Īccording to Fowler's Modern English Usage (1965), 'the correct term is 'the Received Pronunciation'. In 1922, the BBC selected RP as its broadcasting standard, citing its being widely understood globally as a reason. RP has most in common with the dialects of what has been termed the South East Midlands, in particular the Golden Triangle of universities, namely London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the public schools that fed them, such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby. Īlthough a form of Standard English had been established in the City of London by the end of the 15th century, it did not begin to resemble RP until the late 19th century. is a variable quantity differing from individual to individual, although all its varieties are 'received', understood and mainly unnoticed'.

The early phonetician Alexander John Ellis used both terms interchangeably, but with a much broader definition than Jones's, saying, 'There is no such thing as a uniform educated pron. A similar term, received standard, was coined by Henry C. Du Ponceau in 1818 and the Oxford English Dictionary cites quotations back to about 1710. In the first edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917), he named the accent ' Public School Pronunciation' for the second edition in 1926 he wrote: 'In what follows I call it Received Pronunciation, for want of a better term.' However, the term had been used much earlier by P. The introduction of the term Received Pronunciation is usually credited to the British phonetician Daniel Jones. RP is an accent, so the study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation, while other areas relevant to the study of language standards, such as vocabulary, grammar, and style, are not considered. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geographically neutral, how many speakers there are, whether sub-varieties exist, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard, and how the accent has changed over time. Received Pronunciation ( RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For the distinction between, / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Phonological processes age chart