## Socio-regional speech  versus  'Oxford  accent'  trends and fashions in the pronunciation of English English

## Abstract

Post-War years have brought new speech habits and evaluations on grounds of so far unprecedented social contacts between the classes. The following paper will focus on recent  articulatory  developments  together  with  their  socio-economic  roots  and  psychological implications, to assess the effects of cross-cultural influence on educated Southern British English.

## 1. The social relevance of accent in England

## 1.1. Regional speech surviving

It is an acknowledged fact that most English people are not speakers of what is commonly called Standard English (cf. Trudgill (1990), 2 f.) 1 but have various degrees of dialect forms in their speech, depending on their social background, education and profession. Even those who by birth or education or both had the chance to acquire a widely acceptable grammar and usage overwhelmingly have a local accent, i.e. they are displaying  a  certain  amount  of  regional  articulations  and  intonation patterns in their otherwise 'standardized' speech. So regional accent permeats the pronunciation 'cone' or 'pyramid' (cf. Trudgill (1979), 11; Halliday (1968), 148) from bottom to top, except for the tiny tip of the  traditionally  educated,  who  acquired  the  so-called 'Received Pronunciation' (RP) together with upper(middle)-class speech in their early  lives.  For  the  vast  majority  of  English  speakers,  however,  the number  and  degree  of  accented  speech  forms  is  but  'a  question  of relatively  more  or  less'  along  a 'dialect  continuum' (cf. Trudgill (1975),  22; Giles , Powesland (1975),  21),  with  regional  and  social aspects closely interwoven.

1 The validity of this socially biased and increasingly controversial term has been seriously questioned by linguists (cf. Bailey (1987), 399 ff.; Trudgill (1975), 27). The same refers  to  the  term 'Received Pronunciation' (RP), which has likewise  been rejected (cf. Macaulay (1988), 115 ff.) but is still widely used in linguistic discussion.

* Ingrid Wotschke Otto-von Guericke-Universität, Institut für fremdsprachliche Philologien PSF D-39016  Magdeburg

As anywhere else in the world, the traditional  social  seclusion  of rural areas has led to a particularly strong survival of dialect forms in popular  as  well  as  in  educated  speech.  On  grounds  of  geographical distance from the Capital and of different historical developments and regional characteristics, the North preserves a considerable number of original dialect and older standard forms and consequently shows the greatest  deviation  from  the  Southern  prestige  accent  (cf. Trudgill (1979), 12). So Northern vernacular forms like [hiem] or [(w )Ü m] for home ( Köppl et al. (1983), 40), [gr Ü nd] for ground and [k Ü´ l] for coal ( Trudgill (1979), 12) or conservative dialect words like yat for gate and loup for jump (ib.  14)  are  of  considerable  linguistic  significance. Nevertheless, the smaller articulatory differences in the South East as an open diphthong [ UÜ ] in home or a glottal stop [ ? ] for intervocalic or final /t/ in water and hot are socially highly distinctive, and there are also vernacular characteristics such as word initial [d] for / D / in that or (late medieval) long [i:] for / a î / in hide that are more obviously different from what is usually considered educated English ( Barnickel (1982), 157).  Of  course,  the  number  of  original  dialect  speakers  has  been steadily diminishing since widespread industrialization and the general introduction of schooling made society more mobile towards the end of the last century. About that time the 'deterioration' of dialects went on with such speed and intensity that in 1913 H. C. Wyld made an urgent plea for monographs 'of the rapidly disappearing Regional Dialects ... and  of  the  ever-increasing  number  of  Modified  Standards  or  Class Dialects  ...  in  respect  of  well-marked  social  boundaries' ( Spencer (1958),  10).  In  the  following  decades,  with  the  further  growth  of industry  and  the  corresponding  decline  of  the  traditional  rural  communities, original country dialects were almost completely dying out and their place was taken by industrial accents in connection with the local urban vernaculars. Half a century after Wyld ,  in  the  time of the compilation of evidence for the Survey of English Dialects (1971) and the Linguistic Atlas of England (1978) 2 , pure local speech was already a rare relic only found among the oldest of the rural population.

However, modern times have changed but not exterminated regional speech, and English dialects are now 'far from dead' (Wright (1974), 154; cf. Leith (1983), 114; Wakelin (1984), 70), living on to various degrees in the speech of the younger generations. Whereas Traditional Dialects have become a shrinking minority almost completely confined to  English,  Scottish  and  Irish  rural  areas  and  some  North  and  West English urban communities, new Modern Nonstandard Dialect areas ( Trudgill (1990), 5) 3 have originated together with the large industrial centres of the London-based area, North West England and the North Eastern costal areas. In the course of this development traditional isoglosses  were  shifting  or  gaining  additional  weight  like  the  Northern dialect boundary now parting North England from Scotland, and the Central-Northern boundary separating Northerners from Southerners in England.  Whole Traditional  Dialect areas  in  the  South  and  Central East, the Eastern South West and parts of East Anglia have been swallowed up by the London-based Home Countries Modern Dialect area, while Northern dialects are about to disappear under the influence of the Central North with its totally new industrial dialect areas around Birmingham, Liverpool, Stoke and Derby ( Trudgill (1990), 76 ff.; cf. Hansen (1986), 213 f.). In result of those changes the majority of broadly  accented speakers of the traditionally vernacular-speaking classes, travelling to work in towns or factories or living and working in the industrial centres, display ' a confusing mixture of dialect and accent' (Ellis (1972),  877).  Locally,  dialects  are  merging  in  an  extremely mobile social world, and South Eastern accent features as close [i] in very ,  extra dark [ Ü ] in milk and glottal stop / ? /  for / t /  in better have spread  fast  northwards  and  westwards  over  dialect  boundaries  (cf. Trudgill (1990), 77 f.). Again others are dying out on their traditional territories as North West Midland [ =g ] in long and rhotic speech, which seems ' unlikely to survive for more than a century' (ib.). Regarding the survival  of  historical  dialect  features,  modern  industrial  speech  has preserved  a  considerable  number  of  old  regionalisms,  among  them nearly unrecognizable vernacular forms as fleffs or flecks for flies or guttural [ x ] in switch t'leyght on ( Wright (1979), 48 ff.). Besides, there are younger standard forms, vulgar language and rhyming slang like Cockney trouble  and  strife for wife , Dickie  Dirt for shirt and  many others  ( Smith (1969),  7; Wright (ib.)  88  f.).  Sounds  are  inserted  in cornder , umberella and deleted in thunner, (be)cos, Satdy ( Wright (ib.) 47)  which,  though  nothing  new,  is  branded  ignorant  and  vulgar.  As linguistic  judgements  are  made  on  social  grounds,  urban  accents  or dialects  have  from  the  start  been  connected  with  the  dirt  and  the ugliness of industrial life and confined to the bottom of the social scale, in contrast to the remains of the traditional country dialects which for many still retain an aura of the quaint and the charming. This public attitude, together with the general difficulty of examining newly arisen linguistic phenomena, may have led to the fact that very little research was  done  into  the  city  or  industrial  dialects  until  the  1970's  when dialect  forms  and  accented  speech  became  increasingly  viewed  as indicators  of  social  background,  education  and  occupation  and  consciously related to social class in England.

2 On the basis of the Survey's material compiled since 1945 and completed between 1962 and 1971 by Harold Orton, Eugen Dieth and eleven fieldworkers, the Linguistic Atlas of England was edited at the university of Leeds in 1978 (cf. Orton et al. (1978),

Introduction).

3 For  detailed  description  of  Traditional  and  Moderne  Dialect  features  cf.  Peter

Trudgill (1990), 19 ff., 67 ff.

## 1.2. Accent as social marker

Closely linked to personal surroundings, experiences and convictions, accent is always felt to be an important identity marker by the speaker and perceived as a significant social indicator by the listener, the more so  as  its  immediate  psychological  effect  makes  it  a  kind  of  ' social barometer '  ( Boomer (1976),50)  and  thus  a  decisive  factor  in  social interaction. Although there is a broad variation in listeners' reactions to socio-regional accents in England (cf. Giles , Powesland (1975), 21 ff., 163 ff.) 4 , the most serious social gap has for long been that between an ' Oxford  accent '  (i.e. RP )  and  all  other  variants  of  the  language. Characteristically,  no  other  speech  style  in  the  whole  of  Britain  was considered appropriate for the purposes of National Broadcasting but Received Pronunciation as defined by Daniel Jones , which proves not only the great social prestige of the accent but also its high degree of sociolinguistic consolidation even before the advent of the radio. After that the BBC must have contributed considerably to the further spreading of upper(-middle)-class speech and, above all, to the strengthening of a public notion of its linguistic 'qualities'. The radio did for RP what general schooling had done for the spread of language standards half a century before: Being carried to every corner of the country, the 'voice of authority' created an image of the 'best' , the most 'correct' , and the most 'beautiful' form of speech ( 0'Donnell, Todd (1980), 91). In social  relationships,  whereas 'BBC-English' became  linked  in  the public  mind  with  high  social  standing  and  intellectual  competence, local speech was increasingly associated with lower social levels, lack of education and lower competence (cf. Giles, Powesland (1975), 66 ff.; Trudgill (1975),  56),  and  even  accented  speakers  themselves  became convinced by the influence of the media and their own social experience that they 'couldn't speak English' ( Trudgill (1974), 20; cf. Halliday (1968),  165; O'Donnell , Todd (1980),  91)  and  that  their regional speech must really be inferior to a standard voice.

4 Special research into social speech evaluation is presented by Howard Giles (1972), 168 ff.

Local speech could, indeed, be a serious obstacle to social ambitions, which  was  particularly  strongly  felt  by  those  of  lower  middle-class background  who  were  aiming  at  higher  education  and  a  more prestigious career. No wonder that in an opinion poll of 1972 it was the middle-class  group  that  considered  speech  the  most  obvious  social barrier  ranging  before  money,  education,  job  and  family,  and  for subjects of all social backgrounds, speech was 'the most important indicator of class' ( Gimson (1975), 152). As the awareness of antagonisms sharpened together with growing mobility and the resulting new contacts  and  relations  between  the  classes,  language  standards  were increasingly felt to be 'a badge or a barrier' to identify and separate social  groups  ( Quirk (1968), 68; cf. Trudgill (1974), 34). Of course, most members of the lower strata had always deeply despised 'posh' or 'lah-di-dah', while keeping to their local language habits and refusing to  bend  to  any  standard  of  upper-class  provenance.  But  in  post-War years speech differences became most depressingly felt in connection with jobs and careers that required a certain amount of education and were  closed  to  those  of  working-class  background  with  broad  local accents. There were obvious disadvantages in the urban areas where

' non-RP '  began  to  be  experienced  as  a  kind  of  social  deficiency bearing an immediate 'threat to existence' ( Kelman (1972), 197). It was the time when in the eyes of many an 'accent bar' acted 'like a colour  bar' ( Abercrombie (1965),  15;  cf. Halliday (1968),  165)  depriving people of their opportunities and what was even worse, of their social dignity.

A number of linguists pointed to the 'delicate and explosive' nature of the subject ( Spencer 11) and to the large scale of emotions, reaching from deep admiration for the prestige accent to utmost hostility and disgust, not only in Britain but all over the English-speaking world. So the  dominating  role  of  standard  speech  as  a  whole  was  seriously questioned by linguists like David Abercrombie, Ch.-J. N. Bailey, Peter Trudgill and others, who stressed the equal validity of all variants of English in the common belief that, as Trudgill put it, 'standard English is  simply  no  better  and  no  worse  than  any  other  dialect' ( Trudgill (1975), 27); cf. Abercrombie (1957), 46 ff.; Bailey (1987), 401). When he,  nevertheless,  called  its  socially  conspicuous RP -articulation 'the most prestigious accent' in the late seventies ( Hughes, Trudgill (1979), 12) and A. C. Gimson mentioned the 'great prestige... still attached to this implicitly accepted social standard of pronunciation' in his 1980 API ( Gimson (1980), 89), these judgements characterize the prevailing middle-class attitude which, to various degrees, has always been influenced by the upper social strata in England. For in spite of massive aversion to the Southern-based prestige accent, many of middle-class background even now uphold its image as a highly desirable social value worth being aspired and preserved. And, although the ' Oxford accent ' has lost its dominant position in many fields, it has retained much of its attractiveness for the upwardly mobile lower middle class.

## 1.3. Code-switching, convergence and change

Under post-War social conditions, with growing contacts and opportunities  for  many,  the  wide  confrontation  of  increasing  numbers  of accented  speakers  with  prestigious  speech  provoked  unprecedented consideration of the quality of speech forms, implying personal decisions and consequences. Growing educational opportunities and prospects also for the lower strata, particularly for the lower middle class, made the adoption of prestigious speech forms more desirable and the linguistic  results  of  upward  convergence  and  code-switching  (cf.

Bourke (1979), 57 f.; Giles, Powesland (1975), 171 ff.) more obvious than  before.  While  many  of  middle-class  and  upper  working-class background  now  consider  mild  local  speech  normal  in  personal intercourse with relatives or friends, a move in the direction of more prestigious articulations is generally held to be essential in education and occupation, unless unskilled, and often found among strangers and in public life. Meanwhile normal style-shifting in lower-, middle- and upper  working-class  speech  has  taken  the  form  of  an  enforced bilingualism with its paralysing effects on social interaction, personal opportunities and a free development of the speaker's personality - a fact that led to urgent calls for more respect by teachers for the regional speech of their pupils in order to prevent intellectual backwardness and the resulting social disadvantages in later life (cf. Trudgill (1975), 57). However,  beside  temporary  accent  convergence  and  code-switching some lasting change towards prestigious speech seems to be going on in the younger dialect-speaking generations, like the gradual loss of the traditional distinction between [ u :] in nose and [ UÜ ] in knows in favour of / ´Ü /, the replacement of [ A ] by / Å / in top , and the change of pure [ u :]  to  [ j u :]  in suit in  Norwich ( Trudgill (1986),  35; Leitner (1983), 111). With increasing education and higher social standing there is a more general and regular use of prestigious speech forms everywhere in England, including / U / for Northern [ Ü ] in cup , [ a :] for Northern [æ] in dance ,  [ RP / A :/],  or  the  shortening  of  Southern  regional  long  [ i :]  in ready ( Trudgill (1979),  10;  (1983),  48).  A  rising  awareness  of  the advantages of standard speech together with the possibility for nearly everyone  to  pick  up  standard  forms  on  radio  and  TV  have  steadily increased  the  range  of  lasting  modifications  towards  the  prestige accent.  Consequently,  there  has  been  a  widening  range  of  modified speech (cf. A. C. Gimson: ' modified regional ' , (1980), 91) down the social scale and a tendency towards closer approximations to RP on its upper levels, towards the apex of the ' cone '.

Striving for social recognition and success, many of lower middleclass background are displaying a snobbishly affected quasiRP in their more or less successful attempts at 'Oxford English' . It was frequently argued that the prestige accent cannot be learnt without an appropriate social background and public school. Indeed, many of lower middleclass origin later remain speech-conscious, lacking control of the more subtle  characteristics  of  connected  speech  such  as  assiminations, elisions  and  intrusive  r  in  their Adoptive RP (cf.  J.  C. Wells (1982), 283).  In  their  desire  to  avoid  stigmatized  speech  and  to  use  highprestige  forms  they  carry  linguistic  adaptation  to  extremes 5 ,  and hypercorrections  like  [ ·tSîkê= ]  or  [ ·ga : dî= ]  (ib.  27,  262)  in  the ' refined '  speech  of  the  socially  ambitious  lower  middle-class  prove linguistic insecurity as well as lack of social confidence. In educated speech,  however,  adaptations  in  the  direction  of  the  prestige  accent have  gone  so  far  that  there  are  now  many  with  only  mild  regional affiliations in an otherwise RPlike speech (cf. J. C. Wells ' Near-RP ', see below) and a realistic appreciation of the percentage of RPspeakers in  England  (about  3  %  in  1979;  cf. Hughes, Trudgill (1979),  3)  has become  increasingly  difficult  and  largely  questionable  altogether, depending on how tolerant the judgement has been. For in the same way as the prestige accent is socially no longer the 'exclusive property of a particular social stratum' ,  ( Gimson (1980), 89), it is slowly but gradually losing its linguistic exclusiveness, becoming assimilated by those who are socially 'arriving' and in their speech advancing the tip of the ' cone '. This is the range where upward convergence ends up in the mixing of accents near the upper end of the scale, thus providing the basis  for  further  linguistic  development  on  grounds  of  new  social relations (cf. Trudgill (1983), 56).

## 2. Post-War educated English English

## 2.1. The newly educated

Language contacts were affecting the traditional speech hierarchy most visibly and intensively in the fields of secondary and higher education, traditionally the domain of the upper and upper middle classes. After the  War the new economic situation with its increasing demands for highly qualified staff brought unprecedented educational opportunities and easier access to universities and colleges for members of the lower social strata. In the mid-forties, professional or academic careers had become  open  to  great  numbers  of  people  from  diverse  social  backgrounds with the expansion of the existing educational institutions, the foundation of the New Universities in the 1960's, the flood of technical colleges, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education as well as a  host  of  new  degree  courses  and  the  Open  University  since  1971. Between the Education Act of 1944 and the year 1966, the number of universities almost doubled, with four times as many students as before the War (cf. Mountford (1966), 18 ff.). In all those years considerable numbers  of  young  people  of  lower  middle-  or  working-class  background - 28 per cent each in 1968 (cf. Cook 4) - took up their studies particularly at the newly founded polytechnics, newer universities and special colleges and, more recently, also at London University or even at  the  traditional  upper-(middle)-class  universities  of  Oxford  and Cambridge taking 55 per cent of their students from state schools in the late 1970's. As regards secondary education, there were already 25 per cent of pupils taken over from primary schools by state-financed direct grant schools with public school status by the same time (cf. Bourke (1979), 110, 119). Those post-War measures in education brought quick and decisive changes in the social structure of schools and colleges and also of professional circles so that by 1951 about 50 per cent of those in professional and executive occupations were sons from the lower strata (cf. Trim (1958),  31; Wright (1974),  235),  and  ten  years  later  most professional people were not original RP -speakers.

5 For American English, the phenomenon is reported as the ' crossover of the secondhighest class ', whose speakers are even exceeding those of the highest class in their extensive use of prestigious speech forms (cf. Bailey (1973), 176 ff.).

Of course, most of the newcomers to the social scene exhibited in their speech more or less easily noticeable regional features, which for the first time massively invaded the realms of the social élite. But as the 'shape of linguistic behaviour changes rapidly as the speaker's social position changes' ( Labov (1968), 240), many were ready and able in their future careers to modify their local speech forms after the model of the traditionally educated, and their mildly accented speech became acceptable in the same way as its carriers were tolerated in the world of the  well-born  and  successful.  So  at  least  in  the  1970's,  the  possible climax of regional impact on educated English, even Northern forms as [ kÜp ]  or  [ g l æ s ]  had  in  the  minds  of  many  a 'perfectly  acceptable image' ( Bourke (1979), 51). Whereas nowadays dialectal [ Ü ] is usually changed to / U / in the speech of Northerners coming to stay in the South and  Cockney  [ f ]  becomes  / Q /  in thing in  the  speech  of  the  socially ambitious, regional remains as short Northern [ a ]  in bad or the high frequency  of  glottal  stops  as  typical  of  popular  London  and  several other traits of regional speech may still betray the local affiliation of educated  speakers  ( Leitner (1981),  248; Trudgill (1983),  45).  Their Near-RP (cf. P. Trudgill (1979), 10; J.  C.  Wells (1982), 297 ff. 301) may  also  contain  a  Southern  vocalized  / l /  as  in hill [ hêÜ ]  beside  a closer final [ i :] for / ê/ in many and a more fronted [ Á :] for / u :/ in cool ( Trudgill, Hannah (1985), 12), a final or medial / g /  as in tongue and singer of  a  North  West  Midland  origin  ( Ellis (1972),  878)  and  the widespread use of / ´ / for / ê / in weakly accented syllables, including the inflections -ed and  es e.g.  in wanted , horses ,  coming  from  many English  dialect  areas  except  the  South  East  ( Gimson (1979),  155  f.; Lewis (1985), 250; Trudgill, Hannah 12). The fact that in the last few decades  traditional RP -speakers  had  to  share  their  social  world  and language with a growing number of speakers who, to varying degrees, preserved regional affiliations in their speech could not remain without consequences for the prestige accent.

## 2.2. Change in RP 'from below'

Sociolinguistic change proved a potential base for language change (cf. Bailey (1989), 12; Blount, Sanches (1977), 5; Milroy (1980), 19) insofar as the pentration of the traditionally educated social spheres by locally accented speakers was responsible for a growing number of regional features in otherwise prestigious speech. What was most striking about the post-War development of RP was that for the first time local speech forms other than those of the South East could decisively influence its traditional pattern. So extra open /æ/ as found in the North, the Midlands  and  Wales  ( Leith (1983),  133; Wells (1970),  246),  the  schwavowel / ´ / in a growing number of endings like those on -ity, -ate, -less and -ness and  even  perhaps  in  the  inflections -ed and -e s  ( Gimson (1979),  155  f.)  have  meanwhile  become  generally  received,  and intrusive r as a feature of Warwickshire and the South East Midlands in China ã [r] ã and or idea ã [r] ã of has become so usual that speech without it seems artificial, stilted or even foreign (cf. Trudgill, Hannah (1985), 15).  Besides,  originally  South  East  English  monophthongizations  of diphthongs  and  triphthongs  in day [ dE :]  or shower [ SA :]  ( Gimson (1980), 129 ff.), the [ ? ] - allophone of / t / in positions like football, not yet ,  etc.  (ib.  170; Leith (1983),  132,  138)  and  final  [ i ]  for  / î /  in city [ ·sêti ] or coffee [ ·kÅfi ] ( Wells (1982), 299) are now widely accepted trends. Quite recently it seems as if there was an increasing number of London and South East English popular tendencies such as the fronting of / Ü / to [ î ] in cook (inf. J.-C. N. Bailey ) and a most recent closing of / π / to [ E ] among the very young (native speaker informant) in opposition to the general post-War fashion towards [ä] or even [ A‹ ] (s.a.; cf. Gimson (1980), 109). Strengthened by a great vernacular loyalty and furthered by the general attraction of the Capital for the young generation, lowerclass  London  speech  may  even  be  considered 'the  most  influential source of phonological innovation' ( Wells (1982), 301) in the English of today.

In  connection  with  the  post-War  development  of  the  accent A.  C. Gimson , in  the  late  seventies,  applied  his  new  term revised RP to  a 'more relaxed but acceptable type of pronunciation' (cf. (1979), 154, 155 f.) including the elimination of / Ü´ / in favour of / O :/ in sure, tour , etc. 6 beside certain traits of regional influence. In consequence of the new and more permissive attitudes he also included in his 1977 EPD the widespread replacement of unstressed / î / in endings on -less and -ness by the central vowel / ´ /. Linguistic borders were open to what he called wider-based RP 'with the ... admission into the permitted speech forms of certain variants until  recently  regarded  as  regional' in  his 1980 IPE ((1980), 102). What was 'revised' or 'wider-based' in A. C. Gimson's terms,  has  meanwhile  become  the  usual  way. J.  C.  Wells' Mainstream RP -  in  his  words  now  ' the  central  tendency '  ((1982), 279)  -  includes  most  of  the  former  regionalisms  mentioned  above, among them intrusive r (cf. ib. 286), a strongly lowered /æ/ (i.e. [ä] similar to fronted / U /, ib. 291 f.), backer starting points of / a î / and / aÜ / as well as various monophthongizations of diphthongs and triphthongs (cf. ib. 292 ff.). So many of the regionally-based post-War trends have settled  down  with  the  middle  and  younger  generations,  leaving  the accent more variable than ever before. Though, it is now hard to say which of these fashions will survive their carriers, and whether or not regional speech will continue its influence on RP in a different social climate  with  possibly  less  social  innovation  and  a  resulting  consolidation of speech habits (s.b. BBC English ).

According to the general rule, change in the prestige accent was predominantly  caused  by 'those  centrally  in  the  hierarchy' ( Labov (1980), 254), i.e. the upwardly mobile lower middle class, and it goes 6 Now,  again,  [ O :]  is  considered  old-fashioned  against  [ ¨ :]  is sure by  the  young generation (personal information by J. C. N. Bailey ).

without  saying  that  the  kind  and  degree  of  acceptability  of  those regional characteristics in upper (-middle)-class speech varies considerably with social status and generation. While members of the older  and  middle  generations  will  base  their  judgements  largely  on post-War  criteria  and  be  more  reticent  in  the  acceptance  of  former localisms, there will be much more tolerance among younger people with their relatively  unconventional  speech  habits.  These  recent developments  have made  it increasingly difficult to define RP linguistically  and  socially  as  well,  so  that  by  1979 A.  C.  Gimson considered it 'no longer possible to make a precise correlation of a 'received'  standard  of  pronunciation  with  any  section  of  society' ((1979),  154;  cf.  (1984),  46,  48).  Although  the  prestige  accent  has remained the characteristic speech form of the upper social strata as regards status and occupation of its speakers, their social origin may now range from the traditionally RP -speaking upper and upper middle classes well down to a middle- or even lower middle-class background. This  as  well  as  serious  doubts  about  the  'received'  character  of  the accent (cf. Bailey (1987), 403; Macaulay (1988), 115 ff.) have led to alternative definitions and terms dismissing ' RP ' from the inventory, e.g. J. W. Lewis' ' Conspicuous GB ' and '( ordinary ) General British (GB) ' (255) or C.-J. N. Bailey' s ' fashionable English' in contrast to a standard notion (cf. (1987), 400 ff.). However, in R. Macauley's view, ' ...  the sooner the term is dropped the better chance there is that the serious study of English speech will advance' for 'there is  no  such entity as RP except as a prescriptive model for the upwardly mobile' ((1988), 121 f.).

## 2.3. Growing regional prestige

Besides  those  who  were  modifying  their  regional  accents  in  the direction of prestige forms, there were growing numbers of educated speakers deliberately keeping to local speech in order to demonstrate their affiliation to the land and the ordinary people. Post-War changes towards a more fluid society had made the barrier between regional speech and ' Oxford English ' more obviously felt than before, and the traditional  upper(-middle)-class  accent  was  considered  a  form  of discrimination  no  longer  reflecting  social  reality  by  the  young  from lower middle- and working-class homes, particularly those studying at universities  and  colleges.  It  was  the  time  of  great  activities  in  the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, of campaigns against the Vietnam War, and of close contacts and solidarity with the Trade Unions in the students'  unrest  of  the  sixties  (cf. Cook (1976),  6,  13  ff.).  Student teachers, engineering, natural science and medical students were most open-minded to liberal ideas, many of them deriving from lower social strata themselves and preparing for jobs closer to the working class - as salary earners - than those in the traditional professions of the Law, the Church, and the Arts. What was an absolute novelty in academic life, the vast majority of students followed in their language attitudes those of working-class background - about one third in 1964 (cf. Atkinson (1975), 69) - in deeply despising 'posh' together with the Establishment and the social system as a whole. With the values and traditions of their  fathers,  the  post-War  young  were  also  questioning  the  so  far generally  accepted  habits  of  educated  speech  and  social  conduct  of previous generations while showing a rising pride in local language and culture and exhibiting their local speech consciously and deliberately. Not only at the newer universities, colleges and polytechnics but even at  Oxbridge  students  began  to  display  regional  affiliations  in  their speech, and those who were RP -speakers from home, fearing sneers at careful pronunciation, were deliberately adopting regional features (cf. Quirk (1980),  7,  12  f.).  Anything  would  do  that  was  not  socially conspicuous, be it Liverpool , Cockney or pseudo-American , with the local and the popular becoming 'an 'in' thing along with other forms of revolt against a traditional Establishment attitude' (Ellis (1972), 878). The  sociolinguistic  effects  of  the  post-War  general  climate  were showing in the speech of the middle generation in the 1960's and 70's when increasing numbers of the professional classes, among them even public  school  teachers,  were  quite  openly  rejecting RP .  Regional affiliation often stepped back behind a strong feeling of identity with the  purely  social  background  in  lower  middle-  or  working-class speakers, who were deliberately refusing to give up their local accents in favour of a career in order to separate 'the newcomer-to-status from the aristocrat' ( Robinson (1973), 439; cf. Trudgill (1974), 80 ff.). For them the speech of their native environment had become an anchor to hold onto and to find their own identity in the 'vulagar language of home' ( Boomer (1976), 148). In those times RP -speakers became more and more rare among the staffs of universities like Leeds and Newcastle - also among those who had been educated at public schools - and there were  (and  probably  still  are)  lecturers  even  at  Oxford  displaying regionalisms in their speech and proud of it (cf. Atkinson (1975), 69 f.; Barnickel (1982),  220  f.).  In  the  1970's  the  articulation  of  educated Londoners was no longer identical with RP (cf. Abercrombie (1957), 50; Barber (1964), 25 f.,; Germer (1967), 11; Quirk (1972), 73), and by 1985  between  80  and  90  per  cent,  among  them  the  most  highly educated and those in highest  positions  in  government  and  industry, were more or less consciously displaying mildly regional speech (cf. Lewis (1985), 247; Hansen (1992), 19).

Along with considerable social relaxation in occupational and public life, recent language developments have made the old contrast between the  prestige  accent  and  regional  speech  less  severely  felt  and  mild localisms increasingly accepted. There is no longer any need either to disguise one's accent or to promote its acceptability in educated speech, for the 'living spoken English of educated people' (Quirk (1972), 98) has proved a successful challenge to ' Oxford English '. Now that the traditional speech hierarchy is broken and a wide social acceptance of regionally coloured speech is secured, the waves of linguistic rebellion are obviously dying down among the young. There even seems to be a recent ' gap in accent evaluation ', characterized by a 'reduced sensitivity  to  accent  values'  (Lewis (1985),  253,  cf.  249),  which  characteristically applies to mild regionalisms but not to obtrusively upperclass  mannerisms  and  insofar  continues  the  socio-cultural  trends  of post-War  decades.  The  results  of  the  struggle  are  simply  taken  for granted, at least so in the academic scene, and this with full justice: The attraction of regionalisms has become fairly general among the young, who now choose their speech quite often without noticing or worrying over language standards. Insofar as an increasing majority of students at universities and colleges are now regionally accented speakers from home, the trend towards the more democratic and generally acceptable will be likely to continue in the foreseeable future and may even further diminish linguistic contrasts.

## 2.4. Upper Crust and Cockney

In a time of various modifications of regional pronunciations towards 'received'  forms  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  rising  prestige  of  mildly regional speech in educated English, the young social élite had its own ways of preserving the exclusiveness of Upper-crust (U) RP (cf. J. C. Wells (1982), 280 ff.), and their contribution to the development of the prestige accent was traditional as well as fashionable. With its social and linguistic basis in and around the Capital, the prestige accent had always shown strong resemblences to popular London speech, e.g. the conservative [ Å´* ] in before and [ O :] in off ( Gimson (1980), 115; Wells (1970),  239),  and  the  new  post-War  trends  were  based  on  the  same ground. At the public schools a considerable number of alumni have for decades been displaying South East English regionalisms beside various trendy fashions like wilful accelerations, refinements and spelling pronunciations to escape uniformity and routine. Markedly South East English  regional  features  like  strongly  monophthongized  forms  of diphthongs  and  triphthongs,  the  glottalization  of  consonants,  a  considerable closing of / O :/ to [ Q :] in saw , and a fronting of / U / to [ä] or [ ´ ] in luck ( Barnickel (1982), 41 ff.; Eustace (1967), 305; Gimson (1964), 135)  are  all  very  near  to  London Cockney or  South  East  English country dialects. There are now even Southern dialectal pronunciations in upper-class speech which are not by all regarded as standard, e.g. the extra strong monophthongization of / a î ´ / to [ a :] as in fire or the diphthong / ´Ü / instead of the monophthong / Å / in solve ( Brook (1979), 32). Beyond that the variant also contains diphthongizations as in did [ î ´ ], head [ e ´ ] and bad [æ ´ ] ( Gimson (1964), 133), which are without equivalents  in  popular  London,  and  the  originally  Northern  and  South Western  trend  to  [ä]  instead  of  /æ/  as  a  general  feature  of  post-War educated English (s.a). Nevertheless, the variant fully deserves the label of ' Metropolitan sub-variety ' (Lewis (1985), 250), socially as well as linguistically.

Just in the tradition of prestigious speech, the London and South East English localisms set their speakers off from other regional affiliations and social backgrounds as well as from the older generations with their more moderate speech habits. Beside the traditional attraction of the Capital, the new post-War language contacts in education and professions and the recent image of the hard-working and successful young Cockneys ' gaining  the  prestige  that  often  goes  with  wealth '  (inf. Bailey )  will  have  strengthened  South  Eastern  regionalisms  in U-RP . Moreover, the extremely strong orientation of the young post-War élite, even that of the Royal family (cf. Gimson (1964), 132 f.), on London Cockney may be a contrastive upper-class reaction on the increasing appearance  and  acceptability  of  regional  low-prestige  characteristics other than South East in educated English. On the whole, the trendy Cockney fashion in RP seems to be based on a complex of more or less conscious  psycho-social  motivations,  including  traditional  language attitudes and recent changes in the relations between social groups and classes  as  well.  For  decades  the  influence  of  this  London-based advanced variant on the development of the accent has been unquestioned (cf.  ib.  132  ff.),  and  the Metropolitan sub-variety of  today  will  also leave  its  marks  on  prestigious  speech.  Only,  under  the  present  conditions this all-too obviously upper-class accent seems to become more of  a  socially  insulated  in-group  variant  with  decreasing  acceptability among  the young outside the exclusive circles, and its social ' conspicuousness '  ( Lewis (1985),  253)  may  diminish  its  influence which probably will not go so far down the social scale into middleclass speech as it did in the first decades after the War. There is now good reason to assume that the regionally influenced and more generally accepted wider-based branch of RP (s.a.) will leave more decisive traces on tomorrow's educated English than the conspicuous, though highly prestigious, upper-class variant can in the foreseeable future.

## 3. The BBC's response to the new situation

## 3.1.  Local stations and relaxed standards

In the last few decades the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) , which from its very beginnings played an active role in the strengthening of RP ,  has accommodated its style to the new situation. Along with the growing prestige of regionally accented speech and stimulated by  the  necessity  to  compete  with  the  much  less  exclusive  language usage  on  TV,  local  radio  stations  began  to  broadcast  their  own  programmes in the speech of the respective regions in 1954 7 . Particularly in  North  England  and  Wales  those  transmissions  proved  important stimuli in the further adherence to local speech as well as its acquisition in  adult  life.  In  Wales,  claims  to  sustain  the  command  of  the  Welsh language  by  radio  and  television  transmissions  came  from  all  social classes,  but  predominantly  from  college  students  and  other  young people in connection with the world-wide anti-colonial atmosphere historically, Wales is a conquered country - and the new social situation. After the Welsh Education Act of 1967, local language programmes were transmitted  seven  hours  per  week  each  by BBC Wales and  on television (cf. Khleif (1979), 63). About ten years later, in 1980, about half of the Welsh-speaking population (i.e. about twenty per cent of the total) voted for daily programmes in Welsh (cf. Bellin (1984), 470) to prevent a further decline of the language and of the traditional social ties and cultural values. Following the general trend, London, too, got its  local  station  ( Capital Radio London) for entertainment and news bulletins, with a board decidedly anti -RP ( 'None of us here are familiar with  the  term  'conservative  RP'  ...' ;  cf. Leitner (1979),  40,  92)  but aiming at a clear articulation in the sense of educated London speech, which is no longer socially exclusive.

7 Educated  national  accents  of  Ireland,  Scotland  and  Wales  and  also  educated Northern English, in contrast to all other accents of England, had been acceptable in the early years of the BBC , but with a clear bias (cf. Leitner (1982), 102, 106; (1989), 15, 22).

While local radio and television are outstanding reflections of new language  attitudes,  the  less  spectacular  changes  in  the  regular  transmissions of the BBC and other British stations 8 also reveal important speech trends of the time. In general, the presentation has become much more relaxed and popular (cf. Leitner (1989), 13), depending on the topic  and  style  of  the  issue,  and  there  are  a  number  of  articulatory novelties,  trendy  fashions  and  mild  regionalisms  of  all  kinds  in  the speech of commentators, reporters and entertainers. In the range of RP vowels  and  diphthongs,  the  originally  Northern  and  South  Western extra open realization of /æ/ as in and [ä: nd ], actual [(ä ktS[´]¬ ] or Buckingham palace [ ·p ä l î s ],  the  originally  South  Eastern  open  first element or its extensive lengthening towards monophthongization as in game [ gaîm ], players [ pl E : [ ´ ] z -] and bye-bye [ ·ba :, ba : î ] are among the most obvious changes. In fifteen  minutes  commentaries  by  different speakers, the diphthong / î ´ / in year was overwhelmingly realized as [ ‰ :]  in  [ j ‰ :]  (8)  or  with  a  glide  in [ j î ‰ :]  (1)  besides  a  more conservative  [ î ´ ]  in  [ j î ´ ]  (2),  all  this  together  with  assimilations  in [ ·l a : stJ‰ :]  and  [ ·DîsJ‰ :], while  [ ·DîsjE´ ], [ ·DîSjE´ ]  and [ l a : sCE ⋅ ] were also found on other occasions. Mild former regionalisms  are  colouring  the  picture,  as  an  intrusive  r  in draw  it

8 For the sociolinguistic pattern of post-War radio and television cf. G. Leitner (1983), 59; R.W Burchfield and T. Tim in: Burchfield et al. (1979), 13 ff. and 21 ff.

[ ·drO : r î t ] out , an occasional North West Midland medial / g / in singer [ ·sî=g´ ],  a  clear  Northern  [ a ]  in passage [ ·pasîdJ ]  of  a bill ,  a slightly  raised  Western  [ä]  in after  all [ ª ä ft´rO· : ¬ ],  or  both  in connection with widely dialectal vocal / r / in forecast [ ·fO · rka · s t ] and [ ·fO · r k ä s t ],  resp.  Further,  there  are  mannerisms  and  idiosyncracies like unusual stresses in ' controversial , the ' situation or the value ' of it , and assimilations and elisions like [ ªgÜb·baî ] ( good-bye ), [ ·je s ¡   d e î ] ( yesterday ) and [ · s ‰ : n ¡ l i ] ( certainly ), also at word boundaries as in [ ·wÅtS´ªneîm ] ( What's your name? ) or [ · æ J j u · ª s e î ] ( As you say ), particularly so in the speech of disc jockeys and sports commentators following  the  trends  of  their  young  audiences.  Althogether,  it  is  a relaxed, easy-going speech style, conforming with the speech habits of the younger generations and with their preference for the local and the popular  9 .

## 3.2. Trends in newsreading

With regard to the speech of BBC -newsreaders , opinions may widely differ as to the kind and degree of articulatory change 10 over the last few  decades.  While  English  regional  affiliations  were  noted  besides Commonwealth articulations (cf. Gimson (1977), 56; Quirk (1972), 72; (1980), 8 f.), there was also the impression that in spite of a great deal of relaxation in pronunciation and style there were 'no very markedly non-RP  accents  at  least  among  the  principal  newsreaders'  (Lewis (1985), 252 f.) and the articulatory novelties on the news were mainly the result of 'the general process of language change' in the different generations  of RP speakers  ( Gough (1982),  247  f.).  Indeed, BBC newsreaders are  reflecting  in  their  speech  the  changes  that  educated English pronunciation in general and the RP -accent in particular have undergone  in  recent  decades.  The  considerable  relaxation  of  speech habits even on formal occasions becomes evident in a great number of assimilations and elisions as in suggestion [ s´·dJeS¡¡[´]n ], accident [ · æ ksd´nt ], and almost regularly in negotiations [ni º g ´Ü·Sjeî[´]nz ], police [ p l i : s ]and government [ ·gUvm[´]nt ] in the  news  broadcasts.  Beside  that,  former  regionalisms  such  as  the widely  used  schwa-vowel  / ´ /  even  in  world-final -ed and -es ,  the originally Northern extra open vowel in damage [ä] and its extremely lengthened variant in and [ä:], the characteristically South East English monophthongizations  in year [ j E : [´] ]  or  [ j ‰ :], hours ,  [ A : z -] higher [ ha : [ ´ ] ], lower [ l ‰ : [ ´ ] ], Europe [ ·jO : [ ´ ] r´p ] can frequently be heard on the news of the BBC National Programme . Even the BBC World Service with  its  traditional  conservativism  and  its  high  linguistic standards  is  paying  tribute  to  recent  exclusive  fashions,  particularly with regard to an extremely open and centralized [ä] for /æ/ as in matter [ · m ä t´ ] or strategy [ ·str ä t î d J î ] and to various strongly monophthongized  forms  as  in fire [ fA : [ ´ ] ], town [ t a : [ ´ ] ],  and  sure [ SO :] in the range of post-War advancedRP . Usually the vowel in and is even longer and more open and diphtongs are still further reduced than in the domestic news where public criticism has kept exaggerations and mannerisms within comparatively narrow borders  11 .

9 The  examples  given  here  were  taken  from  broadcasts  of  the BBC  National Programme and the BFBS in Germany between 1977 and 1990.

10 Phonological analysis of BBC-English cf. G. Leitner (1979), 45 ff.

## 3.3. Public criticism and traditional policies

In all these years speech on the BBC , in spite of its traditional prestige all over the country, has met with a considerable amount of criticism from different sides. In connection with the trend towards the regional and the popular among the young generation, there were demands for more  regional  accent,  linked  with  the  argument  of  'posh'  being outdated and unnatural (cf. Leitner (1983), 68 ff.; Zimmermann 227 ff.). In the same way as those hopes were fulfilled, letters of complaint were pouring in from conservative circles of the older generation, calling for more  standards,  particularly  in  connection  with  politics 12 .  Regionalisms of any kind, e.g. 'sub-Northern' [ U ] for /æ/ in back, were rejected (including even protests from the respective region!) and anything that was not RP or did not fully correspond to spelling, as [ ? ] for / t /  or  intrusive  r,  was  stamped  'careless'  or  'slovenly'  ( Gimson (1980), 89; Leith (1983), 117). In the same way recent innovations and mannerisms of the show-business, like neutralizations and contractions of  sounds  in businessm(e)n , af(ter)noon ,  etc.,  the  lengthening  of the [ D´ ] to [ D i :] and of a [ ´ ] to [ e î ], unusual stresses on prepositions, the fronting of word accents (marked a 'transatlantic offence') as well as unaccustomed  word  usage  and  syntax  came  under  severe  attack ( Zimmermann 430  ff.).  There  was  also  quite  a  lot  of  argument  over American English traits in the language of the BBC in connection with the  preference  of  the  young  for  a  pseudo-American  accent  in  peergroup speech as well as entertainment (cf. Gimson (1979), 150; Gough (1982), 247; Trudgill (1983), 141). Altogether, the main trend of public criticism  was  against  regionally  accented  speech  as  well  as  socially conspicuous innovations and mannerisms. In all that linguistic ramble the BBC  World  Service was  able  to  keep  its  outstanding  prestige, though by far not devoid of articulatory novelties in its own ranks (see above). It was as if South East English fashionable trends and mannerisms were going without serious criticism, more willingly granted by the public to a station aiming at oversees audiences than to domestic radio representing what is widely taken for a 'neutral national standard' (Bellin (1984), 38; cf. Weiner (1986), 227).

11 These and further examples were taken from the BBC National Programme and the BBC World Service between 1977 and 1991.

12 Similary, there had been ardent pyublic protests on the 'Stilted Voice' on the BBC in the 1920's already (cf. Leitner (1979), 1 ff.) and, on the other hand, complaints over trendy fashions in the articulation of ist newsreaders in the 1930's (cf. Brook (1979), 165).

Obviously, the loosening of standards on domestic radio - regardless how  far  it  ever  got  in  newsreading  -  seems  to  have  lost  speed  and intensity in recent years. In the 1970's already, R. Quirk supposed that a reaction might set in, as people grew 'anxious about unending permissiveness - or ... bored by it' ( Quirk (1972), 72), and A. C. Gimson pointed to the 'less permissive attitude of the BBC to its newsreaders' (Gimson (1979), 150; cf. (1984), 46). New language attitudes became evident in the 1980's or even earlier when the trend towards the colloquial and the popular seemed to have passed its zenith. Sometimes, even,  almost  'conservative'  versions  were  to  be  heard,  like  [ de î ], [ taîm ], [ snou ], [ j î ´ ] (but fashionable[ f a: ´ ] and [ f a :] for fire from the same newsreader!),  and  occasionally  assimilations  were  avoidded  in words like association and negotiation . The BBC itself contributed to this  development  with  a  considerable  number  of  discussions  and investigations of the standard of the language for which the Board had always  been  feeling  largely  responsible  since  the  early  days  of  the Advisory  Committee  on  Spoken  English in  the  1920's  (cf. Leitner (1989), 9). A Report for the BBC of 1979 again showed much concern and the conviction that the BBC had 'a clear duty to uphold the standards of spoken English, currently under criticism' (Timothy (1979),

24). Beside an obvious readiness to accept changes firmly established in current usage, the general trend seemed to be the maintenance of a relatively conservative language tradition, with RP as the de facto standard of pronunciation in the news and political commentaries. Today the speech of BBC -newsreaders on domestic radio contains no more than the usual set of meanwhile generally accepted post-War novelties beside a relatively  small  number of widely received former regional features. What has remained of the 'linguistic revolt' of post-War time in  the  news  on  today's BBC National Programme ,  is  a  careful,  unobstrusive and unconspicuous variant very near to what A. C. Gimson described as High Acceptability RP in the early 1980's ((1984), 51).

Considering  the  traditional  language  reputation  of  the BBC as  a whole and its unquestioned role as a model of educated speech for large parts of the English population and also abroad, its effects on the language are unquestionable. With its news broadcasts and commentaries it  has  promoted  prestigious  trends  and  innovations  and  in  doing  so contributed  to  the  stabilization  of  upper(-middle)-class  fashionable English among the younger generations. Further, through its influence it has encouraged modifications of regionally accented speech towards the prestige model on various scales. But at the same time it has also been 'promulgating regional accents throughout the nation' (Giles, Powesland (1975),  27),  thus  stimulating  socio-regional  or  ethnic convictions. Together with British TV, which from the start had based on more popular grounds than the radio, the BBC with its new informal speech style loosened social bonds, encouraged growing tolerance in accent evaluation and, beyond that, made the young different from their parents in many other respects than language (cf. Bolinger (1980), 50 ff.).  This  is  not  to  overestimate  the  socio-linguistic  influence  of  the media but to underline their role in the 'give and take' of a largely mobile social world.

## Conclusion

It was an extraordinarily dynamic time after the War, leaving its marks on the speech habits and evaluations of all social strata and bearing its consequences  for  the  further  development  of  the  language.  Upward mobility and the resulting language change from below widened the range  of RP socially  as  well  as  linguistically,  diluted  its  originally London-based pattern by various English regional features and left it more linguistically complex and socially acceptable for a wider scope of local loyalties, class affiliations and generations. Putting an end to the  social  exclusiveness  of  the  prestige  accent  in  education  and  the professions and at the same time inducing new and more democratic developments in its articulatory pattern, English socioregional accents have been a challenge and a stimulus as well. Never before, however, the justification of a standard language for the country and of binding articulatory norms for educated speech had been so seriously questioned, and at no time localisms had been so deliberately cultivated and proudly defended as in those post-War years. When many of the young educated of lower middle- or working-class background began to develop a strong sense of socio-regional identity through speech and were  refusing  to  abandon  their  local  accents  in  favour  of  upper(middle)-class prestige forms, they were  setting  an  example  for generations to follow. While the ' Oxford accent ' is still surviving as a status  symbol  of  the  social  élite,  various  regional  affiliations  will continue  to  be  involved  in  the  shaping  of  a  generally  acceptable educated English English.

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