in Britain. It is more formally called "Received Pronounciation". It is the pronounciation associated with the aristocratic speakers of English. There are only about 2 million pure speakers left, but many more people have some of the pronounciation. There are a lot of different pronounciations of English. Cockney, Midlands, Canadian English, Australian English, American Standard, African American Vernacular, and Hawiian Pidgin to name a few.
Ref: http://www.neutralaccent.com
I am fully in tune with what you have mentioned. I have been training down south over the last 4 years, and the dialect, as you rightly put, varies across states. The second aspect is the pronunciation, where some Indians have a very strong mother tongue influence, depending on the state they come from, which creates a barrier in understanding. I am also a trainer in Voice and Accent for over 8 years. I conduct lot of training programs for BPO's and Voice and Accent forms one of the most critical modules.
English has now unarguably become the lingua franca. I always make it a point to tell my trainees that the objective should be to remove your mother tongue influence, so that the word is understandable to the listener. Imitating an accent looks outrageous and foolish. Any native speaker can easily pick up an artificial accent.
Coming to your point on BBC, I always found it to be classy. The rate of speech, pronunciation and use of words is very simple and easy to understand. Of late, there has been a perceptible change in terms of news readers, using a variety of accents.
The bottomline is a citizen from any country should be able to understand the message you want to convey. I term it as neutral accent.
Lastly, no one can claim to be an authority in the English Language. I had mentioned earlier in one of my comments, that the maximum research ( if I can term it so ) happens with the English Language, and ultimately we end up reinventing the wheel.
Dear Mr neutralaccent,
Thank you very much for you prompt response to my forum topic "The phonology of English." Neutralaccent may be your pen name.Your knowledge of linguistics is awesome.Your neutral accent is synonymous with my intelligible pronunciation,you seem to be neutral in your comment.you have really made the topic more educative and enlightening.I am looking forward to comments like yours.
with kind regards,
yours sincerely,
J.V.L NARASIMHARAO
You say: "...if a native speaker speaks to a non-native speaker like me, both of them have profitable learning experience." Any two people with a reasonable level of English, talking face-to-face, will probably be able to understand each other. That doesn't, though, mean that either of them would be able to join in a conversation with two or more native speakers. I teach English in Belgium, and so I generally suppose that my students want to talk to native speakers, as well as to other non-native speakers. Their own pronunciation is fine, and their accents, though recognizably foreign, don't get in the way at all, (a French accent actually sounds quite charming to English ears). But if they want to understand what native speakers say 'in their natural habitat' they will have to learn the vital differences between written and spoken English. They will have to learn: how we form the links between words, how our stress patterns work, which letters are not normally pronounced and all about the schwa sound.
You say, speaking of professors of phonology, that: "...they sacrifice fluency and felicity of expression to the correctness of accent and intonation." I'm not a professor of phonology, but the whole point of teaching pronunciation is to acquire fluency and the ability to join in conversations with native speakers. That's worth doing, isn't it?
Thank you very much Mr girishseshmani for your comment for my forun topic " The phonology of English" you seem to endorse my opinion about intelligible pronunciation which you call neutral accent. I have been reading your comments and blogs. You are very recepteve to new concepts and ideas.The English teachers and trainers like me need comments from enthusiastic learners and researchers of English like you. I am really looking forward to comment like yours which make the topic more educative and enlightening to the learners of english in general and the learners of English as a second or foreign language in particular. I hope I will get more comments on the topic by and by.
yours sincerely,
J.V.L NARASIMHA RAO
Thank you Mr Paul Giles for your comments. I am neither a professor of phonetics nor of any other branch of English, I am only a teacher of English and teacher trainer. Being a native speaker of English you seem to disagree with me - I am not against teaching phonetics. My point, however, is phonetics can be caught more than it can be taught. Despite mastering the phonology of English a non-native speaker can never be the native speaker unless one lives among them for some time. Instead of the so called R.P the students should be exposed to the different kinds of pronunciation and accent like the British, the American, the Canadian, the Australian, the West Indian etc so that any pronunciation can be intelligible to him, This can be possible through recorded conversations from the native speakers.
It is also true that the speakers can understand each other’s pronunciation by and by. It happened to me, my collegues and my students when 2 native speakers from London taught English in my school for 2 months each in 2 years.
These are my personal observations I invite more comments like yours
With kind regards
Yours sincerely,
J.V.L NARASIMHARAO
As an Australian with an Australian accent, who sometimes is mistaken for having an English accent (I do not sound English at all, I just don't have a big 'strine' as many people outside Australia expect all Australians to have - and believe me, many Australians don't talk with big strines) the concept of accents and which accents are best is intriguing.
Having recently spent time in Germany teaching English to non-native speakers, and used English whilst touring in Europe outside Germany, the instances of people not or misunderstanding me because of my pronunciation were very few indeed, usually with words like 'car' and 'nicer', ending with an 'r' which Australians (like many English) and unlike Americans and Canadians, do not pronounce. Many English-language students have reported that while they had difficulty understanding some British and American accents, they found my accent easier to understand.
Interestingly, the only group of people who have problems with my accent are almost always Americans. But I have to also say Americans I have met and worked with while in Germany also had problems understanding Welsh accents, Scottish accents, Irish accents and Indian accents, which I happily do not. I think Australians, through television, films, and migration amongst other things, have long heard and understood other accents in English, whereas perhaps other English-language cultures have not, at least to the same extent.
But as Australians I think we also realise we are not the centre of the world, and thus have accommodated that.
Of course pacing the way we speak can also help.
Matt Potter
The problem with teaching phonetics is that no one is clear when to teach it. Many Indians learn English around the age of 5 or 6. Their teachers speak English in different accents. By the time they are old enough to understand phonetics they have already learnt to pronounce words. This may not be in line with received pronunciation.
I really don't like the word "neutral accent" because I feel that no accent is neutral. All non-native speakers of English have atleast a trace of their first language. This includes even those Indians who speak, think and write in English. They may be more familair with English than any other language. Their accents are understandable, pleasant. I wouldn't like to call these accents neutral.
If we try to record voices of Indians speaking in English, I am sure that we will have so many varied accents (all pleasant and understandable) that we will find it difficult to pin point "Indian accent".
I would like to hear your views on this.
lalitha murthy
Intelligible Pronunciation
Thank you Mrs.Lalitha Murthy for your comments. I prefer intelligible pronunciation to neutral accent . However we can call the pronunciation neutral if the speaker's accent doesn't betray the influence of their mothertongue.If we know the regional languages we can identify the influence of mothertongue.Then we can say that the speaker belongs to a particular region in India. This some people called Indian accent .Intelligible pronunciation means the pronunciation which can be understood by all the speakers and listeners of English all over the world irrespective of their country, dialect. This is desirable since it is impossible for any one to learn all the accents. It is also neither possible nor desirable to speak like a native speaker unless you live in that respective country. However if you are a professor of phonetics or a student of phonetics you need to learn and master different accents. Otherwise you may speak with an accent of intelligibility. If you observe the accent and pronunciation of cricket commentators you can easily understand who a native speaker of English is and who is not even though they are able to understand each other's pronunciation. Even though Ravisatry and Sunil Gavaskar speak with native like fluency and accuracy they slightly have the flavor of non-native accent. It shows the fact that how difficult it is for us to speak like the native speakers. So we can settle for intelligible pronunciation instead of Received pronunciation or American pronunciation or any other kind of native pronunciation.
With Kind Regards.
Yours sincerely
J.V.L.NARASIMHARAO
NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH
Thanking you very much Mr. Matt Potter for your comments.
For non-native speakers like me, the pronunciation of Australians, the Americans and the British and the Canadians sounds almost alike, though we can understand all the accents. Unless we observe very minutely and carefully, we cannot understand the subtle variations in your accent and intonation. But we can distinguish between a native and non-native speaker of English very easily. Probably the professor of phonetics may understand and explain the variations in your accent and intonation with concrete examples. Since most Indians pronounce the sound r in their pronunciation while pronouncing the words ending with r like car, teacher, bar, war etc. They may be comfortable with Australian pronunciation. I think the Indians should do what the Australians have already done, though it may be some what difficult since they are the non-native speakers of English.
Yours sincerely,
J.V.L.NARASIMHARAO