Phonological system of Standard British English

Comparison between phonological systems of Standard BrE and Standard AE

English Phonology Atula Ahuja

Today, English is the official language of about 50 countries and the lingua franca of recent times.

It owes its roots to the three Germanic tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD.

The Germanic tribes spoke a language that later developed into Old English and was spoken between 450- 1100. Almost half of the commonly used words in English find can be traced back to Old English.

History of English Language

William the conqueror invaded England in 1066.

The language began to see changes again. These conquerors brought with them

French, which became the language of the royal court and of the bourgeoisie.

Between 1450- 1700, England witnessed “The Great Vowel Shift, a curious linguistic phenomenon,

Emergence of London dialect standard due to the arrival of printing press

History of English Language

Today English has several dialects and accents but there are only two main varieties

◦the Standard British English (BrE) ◦Standard American English (AE).

Two standard varieties

Pure Vowels recognized by IPA Phonological System of British English

Vowel phonemes of RP

British English Diphthongs recognized by IPA

Phonological System of British English

Diphthongs of RP

Closing Diphthongs glide from an open vowel to a close vowel , so there is movement upwards.

Opening Diphthongs glide from a close vowel to an open vowel, and there is movement downwards.

Simeon Potter’s ninth diphthong 

/ɔə/

Triphthongs are three vowel sounds combined. The first sound glides from one vowel to another . They are produced rapidly, without interruption.

- aʊ + ə = aʊə/ as in hour- aɪ + ə = /aɪə/ as in fire

- ɔɪ + ə = /ɔɪə/ as in employer

Triphthongs

‘Weak forms’: Function words in English are not stressed, thus called "weak forms“ and pronounced with a schwa /ə/◦ ‘/Əbaʊt/

‘Strong forms’: Used with content words and are stressed.◦ I would like some fish and chips /aɪ wʊd laɪk sʌm

fɪʃ ænd tʃɪps/

Strong and weak forms

KIT (ɪ) is weak when unstressed. It occurs in unstressed vowels as in reverse, return, and America.

The vowel FOOT (ʊ) is weak when it is unstressed. Such an instance is rare, e.g particular.

Strong and weak forms

“RP” – the accent of educated class in Britain

Accent refers to the potentiality of a syllable to be stressed,

“stress” refers to the actual stress

In British English, there are several accents shaped by the history and brought in by the invaders and settlers. However, a very small percentage of the total population of Britain actually speaks RP. (Hughes and Trudgill 1979)

Intonation in British English uses the fall-rise pitch patterns quite extensively. Saying a sentence with fall-rise intonation implies that we mean differently from the literal meaning.

For example, 'yes' can mean 'maybe'

Accent and Intonation

Comparison between BrE and AE Pronunciation differences

RP Vowels

 

AE vowels

  Front

Central Back

Diphthongs

eɪ    aɪ   ɔɪ   aʊ ɪə   eə   ʊə

əʊ

  Front Central BackDiphthongs

æɪ ɑe oɪ æɔɪə   (ʊə)

əʊ

Absence of the vowel that refers to RP /ɒ/ (hot), in General American. /ɑ/ or /ɔ/ is used instead.

  In words such as ‘cot’- ‘caught’ a large number of American

speakers fail to distinguish /ɑ/ from /ɔ/

General American does not have the centering diphthong phonemes /ɪə/, /eə/, /ʊə/; in ‘fear’, ‘square’ and ‘sure’ it has the combinations /ɪr/, /ɛr/, /ʊr/.

  The pronunciation of the long vowel “o” as in ‘boat’, ‘float’

differs in AE from RP :

AE either uses pure [oː] or diphthongizes it as [oʊ], whereas RP uses [əʊ] or so other variant.

The systemic differences

A significant number of words such as ‘bath’, ‘glass’, ‘half’ are pronounced as /æ/ in General American, but /ɑː/ in RP.

vase - RP /va:z/ AE /veiz/bath- RP /bɑːθ/ AE /bæθ/glass- RP /glɑːs/ AE /glæs/half- RP /hɑːf/ AE /hæf/

 

Selectional differences

Dropping of /j/: In most North American accents, /j/ is dropped after all alveolar and interdental consonant. Thus we see that ‘new’, ‘duke’, ‘Tuesday’ are pronounced /nu:/, /du:k/, /ˈtu:zdeɪ/ and /tu:b/

  Pronunciation of

◦ ‘tomato’ in RP /təˈmɑːtəʊ/ - AE - / təˈmeɪˌtoʊ/◦ ‘ basil’ in RP /ˈbæzl/̩ - AE- /ˈbeɪzl/̩

Selectional differences

  Rhotic (AE) Non- rhotic (BrEng)

Near /nɪəɹ/ /nɪə/Square /skweɪɹ/ /skweə/Cure /kjʊəɹ/ /kjʊə/

Rhotic and Non-RhoticThe presence of the rhotic and non-rhotic accent very noticeable. With the exception of New York City and Boston, American English is largely rhotic. RP is non-rhotic, which means that the letter r is usually silent, unless it is followed by a vowel. In AE /r/ is pronounced as retroflex approximant.

Received Pronunciation came into play only after war, at the end of the eighteenth century. Before this time the pronunciations were not different from each other. There wasn’t a pronunciation that was American, which could be distinguished from the English accent. (Burchfield 36, Marckward and Quirk 61)

Accent and stress

Word stress comes at different places in the same word:

◦ aluminium- RP /æljəˈmɪniəm / - AE /əˈluːmənəm/

◦ garage- RP /ˈɡærɑːʒ/- AE /ɡəˈrɑːʒ/◦ ballet RP /ˈbæleɪ/ - AE /bæˈleɪ/◦address RP / əˈdres/ AE / ˈæˌdres/◦advertisement RP /ədˈvɝːtəzmənt/ AE

/ædvˈt aɪzmənt/

Accent and stress

Many words are exclusive to either language. Some examples:

BrE AE anti-clockwise counter-clockwise autumn fall bill (restaurant) check biscuit cookie diversion detour

Exclusivity in vocabulary

Human Language is always adapting and accommodating itself to meet the requirements

of its speakers.

Halliday, M.A.K. 1967. Intonation and Grammar in British English, Mouton, The Hague.

Harms, R T (1968) Introduction to phonological theory, Prentice Hall

Heinz, JG (1992) English Phonology: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press

Hirst, D., D, Cristo, A. 1992. Intonation Systems : A Survey of Twenty Languages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

John M. Anderson, C. Jones. (1977) Phonological structure and the history of English, North-Holland Pub. Co

Lass, R. (1976) English Phonology and Phonological Theory: Synchronic and Diachronic Studies, Cambridge University Press

References

Manfred, Golrach.1988. New Englishes: New Studies in the Varieties of English, John Benjamin’s Publishing Company.

McArthur, Tom. 2002. Oxford Guide to World English, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Mehmet, S. 2011. Applied English phonology, Oxford : Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford

Potter, Simeon. 1950. Our Language, Pelican Books, London  http://web.ku.edu/~idea/dialectmap.htm  Ted Power, English Language Learning and Teaching (

http://www.tedpower.co.uk)  Wells, John. IPA transcription systems for English (

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/ home/wells/ipa-english.htm

References

Thank you!