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    While Received Pronunciation (RP) and Standard English were traditionally considered prestigious varieties of English associated with higher social class, evidence suggests their prestige may be lessening. Studies have found RP is viewed as intelligent but regional accents seen as kind, and the royal family has begun adopting features of other varieties like Estuary English. Additionally, some communities find their own local dialects covertly prestigious rather than RP or Standard English. The view of what varieties have overt or covert prestige depends on social groups and contexts.

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    NFC -- Essay question prep, but in class (M)

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    While Received Pronunciation (RP) and Standard English were traditionally considered prestigious varieties of English associated with higher social class, evidence suggests their prestige may be lessening. Studies have found RP is viewed as intelligent but regional accents seen as kind, and the royal family has begun adopting features of other varieties like Estuary English. Additionally, some communities find their own local dialects covertly prestigious rather than RP or Standard English. The view of what varieties have overt or covert prestige depends on social groups and contexts.

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    3 views2 pages

    NFC - Essay Question Prep, But in Class (M)

    Uploaded by

    Joseph
    While Received Pronunciation (RP) and Standard English were traditionally considered prestigious varieties of English associated with higher social class, evidence suggests their prestige may be lessening. Studies have found RP is viewed as intelligent but regional accents seen as kind, and the royal family has begun adopting features of other varieties like Estuary English. Additionally, some communities find their own local dialects covertly prestigious rather than RP or Standard English. The view of what varieties have overt or covert prestige depends on social groups and contexts.

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    of 2

    29/03/2023

    "Evaluate the idea that RP and Standard English are still considered prestigious
    varieties of English" (30 marks)

    Introduction - Keywords and the fuction of each. Define the keywords: RP, Standard English, prestige
    (viewed highly, admired). Define covert and overt prestige.

    Introduce the argument on both sides: RP is associated with an elevated social class, therefore socially it
    carries prestige, however there's evidence to suggest that it's becoming more 'modernising' and
    changing. The same is true for SE, bdcause this is the standard accepted vaiety of English from which we
    can diverge from. We do still need SE in some contexts.

    Attitudes and stereotypes about RP - Giles' Matched Guise hypothesis (RP = intelligence, authority,
    regional = integrity and kindness). Changes to its prestige but it is still highly regarded in some ways.
    Giles' Capital Punishment experiment also provides evidence. BBC voices poll (2004) supports this too.
    The BBC strayed away from RP and is more focussed on regional accents now because of the poll.

    The language of the Royals is a good argument that RP is still seen as prestigious, as the Royals still use it.
    They're starting to divert away from RP and converges towards EE. Younger Royals are starting to use t-
    glottaling and l-vocalisation - a desire to modernise. The Queen and King Charles use more traditional
    forms of RP from step diphthongs to gliding diphthongs. "Pure", "fire". Even the Queen's speech showed
    signs of modernising "heppy" to "happy". Could be evidence of lessening prestige. Could be unconscious
    but may not be.

    Covert/overt prestige - in some communities it's not RP that is prestigious. Kerswill shows us that Hull
    was resistant to dialect levelling towards standard. The same was found in Watson's study on
    Merseyside.

    Standard English - social groups - preference for slang or non-standard grammar.


    Convergence/divergence. Texts, social media, multimodel contexts (descriptive attitude to language in
    society).

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