3. Definition of an accent
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation. An
accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside (a geographical or regional accent), the socio-
economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language, and so on.
Accents typically differ in quality of voice, pronunciation of vowels and consonants, stress, and prosody.
Although grammar, semantics, vocabulary, and other language characteristics often vary concurrently with
accent, the word 'accent' refers specifically to the differences in pronunciation, whereas the word 'dialect'
encompasses the broader set of linguistic differences. Often 'accent' is a subset of 'dialect'.
Accent, in phonetics, that property of a syllable which makes it stand out in an utterance relative to its
neighbouring syllables.
4. Accents in the UK
The UK has some of the highest levels of accent diversity in the English-speaking world.
Spanning the range from “traditional” accents like Brummie, Cockney, Geordie or Scouse to newer accents like
Estuary English, British Asian English and General Northern English, accents in the UK reflect differences in
what region people come from, their family’s social class background, their age and their current professions.
An important thing to note as we go on this tour is that accents are very fluid. We use umbrella terms like a
Northern accent or a Southern accent. But what we're really doing is grouping a bunch of accents together
because they share similar pronunciation features. Indeed, accents don't just change from city to city or from
town to town. They can change from person to person. So an approach that many linguistic experts take is to
instead talk about there being an accent continuum, where, as you move through the country, accents change
and evolve and join at the edges.
5. Received Pronunciation
It's an accent associated with education and privilege. Now, it doesn't have a set
geographical location, but it is associated with London and the southeast of
England. But as a result, you can be an RP speaker from anywhere. The Queen’s
English:
An emphasis is put on clarity, with every
sound being articulated in its fullest form.
No drop keys.
There's a tightness in the jaw. One
pronunciation feature that we find in the
Queen's English is the use of the /o:/
sound instead of /o/.
This is not an accent we can hear far
beyond the walls of Buckingham Palace.
6. Conservative and Modern RP
We move on to conservative RP, which is similar to
Queen's English, but perhaps not quite as rigid and
formal. Now, it's traditionally been an accent associated
with positions of power.
Now, one feature that divides RP and southern accents
from northern English accents is the /a:/ sound. In RP,
you have /a/ and /a:/, whereas in the north of England
it's just /a/.
There's also a more modern version of RP called
contemporary RP. Speakers still place a high value on
articulating sound, clearly, but there is an acceptance
that speed of communication is more important than
accuracy. So in contemporary RP, you might drop a t or
you might use a contraction, whereas in conservative RP
or the Queen's English, that's less likely to happen.
