Definition of received pronunciation Received pronunciation

Re•ceived Pro•nun•ci•a•tion

We found 2 definitions of received pronunciation from 2 different sources.

What does received pronunciation mean?

Noun
received pronunciation - the approved pronunciation of British English; originally based on the King's English as spoken at public schools and at Oxford and Cambridge Universities (and widely accepted elsewhere in Britain); until recently it was the pronunciation of English used in British broadcasting
		orthoepy, pronunciation a term formerly used for the part of phonology that dealt with the `correct' pronunciation of words and its relation to `correct' orthography

= synonym
= antonym
= related word

Received Pronunciation (or "RP", or "BBC English") is the name given to the standard accent of English used by the BBC. It is also sometimes taught in private schools. Foreign students of British English learn this kind of English at school. The British pronunciation of words given in dictionaries is in received pronunciation. Received pronunciation is used because there are many different accents used in Britain, and people think it is easier to learn to understand one accent than to learn to understand the many different accents.

Features.

Received Pronunciation is non-rhotic. This means that in words ending with an 'r', for example "car", the final 'r' is not pronounced.

Many words have long vowel sounds. For example, the 'a' in 'bath' rhymes is the same as in 'far', not the same as in 'cat'.