Conservative Received Pronunciation

Conservative Received Pronunciation (Conservative RP) is a conservative standard of pronunciation of British English. Formerly the prestige model of pronunciation, it has declined in favour of other, less-conservative dialects, primarily Contemporary Received Pronunciation (Contemporary RP) also known as Modern RP. Conservative RP is the standard adhered to in the First and Second Editions of the Oxford English Dictionary, which, starting with the Third edition, has been modelled on Contemporary RP. Other terms for Conservative RP are Traditional RP and Upper RP (the latter in reference to the association of the standard to the upper class and aristocracy). Notable speakers of Conservative RP include Queen Elizabeth II and other older members of the Royal Family, Sir Winston Churchill, Dame Vera Lynn and commentators of Pathé News and, prior to the 1960s, the BBC. Received Pronunciation is often termed Queen's English or BBC English, as a consequence.

Features

The phonological features of Conservative RP which are distinct from Contemporary RP, the standard of speakers such as former Prime Minister David Cameron, include:

Vowels and diphthongs

• Happy tensing: this feature concerns the vowel at the end of words ending in //y//, //ie//, //ee//, &c., which is normally transcribed with the symbol ⟨i⟩. In Conservative RP, this vowel can be assigned to the /ɪ/ phoneme, whereas in Contemporary RP it can be assigned to the /iː/ phoneme, as it is more tense.^[1]
• The phonetic realization of the /e/ phoneme is more close ([e]) than in Contemporary RP, in which it is more open [ɛ]. The more closed realization is also found in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.^[1]
• Similarly, the quality of the /æ/ phoneme is [æ], akin to General American. However, the majority of Contemporary RP speakers realize this vowel as fully open [a], as do speakers from Northern England and Scotland.^[1]
• The quality of the NURSE vowel /ɜː/ is realised as [ɐː] by some conservative speakers, and [ɜː ~ əː] by others. In Contemporary RP, the [ɐː] realization is not heard.
• Many terms have /ɔː/ in Conservative RP, yet /ɒ/ in the speech of Contemporary RP speakers, including cross, often, cloth, salt, because, gone, etc. Similarly, the term mass (with reference to the Catholic ritual) may be pronounced as /mɑːs/ by conservative speakers, with data also possessing this vowel, /ˈdɑːtə/. For Contemporary RP speakers, the former tends to have the short /æ/ vowel, whereas the latter has a diphthong /eɪ/.^[1]
• In some cases, where Contemporary RP has the schwa /ə/, Conservative RP preserves /ɪ/, for instance, the final vowel in the following: devil, kindness, witness, private, toilet, fortunate.^[1]
• Contemporary RP speakers realize /əʊ/ as [ɔʊ] before the dark l ([ɫ]), so that goal has a different vowel from goat. This allophone is not used by conservative speakers.^[1]
• Two diphthongs which exist in Conservative RP may not in Contemporary RP. The first has disappeared in the speech of all but the most conservative British speakers and some speakers of Southern American English, the hoarse-horse distinction. For speakers who differentiate, hoarse is realised as /hɔəs/ and horse is /hɔːs/. The vowel in words such as tour, moor, sure is /ʊə/ for all Conservative RP speakers, but has merged with /ɔː/ for many Contemporary speakers. Taking the two mergers into account, results in a number of three-way mergers, which were hitherto distinct, such as poor, paw and pore (/pʊə/, /pɔː/, /pɔə/) all becoming /pɔː/.
• The /ɛə/ phoneme (as in fair, care, there) is realized as a true centering diphthong [ɛə] in the conservative variety, whereas speakers of Contemporary RP tend to realize it as a long monophthong [ɛː].^[1]
• The /eɪ/ phoneme has a somewhat different starting point in the conservative variety, namely [eɪ]. For Contemporary speakers, this vowel tends to be realized as [ɛɪ].^[1]

Consonants

• Unlike with vowels and diphthongs, consonantal phonemes have not undergone change, with one exception. For speakers of Conservative Received Pronunciation in the mid-19th century until the end of the 19th century, it was standard for the consonant combination //wh// to realised as /ʍ/ (essentially /hw/), as can still be heard in the 21st century in the speech of many speakers in Ireland and Scotland and a large minority in the Southern United States. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the /ʍ/ phoneme ceased to be a feature of Conservative RP, except by the most precise speakers who have learnt to differentiate, meaning it has ceased to be a native feature of English outside Ireland, Scotland and the Southern United States.

Idiosyncratic features

• Dame Vera Lynn can be heard pronouncing Christmas with the /t/ enunciated, in an early recording of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", which sounds unusual to all contemporary speakers of English.
• The days of the week may be pronounced either as /-deɪ/ or /-dɪ/ in Conservative RP, which are always the former in Contemporary RP. Andrew Marr, for example, can be heard pronouncing days of the week with /-dɪ/. In many accents of Northern England, the older practice of ending with a short vowel has been maintained, however the vowel has changed for all accents. One such example is the speech of Merseyside, where days of the week are pronounced with /-di/ or /diː/; another are speakers from Middlesbrough, who terminate days of week with /-də/. This reflects a once more widespread practice, now largely abandoned in favour of a spelling pronunciation.

References