The accent of BBC radio presenters

Abstract

Accent, defined by Wells (1982a: 1) as “a pattern of pronunciation used by a speaker for whom English is the native language (...)”, has been an important notion in the English sociolinguistic studies. The English assess and are assessed by other native speakers on the basis of the way they speak (Meyerhoff 2006). There is a multitude of accents in Great Britain as inhabitants of each region speak in their own distinctive manner. It appears that the accent of each region carries some social values and native speakers have a tendency to attribute certain characteristics to users of a given accent (Wells 1982a). For instance, speakers of accents of southern England are regarded as more intelligent, with a higher social status than it is the case in north urban England (Stockwell 2007). The present paper describes a study conducted on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), one of the largest networks of radio stations, TV channels as well as commercial activities worldwide. It analyses the pronunciation of BBC radio presenters with respect to a standard English accent known as Received Pronunciation (RP). The study aims to examine the connection between the BBC and the RP which once was strong, but has changed in the recent years (Fabricius 2000), and to determine the role of RP on the BBC.