Fenton Community Players

The Secret Garden

Standard British Dialect Signature Sounds and Reference Guide

I.

About Received Pronunciation

Standard British, or RP (Received Pronunciation as it is often called) is perhaps the most famous and distinguished of all the British dialects. It is a prestige dialect that cannot be confined to any one geographic region, and is spoken by educated speakers all over the UK and the former British Empire. For many years, RP was the required speech for BBC broadcasters, and for most of the 20th century actors from all over the world would train in British drama schools to learn this default English speech. Productions of Shakespeare were long dominated by RP, and still are in many community and professional theatres to this day. RP shares many key characteristics with other British dialects (Cockney, Irish, Scottish, Australian, Yorkshire, and many others) and is the single most useful dialect for an American actor to know (aside from GenAm). While RP has been losing ground and its upper- crust prestige status over the past few decades (British, like all dialects, is constantly changing and evolving), it has far from lost its place as a staple of world speechthe world of the stage being no exception. For the dialect study in FVPs production of The Secret Garden, Id like us all to start with a basic RP and see where it evolves from there. Im here, of course, to offer any assistance that I can, and am very much looking forward to working with each of you as you take your first steps towards developing your characters voice, and beyond. This study, as with any dialect study, should be wholly fun and immensely rewardingI promise that if you put the work in it will pay off, and the story that we tell with our production of Secret Garden will be all the better for it. Please review the following signature sound selections taken from Paul Meiers Dialects of the British Isles: Standard British and be prepared to implement and discuss them at our next rehearsal, and the rehearsals to follow. Again--- I look forward to working with all of you; now lets have some dialect fun! II. Signature Sounds A. Use of /t /. In many dialects (famously American dialects), medial or final / ts / are often pronounced as / d / or as a glottal [ + (think little, which we often pronounce liddle). The rule of thumb for RP is to treat each and every / t / as an unvoiced, aspirated, released plosive. RP speakers treat this consonant more sharply and explosively than in any other dialect. EXAMPLES: Better, Lot of, Shatter, Motive, Eating, Sit Down, Writer B. Use of [ j ]. Following the alveolar consonants / t / d / n / l / and / s / and preceding the [ u ] vowel (when spelled / u / ui / or / ew /), the Standard English speaker often intrudes the semivowel [ j ] (think / y /). The best way to think of this signature sound is in the word Duty, which

rather than being pronounced in the American fashion Dooty should be pronounced Dyouty, in the style of the RP- speaker (this is a tricky one, and I will explain in person if need be). EXAMPLES: Duel, During, Lure, News, Nude, Assume, Student, Tune, Lurid, Suit, Intuition C. The bath lexical set is perhaps the most famous, but is also fairly difficult. RP speakers will often substitute the / a / vowel in GenAm father ( * ] ) in place of the more American [ ae ] vowel found in the word cat for example. Not all * ae + vowels experience this change, for example RP speakers pronounce cat in the same fashion as GenAm speakers * kaet +. However, words like bath, pass, ask experience the change to the higher, more open / a / vowel [ ]. EXAMPLES: Pass, Past, Dance, Chance, Ask, Answer, Laughter, Bath, Cant, Plaza, Master, Half D. The vowel of the thought set is [ ]. It is an open, rounded back vowel (think awe in the GenAm sense, but more lip- round). RP speakers pronounce this vowel very long. It is almost impossible to make it too long or too lip- round. EXAMPLES: Awful, Daughter, Awkward, Caught, Laura, Call, Water, Chalk, Small E. In the nurse set (and the three to follow), the words all pronounced without r- coloration. This phenomenon, called non- rhotic when classifying dialects, is found in many different languages, and essentially means that the r consonant is un- pronounced, or un- sounded. Think about keeping the tip of the tongue down as it goes to pronounce the r part of the word, in doing so, the r sound is effectively silenced. (This will be discussed in rehearsal). EXAMPLES: Bird, Her, Earn, Curdle, Worm, First, Purr, Journey, Tournament, Colonel F. R- less vowel number two; [ ]. This is found in word sets such as north and force. This is also the same vowel as in the thought set in letter D. EXAMPLES: Warm, Court, Sport, Morning, Sword, Quarter, Sure, Fork, Forum G. R- less vowel number three; [ ]. This is the same vowel as in letter C. EXAMPLES: Harm, Card, Far, Park, Army, Heart, Sergeant, Clerk, Garden Party H. R- less vowel number four; [ ] plus / r /. You can think of the [ ] vowel as the / a / that we pronounce in words like America. This will be discussed in rehearsal. EXAMPLES: Letter, Mother, Perhaps, Pester, Rare, Inquire, Rower, Our, Hour, Lawyer, Layer, Spare, Fire I. In the goat set, the RP speaker uses a definite diphthong or glide, starting with the vowel [ ], and gliding to the somewhat lip- rounded back vowel [ ], producing [ ]. EXAMPLES: Bolt, Bold, Comb, So, Owned, Toe, Though, Lonely, Moaning, Slow

J.

In the next two sets lot and cloth, the RP speaker uses the open, rounded back vowel [ ]. This vowel should be short, staccato. EXAMPLES: Dog, Obvious, Knowledge, Collar, Along, Want, Fox, Laurel, Moral, Austria, Gloucester, Cough

K. The diphthong [ a ] of the mouth set may not be a change for you (it isnt), so dont worry so much about this setthese words are pronounced the same way to us (General American) as they are to RP speakers. EXAMPLES: Now, Round, South, Doubt, Owl, Mountain, Bough, Paolo, Faust L. In the following set, pay attention to the two- syllable pronunciation of the words. In GenAm, we often treat / r /s as being part of a vowel, whereas in RP, the / r / in the following examples is treated as an independent consonant that starts the following syllable. In this way, hurry is a definite two- syllable word in RP. We will discuss this in rehearsal. EXAMPLE: Hurry, Worry, Courage, Durham, Borough, Furrow, Burrow M. Similar to letter L, the / r / in these words initiate the following syllable, rather than coloring the preceding vowel. Take care also, to make sure that the vowel in the words is opened to [ ae ], rather than flattening down to [ ], which is how we dominantly pronounce them. EXAMPLE: Harry, Marry, Paris, Carriage, Arrow, Marilyn, Carolyn, Parapet N. The linking / r /. This one is one of my favorites, and is one of the subtle final- details that separate dialect hobbyists from those that can claim a true mastery. A linking / r / is an exception to the non- rhoticity of RP, and is an example where the final / r / in one word or syllable is pronounced at the beginning of a vowel in the following word or syllable. In these examples, the linking / r / is demonstrated, as well as the intrusive / r / in which RP speakers pronounce an / r / even where none is present in the spelling. EXAMPLE: Here is, There are, Her eyes, Fear of Death, Idea of it, Shah of Persia, Spanish Armada Only, Maria adores. O. Last but not least, many RP speakers will use a short [ I ] at the ends of words like party. EXAMPLE: Party, Lovely, Crazy, Pretty, Ugly, City, Silly, Forty; and in unstressed positions, We Laugh, He came, She Heard

III.

Additional Features 1. ile endings. Famously different pronunciation. Mobile, Fertile, Futile, Tactile. 2. tory, -tary, -bury. We in GenAm often make two syllables of these endings, the rule of thumb in RP is that they be pronounced as a single syllable. Secretary, Laboratory, Dictionary, Raspberry.

3. Many words in RP have a different stress- pattern from those in GenAm. This is where we must employ some discretion, and take clues from real- life dialect speakers. Some examples include DE- tail, cigar- ETTE, alu- MIN- ium, tele- VIS- ion, maga- ZINE, BER- nard. 4. There are many words which are pronounced differently between RP and GenAm, these include process, program, with, simultaneous, lever, lieutenant, leisure, zebra, nonsense, diesel.

IV.

Real Life Dialect Speakers Below youll find a link to Paul Meiers IDEA dialect site. I encourage you to go on and explore on of the best ways to gain a mastery of your new dialect is to listen to real- life speakers of that dialect. Mastering a dialect is as much about perfecting the mechanical features and signature sounds as it is about capturing the rhythm, tempo, and intonation of the speech. Enjoy! www.dialectsarchive.com ENGLAND 1, 7, 39 and 49 (and others).

Step 1; Go to the IDEA dialects archive, www.dialectsarchive.com Step 2; Locate the SEARCH THE ARCHIVE bar in the upper left of the screen. Step 3; Type in the name of the file youre looking for (ENGLAND1 for example, with no spaces). Step 4; Click search, and locate the entry youve searched for Step 5; Click Read More under the name of the entry, this will take you to another page Step 6; Click PLAY in the small gray box on the page Step 7; Listen, take notes, and Enjoy!