ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE IPA

British English: Received Pronunciation

Peter Roach
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
University of Reading
p.j.roach@reading.ac.uk

The accent described here is the present-day version of the accent that has been used as the
standard in phoneticians description of the pronunciation of British English for centuries. The
definition of this accent is a matter of heated debate and frequent controversy: the arguments
will not be rehearsed here, but the interested reader is recommended to look at Jones (1917
and subsequent) and Wells (2000). The most important aspects of this accent should, however,
be made clear:
a. The number of native speakers of this accent who originate in Ireland, Scotland and Wales
is very small and probably diminishing, and it is therefore a misnomer to call it an accent
of BRITISH English. It is an accent spoken by some English people.
b. The great majority of native speakers of this accent are of middle-class or upper-class
origin, educated at private schools and (if of appropriate age) university. This does not
mean that the accent cannot be acquired by others: the present author (who attended a state
school in the Midlands) originally spoke with an accent with noticeable regional features,
but has over many years of teaching the phonetics of English acquired an accent not far
from the standard one described here.
c. The majority of speakers of this accent live in, or originate from, the south-east of England.
d. The accent is most familiar as that used by most official BBC speakers of English origin
(newsreaders and announcers on Radio 4 and Radio 3, and most television channels).
It is also frequently heard on the BBC World Service, though that service appears to
have adopted the policy of sometimes using newsreaders and announcers with noticeable
foreign accents. It is clear that this accent will eventually lose its pre-eminent status in
broadcasting as a result of the wish to broaden the social base of broadcast speech, but it
will take a long time for this to happen.
The accent has been known for nearly a century as RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION, or by its
abbreviation, RP. Early in the 20th century, Daniel Jones, the great exponent of the description
of English pronunciation, named it PUBLIC SCHOOL PRONUNCIATION (Jones 1917), but later
changed the name to Received Pronunciation. Other names have been proposed, such as
GENERAL BRITISH (GB) and EDUCATED SOUTHERN BRITISH ENGLISH. The present authors
own preference is for the name BBC PRONUNCIATION or BBC ACCENT (Jones, ed. by Roach
et al. 2003), but given the continuing popularity of the name Received Pronunciation, this has
been used for the description which follows.
Journal of the International Phonetic Association (2004) 34/2
DOI:10.1017/S0025100304001768

C

International Phonetic Association

Printed in the United Kingdom

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The choice of symbols for the representation of RP is one which has provoked much
discussion, but since the 1980s there has existed, largely as a result of pressure from the major
ELT publishers, a de facto standard set of symbolization conventions which has remained
almost unchanged to the present day. It is widely accepted that some modification of these
conventions is needed to take account of observable changes in the pronunciation of English,
but it is felt to be important that such modifications should not be introduced without general
agreement among practitioners of English phonetics so that the benefits of a common system
of transcription enjoyed over the last twenty or thirty years should not be lost. An alternative
set of transcriptions has, however, been used in the Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation
(Upton et al. 2001).

Consonants
Bilabial
Plosive

Affricate
Nasal
Fricative

Labiodental

Dental

Alveolar
t

n
z

m
f

Approximant
Lateral
approximant

(w)

Postalveolar

Palatal

Velar

Glottal

k g
tS

dZ

N
r

h
j

p
t
k
f
T
s
S
h

pea
toe
cap
fat
thing
sip
ship
hat

b
d
g
v
D
z
Z

bee
doe
gap
vat
this
zip
measure

tS

chin

dZ

gin

m
n
N

map
nap
hang

l
r
j
w

led
red
yet
wet

Plosives, fricatives (with the exception of /h/) and affricates show a distinction between VOICED
and VOICELESS, or, alternatively, between LENIS and FORTIS, e.g. /b/ vs. /p/, /z/ vs. /s/. Voicing
of so-called voiced consonants is often very weak or even undetectable, a fact which has led
to the idea that force of articulation is what distinguishes pairs of obstruent consonants, /p/,
for example, being classed as fortis (strongly articulated) and /b/ as lenis (weakly articulated).
Vowels are markedly shortened before fortis consonants in the same syllable. The plosives
/p, t, k/ are aspirated before vowels (i.e. part of the following vowel is devoiced), and in an
equivalent process /l/, /r/, /w/ and /j/ are partially devoiced following these plosives. This
is much less noticeable if the following vowel is unstressed. The devoicing is usually
blocked if /s/ precedes the plosive within a syllable. Syllable-final /p, t, k, tS/ are frequently
preceded by a glottal stop [/] unless followed by a vowel, though there are few examples
of this in the recording on which our transcription is based. It sometimes happens that
/t/ is replaced, rather than preceded by, a glottal stop, particularly before a syllabic nasal,

P. Roach: British English (RP)

241

as in button [b/n ]. The usual phonetic realization of the glottal stop in English is a
few pulses of creaky voice at the end of the preceding vowel: in the transcription of the
illustrative passage given below, the word attempt is transcribed allophonically as ["tem/t],
but a truly phonetic transcription might represent it as ["temm0 t]. Among the fricatives,
/s, z, S, Z/ are of relatively high intensity, while /f, v, T, D, h/ are of low intensity. In particular,
/D/ is often a weak dental plosive with no detectable friction noise; the sequence /nD/ often
assimilates to [n1n1]. The glottal fricative /h/ is usually voiced [H] in a voiced environment. The
lateral /l/ is clear ([i]-coloured) before vowels and dark ([u]-coloured) elsewhere. The /r/
phoneme is usually realized as a post-alveolar approximant [] unless devoicing results in a
voiceless fricative articulation. Alveolar consonants are frequently assimilated to the place
of articulation of a following non-alveolar consonant. The sonorants /m, n, N, l, r/ may be
pronounced as syllabic consonants in place of a weak syllable containing a vowel, e.g. bottle
/btl /, button /btn /.

Vowels
RP is traditionally described as having a large inventory of vowels that can be grouped into
SHORT VOWELS, LONG VOWELS and DIPHTHONGS. The diphthongs may be subdivided into
CENTRING diphthongs (ending in //) and CLOSING diphthongs which end in either /I/ or
/U/. The number of these vocalic elements is around twenty, but the conventional view that
these twenty or so elements are all discrete phonemes of the language is something that is
open to counter-argument: a much more parsimonious analysis is possible. It is noticeable
in this accent that unstressed vowels are much shorter than stressed ones, and are frequently
centralized.
It should be understood that the terms long and short should be seen in relative terms:
the vowels of both classes are subject to the lengthening and shortening effects found in
English, with the result that a short vowel may, in some contexts, be longer than a long
vowel in a different context. The length mark is used to mark the long vowels, though this
is actually redundant since the vowel symbols already successfully distinguish each vowel
from every other (see Ladefoged 2001, for further discussion). The development of these
transcription conventions is usually credited to Gimson (1962) and they were adopted by him
for his 14th Edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (Jones, ed. by Gimson, 1977);
it was his belief that this redundancy helped rather than hindered the learner of English
phonetics. One convention, however, has become widespread since Gimsons time, and that
is the use of two additional symbols, i and u, to represent unstressed vowels which occur
before vowels and in final position, and are qualitatively more similar to /i/ and /u/ than to
/I/ and /U/. These cannot be classed as true phonemes, since they contrast neither with /i/, /u/
nor with /I/, /U/; they represent vowels in contexts where the contrasts between the respective
long and short vowels are neutralized. The SCHWA vowel is of great importance: though it
has no unique representation in spelling, and is often pronounced so weakly as to be almost
undetectable, it is the most frequently-occurring vowel in this accent.
The vowels may be represented on Cardinal Vowel charts as shown below. It will be
noticed that the position of some of the symbols is quite far removed from the Cardinal
(or IPA) value of those symbols (see for example //, /O/, /u/, //, /e/); this is largely for
historical reasons, illustrating the need for a modernized transcription. A further symbolization
problem concerns diphthongs: in many cases the vowel glide implied by the symbols in such
vocalic elements is so small as to be almost undetectable, so that the contrast between, for
example, day and dare may appear to be due to the difference between [e] and [E]. A closing
diphthong can have a // vowel attached to it (e.g. fire /faI/); the resulting complex vowel
unit may be classed as a TRIPHTHONG if it is pronounced as a single syllable, but it is often
almost impossible to detect any vowel glide in such an element: see for example the vocalic
part of the first syllables of fire-engine, Ireland, which are often [fA], [A] despite usually being
represented as /aI/. Typical formant frequency values for the vowels and diphthongs may be
found in Gimson 1962 (ed. by Cruttenden, 2001, pp. 98102).

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Figure 1 RP pure vowels.

Figure 2 RP closing diphthongs.

Figure 3 RP centring diphthongs.

P. Roach: British English (RP)

Short vowels

Long vowels

I
e

i
A
O
u

key
half
paw
coo

cur

pit
pet
pat
cut
pot
put
about, India

243

Diphthongs
eI
aI
OI

bay
buy
boy

I
e
U

peer
pear
poor

U
aU

go
cow

Weak close vowel symbols

i

happy

throughout

Prosodic features
It is generally considered sufficient to transcribe three levels of stress on syllables: primary
(marked " ), secondary (marked ) and unstressed (no mark). The use of these marks in
the example text should be taken to record the transcribers impression of the degree of
prominence heard. It has often been remarked that English stress is both FREE (in that any
syllable is capable in principle of receiving stress) and FIXED (since it only rarely happens
in a particular context that more than one stress placement is acceptable). Many attempts
have been made to produce rules for the placement of stress, either within the word or in
higher-level units, but such rules have frequent exceptions.
Many transcription systems for English intonation have been proposed, but no accepted
standard exists. There is general agreement that English speech may be divided into
intonational units of one or more syllables, each of which contains one major accent, and that
different pitch-accents or tones correspond to various attitudinal or syntactic functions, but it
is difficult to identify any intonational features that are unique to English, and the nature and
the number of pitch-patterns or pitch-accents is still a matter of dispute.
English RHYTHM is said to be STRESS-TIMED, i.e. the intervals between stressed syllables
tend to be constant and unstressed syllables are compressed to preserve the isochrony of the
inter-stress intervals. While the evidence for this is not completely conclusive, it is clear that
in RP there is a very marked difference between weak, unstressed syllables which in some
contexts may be almost undetectable and strong syllables (stressed or unstressed) which are
fully pronounced.

Transcriptions
The recording used for this illustration was made by a female speaker who was born in 1953.
She was educated first at a private preparatory school, then at a traditional girls grammar

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school, and finally at Oxford University. She teaches in the English Department of a foreign
university.
The original recording is on Minidisk, and has been made available to the IPA along with
this analysis. The acoustic analysis of the recording was made using the SIL Speech Analyzer
program: the file was divided into nine chunks and phonetic labelling of acoustic segments was
carried out. The phonemic transcription is idealized, and various connected speech phenomona
that are recorded in the allophonic transcription are ignored. The allophonic transcription is
different from a purely phonetic transcription as described by Pike (1943) in that it adds
phonetic detail to the basic phonological structure given in the phonemic transcription. It
should be noted that many of the phonologically voiced consonants marked as devoiced are at
times within the consonant less than fully devoiced, but transcribing both voiced and devoiced
sections of them would have made the transcription too unwieldy. Punctuation is included
because intonation is not transcribed.

Phonemic
D "nOT "wInd n D "sn w dI"spjutIN "wItS wz D "strNg, wen "trvl keIm
lN "rpt In "wOm "klUk. DeI "grid Dt D "wn hu "fst sk"sidId In "meIkIN
D "trvl teIk hIz "klUk f SUd bi knsIdd "strNg Dn Di "D. "Den D nOT
wInd "blu z "hAd z i "kUd, bt D "mO hi "blu D mO "klUsli dId D "trvl
"fUld hIz klUk "raUnd hIm, nd t "lAst D "nOT wInd geIv "p Di "tempt. "Den
D "sn Sn aUt "wOmli, nd "miditli D "trvl "tUk f Iz "klUk. n sU D "nOT
"wIn wz "blaIdZd tU kn"fes Dt D "sn wz D "strNgr v D "tu.
Allophonic
97
D "nOT "w9 Ind n1n1 "sn w dI"sp jutIN "wI/tS wz D "st9Ng, wen "t9vl keIm
lN "pt In "wOm "kl 9 Ukx . DeI "g9id9 D9/ D "wn Hu "fs sk"sidId Im"meIxIN
D "t9vl teIkxIs "kl 9 Uk f SUbbi knsIdd9 "stNg D9n1n1i "D. "Den1n1 nOT
w9 Ind "blu z9 "hAd9 s i "kUd, bt 3 D9 "mO hi "blu D mO "kl 9 Usl i9 d9d D9 "t9v9l "fUld9
hIz9 kl 9 Uk "aUnd hIm, nd t "l A9 st D9 "nOT w9 Ind
geIv9 "p D9i "tem/t. "D9en1n1
"sn Sn aUt "wOmli, nd "miditl i9 D "t9vl "tUk f Iz9 "kl 9 Ukx . n sU D "nOT
"w9 In wz9 "blaId
Z t8 kn"fes D9/ D9 "sn wz9z9 "st9ng v9 D9 "tu.
Orthographic
The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveller came
along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the
traveller take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other. Then the North Wind
blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveller fold his
cloak around him, and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shone out
warmly, and immediately the traveller took off his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged
to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.

References
GIMSON, A. C. (1962). An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. London: Arnold. [6th edn. in
2001, edited by A. Cruttenden.]

P. Roach: British English (RP)

245

JONES, D. (1917). English Pronouncing Dictionary. London: Dent. [14th edn. in 1977, edited by A. C.
Gimson; 16th edn. in 2003, edited by P. Roach, J. Hartman & J. Setter (Cambridge University Press).]
LADEFOGED, P. (2001). A Course in Phonetics. New York: Harcourt.
PIKE, K. L. (1943). Phonetics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
UPTON, C., KRETZSCHMAR, W. & KONOPKA, R. (2001). Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current
English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
WELLS, J. C. (2000). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. London: Longman.