• HOME
  • Publications
  • BLOG
  • English Phonetics and Phonology
  • The English Pronouncing Dictionary
  • RESOURCES
  Peter Roach

Female RP speakers

24/11/2017

5 Comments

 
[NOTE: I HAVE NOW ADDED NAMES OF SOME WOMEN WHO HAVE BEEN DESCRIBED AS RP SPEAKERS. NOT EVERYONE WILL AGREE WITH THE CHOICES, AND THE SOURCES ARE NOT IMPECCABLE]


I don't want to keep coming back to the Wikipedia article on Received Pronunciation, but it's one of WP's most controversial topics and it gets a lot of attention (some of it unwelcome). What I am complaining about at the moment is the section on "Notable RP speakers", which has been there for years. The problem with this section is that all the speakers listed are male, with the exception that the reference to The British Royal Family necessarily includes some royal female speakers.

I could easily come up with a list of female speakers that I would consider to be speakers of RP as defined in this article, but I'm not going to. For a start, I don't believe in RP any more than I believe in Father Christmas. If I did believe in it, I wouldn't include the Royal Family as RP speakers. Finally, it's not possible just to add new names to the list of notables, because only people who have been cited by name in a published source will be acceptable to Wikipedia (Dame Vera Lynn used to be on the list, but I removed her name because no reference was given). What all the listed speakers have in common is that they have been classed as RP speakers by John Wells in his blog, which is acceptable as a citation. Phoneticians other than John Wells are acceptable sources.

So here's the challenge: if you would like to see a proper representation of women speakers and you care about what WP says about RP, publish your list of female speakers somewhere other than WP (a blog will do), and the names can then be added to the present list. If you prefer, you could send me your list and I'll publish it here.
5 Comments
Mr KEBAB
26/11/2017 03:28:52 pm

What about Judi Dench? She's one of the most obvious examples. You'll easily find a source for that.

Reply
Peter
26/11/2017 03:32:49 pm

Thanks, that's a good suggestion. I will see if I can find something in the public domain that says she is an RP speaker.

Reply
Petr link
1/12/2017 05:42:58 pm

Helen Mirren is called "a female RP speaker" by Klaus J. Kohler in his book "Communicative Functions and Linguistic Forms in Speech Interaction" published by CUP in 2018 (on page 268). Kohler is emeritus professor of phonetics at Kiel University.

Reply
Peter
3/12/2017 06:35:31 pm

Thanks for the reference - an impeccable source! I had better make this the last addition, or I'll be accused of unbalancing the list in the other direction/

Reply
Sidney Wood link
3/12/2017 01:14:50 pm

The suggestions above are both actors, as are many of the examples on the Wikipedia page. It's typical that most of us only hear theatre RP these days now that the BBC admits regional speech, and Nobel prizewinners tend to be regional speakers too. Most actors today will acquire more than one accent and if they're good enough it's impossible to know what their original accent was.

RP is about pronunciation, and accents are defined by their phonology. So RP is not defined by Oxbridge or the BBC or public schools. These are associated attributes of many RP speakers but are not a definition of the accent. In the 1950s, the RP-speaking community was still expecting others to adopt RP, and so was very aware of the differences. Education reform didn't stop them, but anti-discrimination legislation did. The RP accent has always been very close to Home Counties SBE, keeping a few steps behind in sound change, and many today are no longer aware of the difference. But it's still there, a few steps away. If coming generations give up that difference, then you can say RP has disappeared. Some say it has already disappeared in the new generation, comparing the RP of the Prince of Wales with the Home Counties SBE of his sons. Phoneticians must watch phonology and speaker generation.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    A blog that discusses problems in Wikipedia's coverage of Phonetics

    Peter Roach

    Emeritus Professor of Phonetics,
    ​University of Reading, UK

    uArchives

    November 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    March 2019
    April 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.