Received Pronunciation or Standard British English?

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Received Pronunciation is a popular accent amongst learners around the world from actors to ESL students. Most British accent coaches will more than likely claim to teach RP. British English YouTube videos also tend to focus on RP.

However, while many teachers claim to teach Received Pronunciation, they may have an accent that is closer to what we can call Southern British English or Standard British English (SBE). I’ll attempt to explain why.

From my point of view, one of the defining features of Received Pronunciation is the aspiration of that comes from the front of the mouth. Other accents such as Cockney, Estuary and the London accent can sound more nasal or gutteral. 

The RP consonants also tend to be more distinct compared to other British accents.

Here are some examples:

  • The dark /l/ at the end of the word “fall” is clearly articulated. Many teachers of RP incorrectly pronounce the word “fall” as /fɔːw/ instead of /fɔːl/.
  • The /w/ sound in “winter” requires a precise formation of the lips. Many teachers tend to have an overly relaxed lip shape, which is not conducive to RP.
  • The /r/ sound in the word “rabit” requires precise formation of the tongue.  Many teachers incorrectly pronounce the word “rabbit” as /ˈwæbɪt/ instead of /ˈræbɪt/.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that simply articulating the /t/ sound in a word such as “bottle” instead of using a glottal stop is akin to speaking RP. However, in reality, there are more nuanced aspects that one needs to be aware of.

I have met privately educated individuals who grew up in an RP speaking environment and upon graduating from university felt that their RP accent was making them sound “too posh”. It happens both ways in the UK. Sometimes people try to elevate their speech and other times people try to dumb it down. They usually do this by adding a few glottal stops here and there. But you can always tell that their native accent is RP due to the way they aspirate and lengthen the vowel sounds. Amongst RP speakers the degree of vowel lengthening and aspiration varies.