Chapter published in:
Late Modern English: Novel encounters
Edited by Merja Kytö and Erik Smitterberg
[Studies in Language Companion Series 214] 2020
► pp. 22–41

“A received pronunciation”

Eighteenth-century pronouncing dictionaries and the precursors of RP

| University of Sheffield
This chapter examines the codification of English pronunciation prior to the emergence and recognition of RP. I analyse early citations of “received pronunciation” and contrast these with later uses of “Received Pronunciation”. Drawing on Haugen (1966) and Milroy & Milroy (1999), I identify the processes of standardisation and distinguish standardisation from levelling before outlining the history of standardisation in English. I then discuss why the need for a standard pronunciation arose in the eighteenth century and the criteria used to select and codify pronunciations. I conclude that authors such as Walker and Sheridan did not succeed in implementing a standard pronunciation, but their attempts at codification laid the ground for the emergence of RP in the nineteenth century.
Published online: 18 March 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.214.01bea
References

References

Abercrombie, David
1965 Studies in Phonetics and Linguistics. London: OUP.Google Scholar
Agha, Asif
2003 The social life of cultural value. Language and Communication 23(3–4): 231–273. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2007 Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C.
1999 English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C.
2004 English in Modern Times. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C.
2007 Three hundred years of prescriptivism (and counting). In Current Issues in Late Modern English, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade & Wim van der Wurff (eds), 35–55. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Boswell, James
1934 Boswell’s Life of Johnson, edited by George Birkbeck Hill, revised and enlarged edition by Laurence Fitzroy Powell. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Buchanan, James
1757 Linguae Britannicae Vera Pronuntiatio. London: A. Millar.Google Scholar
1762 The British Grammar. London: A. Millar.Google Scholar
1766 An Essay Towards Establishing a Standard for an Elegant and Uniform Pronunciation of the English Language, Throughout the British Dominions. London: A. Millar.Google Scholar
Bullokar, William
1586 Pamphlet for Grammar. London: E. Bollifant.Google Scholar
Burn, John
1786 A Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language. Glasgow: Alex. Adam for the Author and James Duncan.Google Scholar
Cawdrey, Robert
1604 A Table Alphabetical. London: I.R. For E. Weaver.Google Scholar
Collins, Beverly & Mees, Inger
2001 Daniel Jones Prescriptivist R(I)P. English Studies 82(1): 66–73. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Christopher
1687 The English Teacher. London: The Author.Google Scholar
Crowley, Tony
2003 Standard English and the Politics of Language, 2nd edn. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, Alexander J.
1869 On Early English Pronunciation. London: Asher and Trübner and Co.Google Scholar
Fisher, John H.
1996 The Emergence of Standard English. Lexington KY: University of Kentucky Press.Google Scholar
Gimson, Alan C.
1970 An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English, 2nd edn. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Gneuss, Helmut
1972 The origin of standard Old English and Æthelwold’s school at Winchester. Anglo-Saxon England 1: 63–83. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Görlach, Manfred
1991 Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hart, John
1569 An Orthographie. London.Google Scholar
Haugen, Einar
1966 Dialect, language, nation. American Anthropologist 68: 922–935. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hickey, Raymond
2007 Irish English. Its History and Present-Day Forms. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 ‘Telling people how to speak’: Rhetorical grammars and pronouncing dictionaries. In Current Issues in Late Modern English, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade & Wim van der Wurff (eds), 89–116. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2012a Standard English and standards of English. In Standards of English: Codified Varieties Around the World, Raymond Hickey (ed.), 1–33. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2012b Standards of English: Codified Varieties Around the World. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hogg, Richard
2002 An Introduction to Old English. Edinburgh: EUP.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Börje
1964 On the Concept of Standard English and the History of Modern English Pronunciation. Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Honey, John
1988 ‘Talking Proper’: Schooling and the establishment of English ‘Received Pronunciation’. In An Historic Tongue: Studies in English Linguistics in Memory of Barbara Strang, Graham Nixon & John Honey (eds), 209–227. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel
1747 The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language. London: J. and P. Knapton, T. Logman and T. Shewell, C. Hitch, A. Millar and R. Dodsley.Google Scholar
Jones, Daniel
1917 An English Pronouncing Dictionary. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Kenrick, William
1773 A New Dictionary of the English Language. London: John and Frances Rivington, William Johnston et al.Google Scholar
Labov, William
1974 On the use of the present to explain the past. In Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Linguists, 825–851. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Lass, Roger
1999 Phonology and morphology. In The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. III: 1476–1776, Roger Lass (ed.), 56–186. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Lenker, Ursula
2000 The monasteries of the Benedictine Reform and the ‘Winchester School’: Model cases of social networks in Anglo-Saxon England? European Journal of English Studies 4(3): 225–238. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Macaulay, Ronald K. S.
1997 Standards and Variation in Urban Speech. [Varieties of English around the World G20]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Milroy, James
2001 Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5(4): 530–555. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Milroy, James & Milroy, Lesley
1999 Authority in Language, 3rd edn. London: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar
Milroy, Lesley
2004 Language ideologies and linguistic change. In Critical Reflections on Sociolinguistic Variation, Carmen Fought (ed.), 161–177. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Mugglestone, Lynda
1997 John Walker and Alexander Ellis: Antedating RP. Notes and Queries March, 103–107. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2003 ‘Talking Proper’: The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu & Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid
2006 Standardisation. In A History of the English Language, Richard Hogg & David Denison (eds), 271–311. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Perry, William
1775 The Royal Standard English Dictionary. Edinburgh: D. Willison.Google Scholar
Puttenham, George
1589 The Art of English Poesie. London.Google Scholar
Rosewarne, David
1994 Estuary English: Tomorrow’s RP? English Today 37: 3–8.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar
2007 Postcolonial English: Varieties Around the World. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schwyter, Jürg R.
2016 Dictating to the Mob: The History of the BBC Advisory Committee on Spoken English. Oxford: OUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sheridan, Thomas
1762 A Dissertation on the Causes of the Difficulties, which Occur, in Learning the English Tongue. London: R. and J. Dodsley.Google Scholar
1780 A General Dictionary of the English Language. London: J. Dodsley, C. Dilly and J. Wilkie.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
1976 Shifters, linguistic categories and cultural description. In Meaning in Anthropology, Keith H. Basso & Henry A. Selby (eds), 11–55. Albuquerque NM: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Spence, Thomas
1775 The Grand Repository of the English Language. Newcastle: Thomas Saint.Google Scholar
Trapateau, Nicolas
2016 ‘Pedantick’, ‘polite’, or ‘vulgar’? A systematic analysis of eighteenth-century normative discourse on pronunciation in John Walker’s Dictionary (1791). Language and History 59(1): 25–36. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Walker, John
1774 A General Idea of a Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language on a Plan Entirely New. London: T. Becket, J. Dodsley, J. Robson, T. Davies and T. Lewis, E. and C. Dilly, G. Robinson and G. Kearsley.Google Scholar
1791 A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary. London: G., G.J. and J. Robinson and T. Cadell.Google Scholar
Watts, Richard J.
2011 Language Myths and the History of English. Oxford: OUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wells, John C.
1982 Accents of English. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wyld, Henry C.
1920 A History of Modern Colloquial English. London: Fisher Unwin.Google Scholar
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria, Beal, Joan C., Sen, Ranjan & Wallis, Christine
2018 ‘Proper’ pro-nun-ʃha-ʃhun in eighteenth-century English: ECEP as a new tool for the study of historical phonology and dialectology. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 33(1): 203–227. CrossrefGoogle Scholar

Electronic resources

ECEP:Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database
Sheffield: Digital Humanities Institute. http://​www​.dhi​.ac​.uk​/ecep
OED Online
. Oxford University Press, December 2018 <www​.oed​.com
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

BEAL, JOAN C., RANJAN SEN, NURIA YÁÑEZ-BOUZA & CHRISTINE WALLIS
2020. En[dj]uring [ʧ]unes or ma[tj]ure [ʤ]ukes? Yod-coalescence and yod-dropping in the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database. English Language and Linguistics 24:3 ► pp. 493 ff. Crossref logo
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria
2021. Methodological approaches to the study of codification, prescription, and prescriptivism. Studia Neophilologica ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 september 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.