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',,:;

THE trI{GT-ISH
LAI\TGUAGEAI{D POWER

Edited b1t
Gerardo Maz.za-ferro

Estratto
 .A,ccent and power in England
Virginia Pulcini

Introduction
"... for at least four centuries, the Engìish have cultivated a concept of a form of
pronunciarion which has been considered more comect, desirable, acceptable or
elegant than others" (Gimson 1984: 45).

One peculiar aspect of British society is its sensitivity to difîerent accents.

British people seem to be particularly inclined to perceive accent differences and
associate positive or negative judgements to them. They are receptive not only to
different dialects and varietiesl of English or diffcrent styles in speech,2 but
especialiy to different ways of pronouncing sounds within one and the same
dialect or variety of English. Although it is true that detecting and iabelling the
way other people speak is a common habit of all linguistic comrnunities, we shall
try to show that the social history of England throughout the I gú and lgth centuries
has made this phenomenon much more marked and deep-rooted in British society
than in others.
The acoustic skill of perceiving different sound patterns in speech was
embodied in the fictional characrer of Professor John Higgins, the proragonist of
G.B. Shaw's play Pygmalion (1912). This professor of phonetics-a supposed
caricature of the real philologist Henry sweet -was capable of recognising the
regional provenance of all speakers of English with extreme accuracy, within the
limits of a few miles' distance. when he meets Eliza Dooiittie, a cockney flower-
seller, he decides to train h.er in elocution îo turn her broad cockney accent into the
refined pronunciation of the higher classes and nobility and thus introduce her as a
duchess to genteel socìety. The comic effects of the play stem from the clumsy
attempts of the girl during her tinguistic and social metamorphosis. shaw's satire

I The word dialect refers to a language variety which has its own lexis, grammar, pronunciation
and idioms' A dialect is used by a geographically or socially
resn-icted comrnunity and it is often
distinguished from the 'standard' language only blcause the latter
has official status in a coungy in
educaúon and in pubiic communication. To use an
old commonplace "a language is a dialect with an
army and a navy". In linguistics some authors prefer
to talk about standard and non-standard varieties,
or some use the term diaìect for all language varieties,
2 Style
including the standard.
relates to socially-conditioned and contextually-determined variation in language
use:
regional dialect. social crass. age, gender,
fìeld, mo<le of communlcation (spoken or wntten), and
degree of formality. See also not; 6 b;low.
204 Virginia Pulcini Accent and power in Englmd 205

inNewYorkCity,withahigherincidenceinspostaneousspeechstyleasopposed values of accents in l8b and. lgrh century England, Mugelestone

explains the
to formal style. Thesc studies confirmed the teidency in speakers to "aim at a historical reasons which have.broughr about the phenomenon carled ,h-àropping,,
,better' pronunciation", that is to use a higher proportion of standard t-eatures of
which is srill considered as a linguistic shibboteill tn English.s she explains:
use of
speech, in ,no." controiled, formal communicative contexts; converseiy, the
vlrnacular f'eatures increases or is prelèrred tbr reasons of'covert prestige' within "The usc of in
[hl' modern Engrish. has become one of the principal signaìs of sociar
their speech community and in less-controlled, inlormal communicative contexts. idcntity, its prcsencc in initial position associatccl alniost inevitinry
*i,r, ,rr"
Another interesting finding ernerging from sociolinguistic surveys is that 'educated' and 'polite" whire its loss commonly tnggers popurar
connotations of the
'hypercorection'-the tendency to use a higher proportions ofphonetic markers of 'vr"rlgiu', the 'ignorant,, and the ,lower class,,(MuggÌestonò
tSOS, tOZ;.
p."rtig" - is more noticeable in thc more socially insecure social groups, i.e. lower
micldle-class speakers and women, which is explained by the greater ambition of
In the prescriptive England of the lgrh century, ringuists condemned
those
speakers who did not pronounce the <h> when this retter aipearcd
these speakers to improve their social status. Thus, sociolinguistic research may
be
h trre speìting of
able to explain the spread of certain linguistic traits from definite social groups,
words. The dropping of the aspirated sound was in tuin considered
àcorrect,
uneducated' impolite, vulgar, hideous, and cven vicious, barbarous, antl
both in the present and in the past history ofEnglish- depraved.
It is interesting ro nore that in l ge, century Engrand h-dropping was a widéspreacl
Returning for a moment to the socially-conditioned features of an individual
feature of most speakers, whercas the pronunciition of
(regional provenance, social class, age, gender and ethnicity), it is interesting to fhr was a characteristic of a
few, i.e. philologisrs and pronunciation 'experrs' rike Thomas
noie that they are relatively permanent in an individual. In fact, it may be sheridan, who
craimed to have the authority to regisiate in matters of linguistic
cxtremely difficutt for a person to control his/her own way of speaking, unless correctness and
etiquette (see also below). Dictionaries, grammars and manrials of ,proper,
he/she makes a deliberate effort or possesses specific skitls or training, e.g. ìn the EngÌish
focussed on this and orher 'markers' of disgraccfur pronunciation
case ol'actors antl comcdians.6 iuui,., lik" the
use of intrusive r'e and the pronunciation of the ending
Nevertheless, socraÌ advanccment is a strong stimulus towards modifying [r4] as [;nl. In pa.trcur*
the hypercorrected pronunciations of the 'new .i.rr' *".e runj..i
one's speech in the direction of rnore prestigious, socially acceptable varieties. As to tinguistic
reprimand.
we shall see later, many Briti sh politicians deliberately changed their For more than a century
pronunciation from a local one to RP to increase their popularity (cf. section 4')' In the most important marker of upper class
provenance, good education and social prestige was to
ì8ú century England many socially ambitious people, on arriving in the_capitaJ, Received Propnunciation. In the foilowing sect]on
all efrects tÀe use of
took elocution lessons to icquire 'good London speech'. In 19ù cenn.rry England historicaì background which has determineJthe rise
we shal concentrate on thc
upper-class parents would send their sons away tiom home to far-away pubiic of this accent.
,.t oots so tÀat they coutd get rid of their 'rustic, ungenteel' Iocal pronunciations The development oJ Rp
and acquire the standard accent (cf' section 4)'
Also in the past centuries there have been important social markcrs in the ._
A standard pronunciation for Engìish was nor estabrished in
Englancr untir the
English language. The pronunciation o1'the orthographic letter <h> is an middle of the 19th cenrury, but the perception of 'good
p.onuncàtion, already
emblematic example. In her comprehensive volume entirely devoted to the social existed in Shakcspearc's times.

7
ó Nevertheless, most speakers ue able Lo switch from one register to another according to The word shibboleth derives from ancienr
Hebrew (meaning .er of grain, or ,s.,eam,).
to be It is
tlifferent communicatiVe sintations they fìncl themselves in. These fearures of viliation are said
used to denote a ringuistic featue
(especiaily pronunciationj which identificsl
or ol speaker as o *".u",
contextuîlly-conditioned (Crysurl, 1993). For exmple' a cenair job may require specilìc ;argon agrcup (regjonrì.rr social). It is broadly,-rinonyrn
uf.tiíguirti. _arter,.
involve
style (e.g. doctor, lawyer, newsreader' politician. etc.), or different sociaì relations may wnuc rn old Encrish rhe presencc or'<h>
in spclrirg icqurred irs uutribre aspirarion. during úc
clilÌèrent degrees of tomaÌity md communicative strategìes (e.g. iì Lectlx.e, m interview.
rn infbrmal Middle English periotl as"oiration
was gradually lost bemuse àf thà influence of'French-derived
depending which rhe lenq appeared words, in
conversation). Thus the same speaker may tìnd himself switching fìom a sryle to another but was not pronouncer.l lhonour, hour. honest). -îhiscaused
the loss of
ortnographic <h> in some
on the situation which he is supposed to handle linguistically in the ctlurse of his daily communrcatlve EnsÌish words (erbe, ost). But later'the letter was replaceri
because .f the
speakers' who
tasks. Code-switching is mo11li case of linguistic behaviou characteristic oi bìlinguaì 'fftueîcre--ollltin
- lntusive r
swlling ftela, hostem), leadilg to a good
deal of variation in the following cen[unes.
the local
may choose to use a di.aLect, a creole or the vemacular when speaking within the circle-of sttgmadsed because
is inserted rs a link o".ro.i u vàwer boundary.
Eg. I saw it iar so:. rtr. It is
the
vilìage, ethnrc communlty or social group' and then swiich to standard English when wnen the <r> is presenr
it denotes ig-norance of speiring. In British Engrish
r-rinking is acceptabre onry
communicative situation requtes of thern to do so. in rhc speljing, e.g. ner ir 1nL, nì.

ìir,h.'_-
206 Virginia l)ulcini
Accant and powerin Englmd 2O7

In the Elizabethan period the idea of 'good English' was already centred advocated the establishinent of an acadcmy for fixing its rules, controlling
geographically around London and the counties $turrounding it, and sociaily it was its
development and' if necessary, crearing it of 'corruption and barbarous' usage
associated with the highcr classes, namely the Cciurt, the gentry and the academics (Greenbaum. 1988).
of thc two alrcady established universities, Cambridge and Oxford. London was a London had bccome the largest city in Europe, reaching one
pole of attraction tbr masses of people and had a pivoting roie as an economic, million
inhabitants in 1800' and was.moreand more apore of aìtraction forleopre
political and cultural centre. alr over
the British Isles and Europe both for economic reasons and for fashion and
But in Shalcespeare's agc 'good London English' could not sprcad very far culture.
up ro the l75os most Londoners wourd have used adistinctive vz*iety of trngrish
from the capital, and in rcality the majority of the population spoke regional (cockney), but a new social class had emergccr with its own linguistic
riialects or standard Engtish with regional pronunciations. Shakespeare himself distinctiveness' which would soon become a moder of English to whicfr every
used certain vocabulary that revealed his Warwickshire origin and extensively person of c.lass should conform. In this age of strong prcscriptivism, many
cxploited rcgional and vernacular forms to feature the charactcrs of his plays: Eachers
of elocution became vcry busy tcaching the newcomers ,good London Engrish,.
Among these Thomas Sheridan. who was in fact an Irishman, is remembered
''When Shakespeiìrc wanted to make Edgar in King Lear pretend to be a peasant' he for
his activity as promoter of good speech. His pioneering work Lectures t.tn îhe
made him use words like r:o, î,ir, vurther a'nd vortnight which wouitl hirve been Art
of Elocution (1762) was fbirowed by a host of manuars and guidcs ofgood speech.
familiar to Elizabethan audiences as being southern (lnd are still identifiable today as
As Mugglestone points out:
south-we.stenr forms)" (Honey 1989: 17-18).

"works on the art of speech were pubiìshed and republished in a way which
The radical transfbrmation of the English vo\riel system (.The Great Vowel attests contemporary intercst in the issues of
crearry
anicuiation, especiaily given the growlng
S/rrli), which had started two centuries before, was practically complete in the l7ù conviction thar accent could providc a way of articulating sociar
identity as i-ru"h as
ccntury, but the language was still in a state of flux and many changes in the words in thcmselves" (Mugglcstone I995: 4).
pronunciation of English wcre stiil under way.l0 However, no regional acccnt in
England couìd compcte with London English: It should be noted that the goar of sheridan and his contemporarìes
was not
only to promote a model for its intrinsic social importance, but
"Though the grammar of standard English was changing in small ways in the also to overcome
Iinguistic diversity in the country, to promote homogeneiry
scventeenth anrì cighteenth centuries and its vocabulary was continuing to expand, among speakers of
English through the dissemination of a supra-regionar standard.
one aspcct of its pronunciation was constant: its educated speakers wers awale that As
we shdr see
later, in Bachtin's terms (i9gl), .cenrrifugai,fbrce-s were
therc was a standard form of accent that anyone aspinng to h.igh social position ought ar work.
A Dictionary oJ the Engtish Language (1755) by
ro copy. [...] that prestige t-orm was identified with London and a certain radius .
important figure in r8ú century ìinguistic scene,
Dr S:rmuei Johnson, rhe mosr
around it" (Honey 1989: 20). became the officiar ref'erence fbr
linguistic correctness and actcd in place of thc academy
that wzrs never created.
The Dictionary was an aurhontative milestone tbr
The extraordinary impulse which was given to the English language from the ringuistic stability thar was
feltto be so necessary fbr the survivar of the language-
shakespeare's times onwards by many linguistic events-among which the Dr. Johnson is wer-known
for tis purist approach in the description
Authorìzed version of the Bible must be mentioned-gave way to a long period of of Eriglish vocabulary. In spite of his
Staffordshire origin' he adapted his accent
prcoccuparion about the stability of the language. It was the beginning of the so- ,o í-ru, of upper-cìass London and
became a strong enemy of provincial speech.
cailcrì 'complaint tradition' which lasted from the mid 17ú century nnd tbroughout
In the course ofthc I9ú centurv,
the L8th."ntrr.y. Many writers, including Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift, and their social varues continued
ir",u,ti.". and preconceptions about accenrs
to flourish, with thc .uppo.t of grammars,
dictionaries and usage books.
The scholariy pr"r..rpi.n, fìrtered down to common
r0 For example, most regional forms of English werc rhotic' i.c. the pronunciation of lillll-tulsl sixpenny manuars of good usage, suggesung readv-made sorutions
rorpronunciation shorrcoming-s-
Forexampt".ivuggì..tnnJd"...ib", o, r"ngiÀ,h"
orthographic <r> was srill audible, :md the -lle ending as ìn the word hostile was still pronounced manual poor Letter H. Its U.se andAbui"(tió6),
l-r ll instead of [-ar L], and the stress pattern of word was different tiom modem md contemporary :ji5lly
roennty was concealed by somc aurhor whose
English (e.g. uclvertísement was stressed on the third syllable rather than on the second). It
is under the pseudonyrn 'Hon. Henry H.'. poctr Letter
satrl of the stereotyped 'new rich' or 'serf-made H LS a
interesting to note that these features were taken to Ameúca by migranrs in the 17ù cenùry and have mirn' of the period, whose
1111at
preoccupation about
been retainecl as such in Americirn linglish, while in British English they were subsequently modified' sociai advancement leads him to overuse the
[hj sound in

lÈ----
208 Vìrginia Pulcini
contexts whereit is not presenî. The titles of.other sixpenny booklets, I{arrv
Hawkins'H Boctk. Mind Your H's and Take Calp o_f Your R's cleariy refèr to thc
most disturbing phonetic shibboleths of the period:
,.By the end of the ninetecnth ccnnlfy, popular notions of'educatedness' wete, as we
have scen, srrongly associaretl with the possession of a ser oi standard pronunciations
lèatures. which were regularly taken to comprise the presence of [h] where deemed
proper, rhe use of IIq] in words such as walking, articulating words such as servdnt as
is:::r.r"n:1 ancl not Iso:rantl, and, amongst other things, the avoidance of intrusivc
h/. (Muggieston e 1995: 258).
on the academic side, linguists such as Henry Sweet, Alexander J. Ellis and
Daniel Jones fbcused their research on the standard model which had emerged
over the previous decades as the educated standard of English (Modern English).
Although geographically located within the triangle London-Oxford-Cambridge,
this model had already established itself as a written and spoken standard,
characterised by a non-local identity and connected to education and social
acceptabiiity.
Thc coinage of the tcrm Rcceived Pronunciation is attributed to Alexander
Ellis in his work On Early English Pronunciation (1869), where he referred to it as
"thc c<lucatecl pronunciation of the metropolis, of the court, the puipit and the bar"
(1869:23). The term 'received'was used in its old sense of 'common and
generally accepted'.
A decisivc srep rowards the codification of RP was made by D. Jones, inspired
by descriptive rarher than prescriptive ambitions, with the publication of his
Every,mai'.r English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917). In its introduction he clearly
stated his 'descriptive' objective to record the pronunciation of English: "most
usually heard in everyday speech in the i';unilies of Southern English people \ì/ho
have been educated in the public schools".ti
To sum up, a standarcl accent of English emerged around the middle of the
19ù century. Its prestige was assured by its association to London high society and
its promotion was amplified by the work of influential writers on language. Its
sprèad throughout the country was achieved through the'public school system'
from 1870 onwards.
The public school system
As we have seen in the previous sections, fìom the 18ú century onwards the
acquisition of a good pronunciation was conceived as an cssential component of a
gentleman's, as well as a lady's, education. Sheridan and other 18u century
Lr Jones used rhe label 'Public Schooì Pronunciarion' in the first edition of his <ticúonary (1917)
but substiruted it with 'Received Pronunciation' in the 1926 edition
*.
Accent and power in Englmd 209
educators believed thar the delicate task of inculcating 'proper' linguistic habits
(i.e. the standard language)_was to be performed by schooli. .t-trus, boarding_school
education began to spread among middle-class and upper-class familie.-s, as an
alternative to private instruction. The main benefit of ùòarding-school educadon
derived from the facr that children were separated fiom th1 local lingurstic
influence, hcluding their famiiy's speech, and could berter acquire non-loJdised,
educated norms of speech.
until1870, however, boarding schoors did not guarantee that the children
would be free fiom the influence of 'bad'linguistic habits, both from their school_
mares and their teachers. with the Education Act in 1g70, introducing compulsory
education for all, an important transfbrmation took place in the sJh<lol ,yr,"*,
which had become accessible to large masses of the population. At the *u-é u-",
some of the old-established grammar schools emerged as instinrtions where ,bettcr
education' was provided. They became particuìarly attractivc for parents who
demanded high-quality, controlled education ibr their childrcn.r2
The term 'public school' was officially used for the lrsr rime in lg60 by the
Royal commission investigating on the schools which would be entitled to calì
themselves so, among which there were some grammar schools of old standins
such as Eton, winchester, Harrow, Rugby, charterhouse, and Shrewsbury. Ai
suggested by their name, thesc schools were supposcd to offer their educatronaì
benefits to children irrespective of their social status, in particular to the .poor and
needy'; and in fact thc majority of their pupils were initiatty children of local
families to which a small number of fee-paying noblemen's soni were added:
"... schools latcr seen as emblematio of an élitc, ancl its attendant social values, were
in their original conception almost entirely rhc converse, dominatcd by the financially
less able and local, above the wealthy and non-rocalized" (Mugglestone
1995:269).
M,ugglestone explains how, starting from the end of the lgrh cenrury
.
thereafter, the social intake of thesc schools changed as the sons
of rich and
auistocratic familics displacecl the free local students. How this
happened is
wttnessed by the Reports of the School Enquiry commission:
because of the
tensions between local students and fèe-paying uÀaroers,
fbr security reasons the
Sroups were often separated. physical as well as psychological distance between
the locals and the boarders was a crear sign
of the prejudices which were deepry
entrenched in British society. In the coursc of
time, the public schoois turned rnto
fee-paying boarding-schools for the sons of the
rich. Subsequentìy, prepararory
schools were instihrted on the public
school modei, catering tbr children tiom the
,^^-",t'."ol"l adds that middle-crass parents were particularly worried about
'contaminadon' the possible
of their children's u"""nt, u. the results ot-'mixing in school wirh ..the
seryants" (Honey I9g9: children ol their
29).
eaC," .,rj"ti iJrl.*.'*,-
21O Virginia Pulcini
age of 7 to 12. Thus fìve years of prep school fol-lowed by four years of public
school tiom 13 to 17, would guarantee for chilt$en 9 years away from home,
studying and living in a kind of tbrced segregation. The institution wou.ld
guarantec the effacement of any trace of regional background. An unrefined
melting pot of adolescents would be transfórmed into a homogeneous body of
'pubiic school men':
"The public school boy, in the popular images deployed over the nineteenth century,
hence tends to become an amalgam of social elegance, ref-inement, wealth, good
manners, and perfect gentlemanly conduct" (Mugglestone 1995:272).
Public school attendance became a must for the children of middlc and upper
class families, but also for the sons of the 'new rich', who were particularly eager
to equip their children with all the gifts which were essential to emerge ìn society.
Thc sense ofbelonging to a class of'chosen few' was reinforced by schools in
many ways: students would wear the same school tie, compete agailst other public
schools in games and sporting activities such as rifle shooting, have their names
written in special Old Boy registers, become members of Old Boy Associations,
etc. Schools would be linked to one another as institutions through the
Ileadmasters' Conference. As Honey explains:
"A new oaste was crcate<l in British society, the caste of'public school man', whose
traces are with us even now. His image was stamped upon the consciousness of the
nation not just by the activities of such men at every level of prominence in national
life, but by the enormous public attention given to the public school 'way of life' in
the oontemporary press and in the literature, especially by the new genre of public
schooi story, in novels, magazines and annuals, which reached down every comer of
society, and cenainly far beyond those classes whose children would have any chance
of personal experience of that type of schooling" (Honey 1988: 210).
First arld foremost, the 'public school man' would carry an indelibie mark of
class for all his life: a common accent which was demanded from pupils during
their educational process. I 3
'TzLlking proper' was indeed considered one of the most important goals of
education, both by families and educators. After 1870, pressure towards RP was
essential fbr the school staff; headmasters and teachers were selected on the basis
of their linguistic propriety. The model they set tbr the pupils was considered
cxtremely important. Teacher training manuals stressed the importance of constant
rl Each school would also develop its own jrrgon. Ftx example at Winchester the word. bettlinSs
meant 'weekly pocket money', mugging rel-erred to 'swotting up, studying hard" a cropple was'a
punishmcrìt given by a pretècî or a don', bartering meant 'crlcket fielding practice' (The Story oJ
English 1986).
Accent and power in Englmd 211
vigilance on the pupils' speech, both inside and outside the class and of irnmediate
correction of their pronunciation errors. The use of pronouncing dictionaries was
considered essential for checking up on correct sounds and avoiding such
pronunciation shibboleths as the use of lul in cul, intrusive /r/, h-dropping, /rn/
instead of /r4/ in words like walking, and rhe right quality tbr long and short
voweis. There is evidence in the reports of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools of
the pedagogical emphasis given to reading aloud, recitation and phonetic training.
Condescension and also overt humiliation would be used by teachers as a remedy
to conect regional accents. Pressure to conform to the standatd mode of speech
would also be exerted by the pupils themselves on their mates who used regional
forms of speech, making them fèel ashamed, inadequate, and socially inferior
within the peer group.ra
Honey adds that RP also spread through public schools located in the north of
England and was adoptcd also by upwardly mobile people who did not attend
public schools, especially when BBC radio transmissions began in 1922.
Accent and jobs
From the end of the 19n cenfury a generation of 'public school men' began to
flow into various professions, primarily those which demanded such an exclusive
educational profile in Victorian times: army officers, senior and imperial civil
servants, diplomats, ministers, university scholars, lawyers, judges, journ;rlists,
urban prot'essionals, poiiticians, and also Angiican clergymen. As Honey explarns:
"Around 1870 the question 'Where werc you at school'began to become crucial for
appointment for jobs, commissions in the army, entry to clubs, and in terms of social
acceptability" (Honey 1988: 210).
Among the people aspiring to these high prestige profèssions-most of which
involved the skill of speaking in public and inspiring authority and credibility-there
were some cases of people \À/ho had not attended public schools. In general they
sÍove to adjust their speech to RP norms in the course of their career (see below).
We have already shown how 'taiking proper' gradually became essentiai to
become a headmaster or a teacher in a public school and all the more so to become
a prof'essor in the best universities. Another job for which accent screening was
vital was the army officer. At the turn of the century the British Empire was ar its
height and Imperial civil servants were scattered through<lut the British colonies ro
14 [n the BBC series Zhe
Story oJ English (1986) some students at Winchester public school
I discuss rhe importance of accent tbr social acceptability within the public school environment. A
ìl student of working cìass origin says: "When i t-rst came here and I had a working class accent and I
1 was - sort of-aiÌer a whiie I was ridiculed but you gradually change you accent and so that dies away".
Honey seems to be right when he states that accent consciousness is stiìl very much alive today.
212 Virginia Pulcini
represent and symbolise the authority and the prestige of Britain's world-wide
power. The figure of the army officer became aitstereotype, ofien featured in
novels, c.g. Rudyard Kipling's , and was often parodied bccausc of his
exaggerated, 'posh'pronunciations such as chahnce fbr 'chance', evenchalleh for
'evenrually'. During the First World War RP was considered a central requisite for
army otTicers sincc "to no one is the absence of local diaìect more important than
to the voung officer in the army", according to a manual of 'good Engiish'
published in 1918 (Honey 1989:30).
RP was also imposed in theological colleges for the Anglican clergy. Although
Irish and Scottish accents were considered acceptable, an lrish or continental
accent was associated lvith Catholic priests, while non-standard accents \ìr'ere more
characteristic of Nonconformist Churches (Honey 1989: 34).
In the new born iilm industry some Hollywood stars used 'posh' accents to
play the role of upper class Americans. A refined accent was considered desirable
for lower status employment, as emerges fiom job advertisement (well-spokenness
being arequired quality in ads appearing in the 1980s, as reported by Honey,
1989). In the United States English secretaries with a'posh'accent were hired by
Wall Street cxecutives in the 1950s "to add a touch of class to their dealings with
the public" (Mc Crum 1986).
The acccnts of public figures have always been a topic of popuiar interest,
especially from the advent of radio and television which played a major role in
exposing the speakers'talents as public comrnunicators or laying bare thcir
linguistic inadequacies. Some politicians became famous fbr their faithfulness to
their own native accent or else for their attempt to modify them in the direction of
RP. The nature of the addressed audience was crucial for some politicians to select
the most suitable oratory stylc, so that conservative leaders, e.g. Edwud Heath and
Margaret Thatcher, wouid bc rnorc inclined to choose iìn upper class pronunciation,
whereas Labour Party members, e.g. Harold Wilson and Arthur Scargill, wouid
prefer to show their attachment to common peoplc's roots by addressing thcir
clectors with regional accents. The casc of Mrs Thatcher is often quoted by linguists
:us an emblematic example of accent mutation for climbing the czrecr ladder:
"Margaret Thatcher has been continually modifying her accent and style of speech to
achieve the right mixlure of uppcr-ciass authority and appealing persuasivcness"
(Algeo 1992: 163).
Nlany politicians often wcnt through accurate training rvith thc help of
elocution teachers and media specialists to refinc their public image, toning
down rough manners or a shrill tone of voice, as M. Thatcher did, readjusting
too 'posh' an accent, as was the case of H. Wilson. Besides, a skilliul politician
would necd to be able to code-shift, rnoving 'upmarket' or 'downmarket' to suit
the audience, so that A. Scargill (Labour leader of the Yorkshire miners)
pronounced 'comrade' and 'industrial' with an RP /A/ vowel when appearing on
Accent and power in England 213
TV during the long miners' strike in 1984-85, and switched to the Northern /u/
when addressing the striking miners. Another notorious example of this is the
present Labour Prìme Minister Tony Blair who is well-known for his
'chameleon'oratory skills which consist in using Estuary English features15 or
mainstream RP when occasion requires so.
The BtsC
whcn the BBC started irs radio broadcasting ìn 1922, the selection of voices
bècame ccntral for appealing to the wide audience: a standard accent, accompanied
by a 'rich, fruity baritone'voice. The BBC Managing Direcror, John C.W. Rcith, a
Scot, believed in the 'cducational' mission of the new mass medium of
communication. In 1924 he published a book, Broadcast over England, in which
he proclaimed his convictions about language standards, including long
observations about 'proper' pronunciation (of which we quote a short extract):
"The pronunciation of thc King's English is a sore trial to students of our own
language. It is also x matter of considerabie irritation and concem to ourselves. I have
heard it said thar one can placc a man socialìy and educationally fiom the tìrst few
dozen words lle utters. There is a measure of truth in the statement. It is certainly true
that even the commonest and simplest words are subjected îo horrible and glotesquc
abuse. one hears the most appalling travesties of vowel pronunciation. This is a
matter in which broadcasting may be of immense assistance. prjde in a local
intonation is perhaps quite natural; this is not ncccssarily mutilation. I do not suppose
that any man wishes to go through life handicapped by the mistakes or carelessness of
his own pronunciation, and yet this is what happens. We have rnade a special effort to
securc ln our virrious stations men who, in the presentation of programme items, the
reading of news bulletins and so on, can be relied upon to employ the correct
pronunciation ofthe English tongue. [...]" (quoted by Pointon 1988: B).
In 1926 the Advisory Cornmittee on Spoken Engtish was founded - chaired
initially by Robert Bridges and rhen by Gcorge Bernard Shaw-with the task of
monitorìng the language that was to be used on the air and issue recommendations
on correct pronunciations of controversial words, proper names and the like. The
aim was to ensure uniformity in the spoken language used by the announccrs and,
most of all, to protect the BBC from criticisms of listeners, and trom 1934 of
television viewers, who were particularly kecn on sending hate mail and
oomplaints about any violation of the prevalent rules of linguistic acceptability, i.e.
standard language and RP In spite of more flcxibie and non-prescriptive attitudes
Ls
The term Estuary English began to be used in the 1980s to clenote ,popuinr London speech,
herd in the wide uea of the Thames Estuary. It is chrracrerised by phonetic i'eatures such as fina.l t-
glottaling, eg. bit Ibr?l and the vocalisation of consonam /U, eg. miik fmrokl.
 2I4 Virginia Pulcini
of members of the commiuee (including Daniel Jones and Lloyd James) the
BBc
persisted with a 'purist' policy tbr the recruitnient of announcers. Neediess
to sny
that the influence of BBC broadcasting on the spread of standard English and
Rp
was massive. only after the l9ó0s this tendency started to reverse, along with
the
national trend of acceptance of non-standard accents.
Discttssiotz
fn this article we have tried to retracc some events of the social history of
England which were particuiarly significant for the emergence, the consolidation
and the diffr.rsion of a standard pronunciation in England, fbcussing in particular
on
the public school system and the BBC. The tbrmer contribured ro identify a social
class, with all its attendant desirable f'eatures to which RP was relatcd; the latter
made this standard reach speakers of English in Great Britain and in the world.
Public school and the BBC are by no means the only social struclures
responsible for the success of RP. The 19th century witnessecl a dramatrc
reduction of the rural population and massive urbanisation, a process favoured
by the introduction of the railway system. This also resulted, on the one hand, in
the decline and levelling out of rural dialect differences; on the other hand, in the
development of urban dialects in the industrial city suburbs. Furthermore, the
introduction of compulsory education was a decisive step towards
homogcnisation of English speech varieties:
"Every mass system of state education in Western Europe had some effecr rn
standardising pronunciation, as part of a wider standardisation of nationaì languages,
but in England such a sysrem, though it came relatively late, produced within thirty
years a marked influence on local speech tbrms" (Honey 1988: 224).
By way of conclusion, v/e suggcst
t'd/o v/ays of interpreting the social
which led to the consolidation of
RP described above:
a) The establishment of a standard pronunciation was the result of social
conflict, iÌom which the variety of the culturally and economically dominant class
got thc upper hand. As Crowley (1989) maintains, Jones and other phoneticians of
that period deliberately worked for estabÌishing a pronunciation model which was
regionally, socially and gender specific (the accent of the Southern, upper class,
public school men). Thcy fostered a conservarive attitude to language and
linguistic variation, and contributeci to imposing a 'high' model to the detriment of
other 'lower' varieties. In doing so they contributed to perpetuate a system of
values that all social products, inciuding language, possesses, whereby status is
attributcd to the language of education. class and 'good manners', while negative
evaiuations are held towards less prestigious fbrms. They have helped towards an
ideology of unfair treatment and discrimination on accent glounds of students in
schooi and workers in different careers. They contributed to deep-rooted, long-
Accent and powerin Engìmd 215
accent-consciousness and cl:rss-consciousness in British
lasdng and hard-dying
lingursts agree.on the fact that thìs attitudc lbunC particularly fertiie
,*i.,i. fufon'
ground in British soctetY' so tnat:
..... among European languages, English is, surely, the most suited to the study of
(Ross quoted by McCrum 1986: 28)'
linguistic class-distincúons"
natural trend in the
b) The search for uniformity in speech can be seen as a
change. As a social and cultural product. language is a
dynamics of language
subiect to conflicts, change and renovation. This interpretation may be
i1,;'o
".rtitv expiained by M. M. Bakhtin's theory of the conflicting naturc of
^j"O"r""fy present scope, the political implications of
aiscàurse (though ignoring, for the
illustrated by Rodby as follows:
Bakhtin's thought),
.._.. all language is always and forever in the push-pull motion of a dialectic:
Centripetaì forces homogenize and centralize language use. Centrifugal
forces work to
diversify and decentralize Language" (Rodby 1992: 1tÌ0)'
The efforts made by conservative linguists ovcr the 18ù and l9h centuries, i.e.
Sheridan and the other elocutionists, Swifì and the advocates of an
English
Academy, Dr. Johnson, Reith and the members of the ACSE, Jones and other
ohoneticians, can be seen as contripetal forces working towards uniformity and
staUility for the English language. Discarding for a rnoment the
view of 'language
(language and
and power' in strictly i<leological terms, supporting a a standard
pronunciation) is socially and linguisticaily significant because it breaks down
iinguistic barriers, improves communication in the country, opens equal
educational and job opportunities to people. Linguistically it had the benefìciai
effects of prompting a flood of work on the English language which has madc
facts
English the best and mosr comprehensively described language in the world.
The fact that RP eventually became a symboi of social plestige and linguistic
discrimination may be seen as a failure of the principles of social equality which
were undeniably a<Ivocated by some of the linguists quoted above. It is also
important to say that thc consolidation of a homogeneous pronunciation in the
higher classes did not wipe out other national and regional accents and the pride
(overt or covert) of their speakers. In the dynamics of language, 'high' and 'low'
forms of speech continued to coexist aLnd iniluence each other, drawing on each
other for ncw resources. Indeed, innovation may well result from 'going
downmarket', that is drawing on linguistic features uscd in lower status language
varieties. The recent, rapid spread of Cockney pronunciation features into
contemporary RP is clear proof of this dynamic relation between the language of
different social groups. Being language a social product, it ìives and prospers
thankS to a continuous flux of change and renovation, So that conservation and
diversification are two sitles of a dvnamic development.
 216 Virginia Pulcini Accent and power in Englmd 211

Twentieth century developments As a pronunciation model, RP has undergonc a gradual evolution. Gimson
lo
(1984: .16) says that the RP's south-eastem regional base has remained constant,
The period ranging fiorn 1870 to 1945 was:crucial for the consolidation and
but:
the spread of standard British English and Receivcd honunciation at a nationa.l
level and overseas, tluough the school, the empire, the war and the broadcasting.
"... social class and type of education can no longer be used as defining factors in any
Following Bakhtin's theory, the second half of the 20ú century has witnessed a descriptions of the standard".
radical onset of centrifugal f'orces in the story of English. At the end of World War tr
many historical and social events-which are beyond the scope of the present account-
Gimson observes that the RP phonological system is the same as thc one
dramatically affected the course of the English language. The winning Americans
described by Jones, but some shifts on the realisation of voweis have occurred in
conquered a prominent position in international communicafion and global busincss
time (1964, 1980). Also Wells (1982) has identified several phonetic and voice
and American English, a variety which thc Brìtish had always lookcd down upon,
fcatures which characterise varieties of RP in today's British English.lT Linguists
began acquiring prestigc. British English started losing its authoriry, but managed to
seem to agree that in contemporary England only a minority of speakers actually
maintain its hold on thc international business offoreign language teaching. Changes
use RP in its most conservative tbrm, but many people have an accent that
tn socieS have led to the erosion of ciass distinctions and new interests in cultural
approximates to it. Speakers of regional accents or bi-dialectal speakers (standard
and linguistic diversity stimuiated a vast amount of research on soctolinguistic
Engiish and regionaÌ dialect) cannot fail to measure their speech against the
variation. As a consequencc of its worldwide spread, other native varicties of English
'standard' and be aware of the divergent phonetic traits between the two accents.
demanded independent status and non-nafive varieties of English claimed right of
Finalìy we may add that a debate has been going on on the currency of RP as
standardisation. The plural word 'Englishes' is used ir connection to the forms of
a model fbr English teaching to tbreigners. In an article with a meaningfi:l title-
this language that are spoken and written in mary parts of the world. Over the past
"RP R.I.P." (1988)-(i.e. requie.scat in pace), Vlzrcaulay considers it advisable to
decades English has become both a multicultural means ol' expression, but also a
replace RP with local standards in many circumstances and not to use RP as a
global larguage tbr internationai cornmunication.
model for TEFL bccause of its inherent difficulty and its minority status among the
RP has naturally modified with the passing of time in relation to differcnt greal variety of English accents. On the contrary, others champion the causc of a
generations of users, as pointed out by one of its most prestigious scholars, A.
Gimson (1984: 46):
re-defined, diluted form of RP on grounds of its worldwide intelligibility and
diffusion in teaching materials;
"Ccrtainly, since thc Second World War, a single and commonly agreed style of "It must share with a representativc form of American speech the most likely
pronunciation oannot be regarded as an unvaryipg characteristic of chiìdren at public
schoolsl RP is no lon_per a prerequisite for diplomats and for social successl and even
candidature tbr a natural model to be imitated wherever English is taught" (Gimson
1 984: 53).
the BBC passed through a period of great permissiveness in its selection of
ncwsreaders for its internal services, [...]".
Today fbreign learners are faced with the problem of learning to cope with a
language which has, grossly speaking, two important varieries. To preserve the
Modern society has set new trends and fashions in the popular perceptions of
acccnts, so that a'plummy'accent may even be an impairment forhaving acaÍeet international cuffency of this language, it is reasonable to believe that respect for
in politics, especially in the Labour Party or in the BBC.tó variation should be counterbalanced by the preservation of an international
educated standard of EngÌish for EFL educational purposes and international
commumcatÌon.

ró For an anicie which appearcd on l6th October 1999 in Tlrc Weekreports the case of
exmple,
a joumalist (Boris Johnson, cditor of TheSpectator'1 who lost his job at Radio4 because the BBC
considered his accent too 'posh' ("stuck up an<I toffec-nosed"). ln mother anicle which appeared in
rhe Guaniian on June 18, 1999, the writer says that: "At the moment the topic of accent is tender
because r>ificially accent does not matter while privately it does" and reports of recent cases
concerning the ùcccnts of public tìgures such m Jamie Shea, the Nato spokesmu, accused of havùg " ti-RP (Upper-crust RP) is the most affected rype (eg. the pronunciation of tbe word off /o/ is
an unbearable Estuuy English accent and "who sounds likc the manager of a lower-division football J:f/); adoptivc RP is adopted in adult age by people who deliberately moditie<i their iìccents for career
club", anrl Jacob Rees-Mogg "whose prospects of bccoming a Tory politicitn ale rumored to be ends_ and it ciisplays lack of
control of some t'eatures of RP such as lhe smootiing of triphthongs (eg.
sinklng because of his machronistically posh accent". ttre ifo.i); ncar-RP is a my educatcd acccnt with no regional traits-

l
 218 Virginia Pulcini
Accent and power in Englmd 219

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