Social and situational variation

In addition, various situational factors influence pronunciation, such as the social relationship between speakers and hearers, whether one is speaking publicly or privately, the purpose for which one is using the language (pragmatic aim of the utterance).

Situational factors are more changeable: sphere of communication, setting, media, social role, topic and aim of the talk. Among the situational factors influencing variations in pronunciation, social roles of authority / non-authority, or of equal status are most relevant for phonetic features. Besides, it is possible to pick out stylistic situational factors, and many linguists have attempted to produce frameworks for the analysis of styles of language.

Geographical	Social (static)	Situational
geographical origin,	age	Superior/inferior/equal – social differences between the speakers
urban/rural	gender	public speech
	social class	private talk
	educational background	the purpose for which one uses the language, i.e. the pragmatic aim of an uttered utterance
	occupation
	personality traits

b). The linguistic atlas of England. English is the mother tongue of several nations, and thus it exists in the following pronunciation variants:

Every national variant of English falls into inferior and regional variants (or dialects). A dialect (a variety of the language) is distinguished for its grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Thus, a dialect includes an accent, i.e. a way of pronouncing the language, used for communicative purposes by the members of the same speech community. Phonetics is mainly concerned with accents of English, as spoken on different territories, in diverse social groups, by particular individuals.

Speakers of the same accent usually

One of the accents in the country implicitly enjoys the status of being accepted by the educated speakers throughout the national community and therefore it is called literary (or the orthoepic pronunciation), or standard of pronunciation – the term traditionally used by British and American scholars.

The use of other pronunciation types is applied to certain regions, smaller localities, social, professional and age groups.

Thus, varieties in pronunciation within a country can include a national standard of pronunciation and territorial or area accents, which always mark the geographical origin of the speaker.

2. Major accents in the UK (Southern or RP, Northern, Scottish; Estuary English, Cockney). Chief differences between RP and regional accents of British English.

English is a nationally heterogeneous language – the entity of related national variants and dialects and their associated accents, or pronunciation patterns. As is known about 400 million people speak English as their first language, or mother tongue.

British dialectologists P.Trudgill, J.Hannah, A,Hughs class all variants of English into

The English English comprises two major accents: Southern English and Northern English.

Thus there are five main accents on the British Isles:

(1) Southern or Received Pronunciation (RP or BBC English);

(2) Northern English;

(3) Welsh English;

(4) Scottish English;

(5) Northern Ireland English.

Southern or Received Pronunciation (RP or BBC English, or public school accent), accepted as the phonetic norm a century ago and often referred to as the prestige accent, implicitly employs the status of the national standard of pronunciation in the United Kingdom.

Prof. Gimson speaks about

3. General American (GAm) as the American English pronunciation norm; types of American English pronunciation (Eastern, Southern and General American).

4. Major differences between Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GAm) pronunciation.

5. Phonological and Phonetic distinctions of Australian, Canadian and New Zealand English pronunciation.

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