English phonetics and phonology (Peter Roach

1 Introduction

In any language we can identify a small number of regularly used sounds (vowels and consonants) that we call phonemes; The rest of the course goes on to look at larger units of speech such as the syllable and at aspects of speech such as stress and intonation. The accent that we concentrate on and use as our model is the one that is most often recommended for foreign learners studying British English It has for a long time been identified by the name Received Pronunciation (usually abbreviated to its initials. RP), but this name is old-fashioned and misleading. Since it is most familiar as the accent used by most announcers and newsreaders on BBC and British independent television broadcasting channels, a preferable name is BBC pronunciation