England

Ireland

England

Politically, England is part of Great Britain (alongside Wales and Scotland) which in turn is part of the United Kingdom. English is of course the primary language spoken in England and the rest of the UK, but since the UK has no written constitution, English is not recognised as the official language of the country.

The term ‘British English’ is often erroneously used to refer to the variety of English spoken in England. A more suitable term is ‘English English’ which is occasionally used in the literature. Contemporary English English encompasses sixteen dialects. The major distinction is made between Northern and Southern English English dialects. The most noticeable feature concerns the pronunciation of the STRUT vowel which is replaced by the FOOT vowel in Northern English. One phonological feature that most English English dialects share is non-rhoticity. This means that /r/ is not pronounced when a consonant follows or at the end of a word. Non-rhoticity is also characteristic of Received Pronunciation (RP), the accent of English that is still often employed as the model for teaching the pronunciation of English to foreign language learners.

St. Ives harbour © Christiane Meiekord, 2009

The term RP was coined in the 19th century by the phonetician Alexander Ellis. RP developed in the South of England and it was the typical pronunciation used by male speakers who had been educated in private fee-paying boarding schools. In the early 20th century, Daniel Jones used RP as the basis for his pronunciation dictionary. A more modern term for RP is ‘BBC English’ but this term is somewhat misleading since nowadays not all of the presenters on the BBC actually use this accent.

Over the course of time, the capital London has had considerable impact on the shaping of English. The best-known variety of English English is probably Cockney which is characterised by the realisation of /t/ with a glottal stop and h-dropping.

Since the 1950s, Britain has seen an influx of immigrants from its former colonies on the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean and Africa. Hence, in addition to English English other English varieties such as Indian English, Pakistani English or Jamaican English are also spoken in England. Today, linguists even recognise the existence of British creole which is spoken by people who have been born in Britain to parents of Caribbean background.

Reviews of available literature on books dealing with three of these English Varieties can be found on the following links: Scotland, Liverpool and London

© Verena Minow