Regional Standards

National Standards

• RP (Received Pronunciation), or BBC English, in the United Kingdom,

• GA (General American), or American Network English, in the U. S.A.,

• GenCan (General Canadian) in Canada,

• GenAus (General Australian) in Australia.

Smaller geographical divisions are regional standards which are the accents of educated population in a certain area. Regional linguistic division in each particular territory reflects the history of early settlement. In the U.S.A., for instance, the history of migration developed in three main routes which is reflected in the division into the North, the South and the Midland (further subdivided into North Midland and South Midland); the three strands merged in the West, with the northern one dominating, which accounts for the lack of any pronounced accent of the West except for a more advanced stage of one new tendency (cot/caught merger) which we will comment on in the next section.

• Southern, Northern, Scottish and Northern Irish on the British Isles,

• Northern, Northern Midland, Southern Midland, Southern, Western in the USA.

National pronunciation standards are associated with radio and television newsreaders and presenters of serious channels (Channel 3 and Channel 4 on BBC, CBS and NBC on American Network). There are also professional groups and public figures whose speech is symbolic of certain types of accents which we will discuss in the social variation section.

Regional standards, as spoken by most educated people in the country, show a certain degree of regional deviation from the standard, often referred to as regionally "modified RP". The area which was the origin of the national standard determines to what extent speakers of regional standard sound distinctive. In U.K., it is the South-East, or London, that gave rise to RP and, therefore, speakers in that part of the country "slide from one social situation to the other", as Peter Tradgill put it, without a marked difference from what is perceived as the norm. Recently this particular regional standard called "Estuary English" attracted the attention of linguists. In essence there is evidence of a more advanced pronunciation type which occupies an intermediate position between RP and London Cockney.

Speakers from the North and the West of England are more often identified as having a northern regional accent. Among the Celtic areas the Scottish accent is more easily identified, next to it comes the Irish accent, while the Welsh educated accent is confused either with the Scottish or the Southern type.

In the United States, geographically, the situation is quite the reverse: it is the South and South Midland which stand out for their marked dif­ference from the standard pronunciation. Most of the negatively assessed social markers are in fact southern accent features. Another area which is identified by Americans for its accent is the East, with a prejudice against New York accent and a certain respect for "the old money" and the cultural distinction of Boston.

Although local patriotism is very strong, most of the people would agree that the true American accent is to be found in Western and Mid-Western parts of the country. Actually, this is the area where you cannot hear either a northern or a southern accent.

The linguists trace back the origin of the American standard to the Great Lakes area, i.e. the North. In fact, newsreaders for American radio and T.V. are selected from people who are from the North, North Midland and the West or they are trained to sound as if they are (Preston and Shuy 1988). American national news agencies and radio stations are located in the North-East, while the entertainment industry which ca­ters for the production of films and videos is stationed in the West (in Hollywood).

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11