Thanks for your comments, Ralph. I like the idea of sounding courteous 
. You don’t sound too Irish to me (I was even a bit disappointed 
). Do you think you’ve lost your Irish lilt a bit or is it just me?
‘Please Call Stella’ is from the The Speech Accent Archive and
Hi,
I would love to provide you with a sample, but unfortunately I haven’t got a microphone right at the moment so my own articulatory skill won’t be of much use as far as our discussion is concerned. I would have to agree with you, Ralf, and your linguistics professor that U-RP (upper-crust RP) is a very rare accent. I would be interested in knowing how often Alan gets to talk to native speakers of U-RP.
As for myself, I find I am in a very privileged position indeed since I get to interact with people from all parts of the UK on a daily basis, and occasionally I am lucky enough to get to speak to people from other countries.
As so often in these matters, I turn to Professor John Wells’s writings in an attempt to shed some further light on this discussion about U-RP. Professor Wells writes:
Some features typical of U-RP include (according to Wells):
EU
Well, this makes me really afraid of seeing my mum again at Christmas :o
I’ve probably lost touch a bit. Talking to learners and people (bloody English :x ) who make fun of your accent all the time probably made me adapt my accent. The other day I made a recording with Torsten and I was amazed when listening to myself afterwards. It was like listening to someone who desperately tries to sound intelligible but doesn’t quite succeed :roll:
Hi,
John Wells is brilliant but is talking with tongue in cheek when he says what you quote. As for you EU, well I think you should get out more and stop worrying about the way people speak.
Alan
Hi Ralf,
Is it common for English people to make fun of Irish accents? Many Brits I have discussed Irish English with tell me they think Irish accents are beautiful. One even hoped her brother (who is English) would acquire an Irish lilt as he studies in Dublin!
EU
Hi Alan,
I think it is perfectly acceptable for a descriptive phonetician such as John Wells to write about how the language is spoken. You still haven’t told me why the voice quality associated with U-RP annoys you.
EU
Hi EU,
I don’t quite get your obsession with “upper-crust RP”. I’ve tried to pronounce the sounds you suggested in your earlier comment, and I thought that I sounded like some toffee-nosed knut. The problem with this type of accent is that less than 1 per cent of RP speakers still speak it Those people are all between 70 an 100. And when you try to sound like them, you sound like an impersonated satire of an obsolete ideal. In other words, no one likes you since the immediate assumption is that you are trying to display an image of superiority. You may get compliments as in “great accent!” or “I can’t believe that you’re German!”, but that’s just to please you.
Hi again,
Ireland has many accents. People from Russia and Hungary have told me that they can vaguely distinguish between different areas, but in Ireland that’s quite possible. You can probably identify 3 main accents - Dublin and its neighbouring counties, Ulster (Northern Ireland) and so-called “Bog Irish”. That’s the rest of the country. But you also find a great many different accents within those areas. I could probably tell you from which area of Dublin a speaker comes from.
People say that Irish accents sound soft and melodic, but there are phonologic idiosyncrasies as in final obstruent devoicing and a somewhat innate inability to pronounce “th”-sounds which make for a target of mocking.
Hi guys
I believe the acquistion is often down to exposure and regular practice.
@Ralf
As for the melodic accents, maybe the Belfast accent is the bets example, don´t ya think;
youtube.com/watch?v=rFduog8W-3M
I think there are melodies in a lot of English accents, a greta example of different accents in a nice sketch from Peter Sellers;
Hi EU,
Many voices and accents annoy me - it very much depends on the voice and the person who’s speaking. My question to you and I have asked it several times is why you are so hung up on this so-called U R P. Is it the sound, the associations with it, the people who use it or what? You obviously set great store by it and I wonder why. You have broadcast your assessments relative to your accent and been asked to provide an example. I really can’t believe that someone so fascinated with accents as you clearly are, hasn’t got a microphone. Come on, don’t be bashful.
Alan
Hi Ralf,
I am sure some of this is false exaggeration. In general, young people in the UK are relatively unaware of what U-RP is. I have myself played voice clips featuring U-RP, and most people seem to think the U-RP speakers speak with a standard accent. Only when I try to produce those sounds in isolation in order to demonstrate the differences between U-RP and mainstream-RP people notice that the two accents are somewhat different.
That’s not the type of comment I normally get. If you speak with a good near-U-RP accent people might place you for a native speaker who went to public school. Most people don’t seem to know what U-RP sounds like anymore or else they are just really good at hiding their perceptions.
EU
Hi Alan,
I shall now try to address your question to the best of my ability although it is a very difficult one. I believe my fascination with U-RP is linked to all those things you mentioned. I like the way U-RP sounds, that is, I find that voice quality and some of its phonological characteristics aesthetically pleasant. I think each one of us associates U-RP with quite a few things such as the accent sounding beautiful and correct. Note that I am not the only one who feels this way: there are many others.
Yes, I can indeed record my voice (and I do so quite often). The problem is that I don’t know how to post any of my voice clips online since I use a recorder that is not linked to my computer. I would very much like to speak to you some day, Alan. I am sure there would be plenty of interesting things that the two of us could discuss.
EU
Hi think when it comes to discussing accents, pronunciation and phonetics there are a number of aspects to consider:
a) Awareness
Are you aware of your own accent? Can you distinguish between different accents when you listen to other people speak? Are you aware of the differences between standard versions of spoken English and your own accent?
b) Motivation to improve your pronunciation
Do you actually want to improve your pronunciation? I sometimes hear people speak very fluent English but they have such a thick accent that it’s difficult to follow them. It seems to me that they are quite happy with the way the speak English. Some of them are high profile politicians who have a lot of influence on many people and there obviously is no need for them to change their accent.
c) Self-confidence
As mentioned above, there are people who have a ‘horrible’ accent but they don’t give a damn and their ego is big enough to compensate any phonetic deficiency. On the other hand, there are people whose spoken English is impeccable and yet they are so afraid of ‘making a mistake’ and being identified as a foreigner.
So, in addition to discussing how to learn (I don’t think you can “teach pronunciation”) we should also talk about what influence your pronunciation and accent has on your level of happiness and success.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: Reconstruction[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi EU
Hate to disagree with Ralf but his comment on the “parody or echo” of the real accent could be an exaggeration. True it may be such that you end up sounding false. However it is possibly without a forced accent to sound natural.
I have a German friend, although I have not seen him for sometime, sounds more Northern than me.
Also I will pick up on the awareness point made by Torsten.
In that many people ignore training the ear, which is as important as anything else. If you have an ear for accents then you are half way there. Someone who can not hear the difference between variations of accent, will not have a chance to pick up an authentic accent.
cheers stew.t.
Hi EU,
I’d like you to expand on this:
This sounds a bit 1930ish to me!
Alan
Hi EU,
Do the people who think that the accent you keep mentioning sounds correct, feel that any accent that is slightly different to your model, sounds incorrect? How can any accent spoken by a native speaker sound ‘more correct’ than another? Also, whom do you mean when you say “each one of us associates…”?[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: An electrician[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten,
What I mean is that most native speakers of British English I have discussed accents with seem to think that RP is some kind of standard that is more “educated” or “proper” than any regional accent. Most native speakers I interact with drop their t’s. Another such feature is h-dropping.
I don’t think I can make this any more clear than I already have. People associate innovative pronunciations with lazyness. I have even heard someone commenting on General American as being rather “lazy” since the accent in question doesn’t have as many diphthongs as RP has.
With “each one of us” I meant to refer to people with a viable knowledge of English and a certain familiarity with spoken British English; all people who have posted replies in this thread undoubtedly fall into this category.
EU
Hi Alan,
The form of U-RP that I refer to is certainly no longer acquired by those who go to public school, but the general public is unlikely to be aware of this. If you meet someone in their 20s who sounds just like a duchess (and I am thinking 1930, not 2007) then where would you place him or her geographically?
EU
Hi EU,
Do you mean that the “RP accent” is more educated and proper than other accents or that the people speaking RP are more educated and “proper” than others? Also, what about Irish or Australian accents – where do they rank on the ‘education and properness scale’? Why is t-, h- and r-dropping not lazy while “General American” is? Also, what exactly is “Gerneral American”?
You will probably agree that language is constantly changing and so is the pronunciation that linguists define as “standard”. Could you please elaborate on the term “innovative pronunciations”. To me, the word ‘innovative’ indicates that something is progressive and modern rather than lazy.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: An office meeting[YSaerTTEW443543]
What on earth do you mean ‘sounds like a duchess’? What planet do you live on, EU? I’ve met two duchesses, one spoke with a French accent (Duchess of Bedford) and the other had a marked northern English accent (Duchess of Manchester).
Alan