VLC001 - Demo Course

Received Pronunciation was originally defined as a regional standard associated with the south of England. Today, however, RP is merely an artificial construct which serves as a guideline for a socially more or less accepted standard of English, for example, the kind of English used by many BBC news readers. This variety had not received consideration at the outset.

In 'rhotic' accents /r/ is overtly realized in a wide variety of phonetic contexts, including post-vocalic environments, such as farm /fahrm/ or far /fahr/. In the non-rhotic accents /r/ is excluded from post-vocalic environments, thus /fɑ:m/ and /fɑ:/.

The rhotic accents include those typical of Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Barbados, certain western parts of England, and most of the United States, including General American.
The non-rhotic accents include those typical of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, certain parts of the United States, and most of England and Wales, including RP.