The Rise of RPHistorical reasons R

People in Britain speak English with different accents according to where they come from and what kind of social status they have or what kind of education they received, etc. Among the various accents, there is one that has achieved a certain eminence. It’s called Received Pronunciation, RP. And this accent is also generally preferred for teaching English as a foreign language and for reading BBC news bulletins. Why is it so? Let’s take a look at how it evolved over the years, its features, its present status and so forth.
    Received pronunciation, RP, had its historical origin in the dialect of English spoken particularly in the region stretching southeast from the midland which is in the central part of England down towards London, the capital city. The two historical university cities of Cambridge and Oxford, though outside this region, are also considered as the place of origin for the dialect. The dialect survived because of its association with centers of power and influence. It was spoken by the merchant classes of London in the 14th century, for example, and would have been familiar to students attending the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the Middle Ages. Its status as an important dialect was enhanced by its use in government and official documents from about 1430 onwards. More recently, its association since the 19th century with public schools helped to achieve special preeminence for its distinctive patterns of pronunciation. So we can see, in the United Kingdom at least, this accent is usually associated with a higher social or educational background, with the BBC and certain professions, and it’s most commonly taught to students learning English as a foreign language. For many such students, it is the only accent they are prepared to learn and the teacher who does not use it may have difficulty in finding a position as a teacher of English in certain non-English speaking countries. Other names for this accent are the Queen’s English, Oxford English, and BBC English. As the accent has lost its former regional affiliations, it is now the most widely understood and spoken of all the accents within the British Isles.
    So what are the most interesting characteristics of RP? Firstly, the relatively very small number of speakers who use it do not identify themselves as coming from any particular geographical region.  Secondly, RP is largely confined to England and there it is a non-localized accent. Thirdly, RP is a class accent. In England the higher the social class of the speaker, the less the regional accent and also the use of local words and grammatical forms. As we have seen, RP, a non-regional accent based on the speech of the great public schools, has been accepted as a standard inside England for well over a century.  Increasingly, however, there has Been a tendency for the accent of educated people in Southeastern England to replace strict RP as the standard. RP has lost some of its prestige as people educated at public schools have lost their monopoly of power in education. A considerable part has been played by the great post-war expansion of higher education.
    Today the majority of university students are not speakers of RP. Most school teachers, too, do not use RP but an educated regional accent. This is not to say that RP has lost all its magic. It still has a prestige, for example, in the financial and banking sectors, among senior government officials and officers of the Armed Forces. Moreover, since it has been so fully described, it is the accent usually taught to foreigners learning British English. But the public schools are no longer felt to have a monopoly of correct speech and the prestige of educated regional speech has risen enormously during the past half century. Since an educated southeastern accent is fairly similar to RP, there is a tendency nowadays for this to be regarded as a standard. It is the accent used, for example, by many radio and television announcers and presenters. On the other hand, there has been a rise in the prestige of all regional accents in Britain. And it is probable that we are moving towards the American position in which it is normal and acceptable for a speaker to use an educated regional accent, and there is no supra-regional class accent.