GEOFF LINDSEY, English after RP: Standard British pronunciation today. Cham: Springer, 2019. Pp. xvi + 153. ISBN: 978-3-030-4356-8

Abstract

This book provides a full overview of what Geoff Lindsey terms 'Contemporary British Standard Speech'. Despite the broad subject matter, it is clear, concise and readable, and only 100 pages long. High levels of phonetic detail are provided. It appears to be pitched as an expanded pronunciation guide, predominantly aimed at those teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL), seen in the notes throughout giving suggestions on acquiring the sounds as second language (L2) speakers. In discussing variation and recent changes, it also attracts the interest of sociolinguists.The introductory chapter gives an excellent historical overview of RP [Received Pronunciation], situating its status within the colonial structure of the British Empire. It concludes by placing the end of RP at the end of the 20th century, with the demise of the British Empire, when the British standard was no longer enforced. From a social and educational perspective, this is a very clear point of change but leads to a disagreement in terminology with some using 'modern RP' or 'advanced RP' from the 1970s onwards (Gimson 1970: 88; Fabricius 2000: 31), and others, including Lindsey in the rest of the book, using 'Standard Southern British' (SSB) or equivalent terms such as 'Standard Southern British English' (Deterding 1997) or Southern English (Ball 1984) through the twentieth century. The different terminologies also reveal a disagreement over whether RP still exists; for Lindsey it ends after the end of the British Empire, but others disagree. Trudgill (2008: 4) explicitly states that while the ideology that created RP no longer has the same status within the British educational and social system, the accent still exists, with no fewer native speakers -a view that is still under debate (Fabricius 2019, Halfacre & Khattab 2019). There is modern study of these suggested native speakers available, implying ongoing debate on RP's status, for example, Fabricius (2007) and Badia Barrera (2015), which Lindsey has not fully engaged with. This issue is ongoing through the book; when accent features are reported on, it remains unclear who the speakers are.The chapters walk us through all possible aspects of accent in six broad parts. Within these a systematic description of the phonology of SSB is given, including every part of the phonemic inventory and other phonetic phenomena.Part I covers two factors common in public discussion surrounding accent change: the effect of writing and the effect of American English. The effect of writing results from increased literacy in the nineteenth century (from 50% to nearly 100% of the population). As it increased, the belief grew that written forms had more authority than spoken ones and pronunciations that had changed from the spelling returned to them, e.g. towards from /tç˘dz/ to /t´ wç˘dz/. To me, this effect seems logical, but considering that highly educated RP speakers were likely part of the 50% who were already literate, it is surprising that the demonstrated effect of writing is so strong. If the effect ...