By Olga Smith
On 27 November 2019, Sky News revealed accents that face the most discrimination in the UK. https://news.sky.com/story/revealed-why-your-accent-could-be-holding-you-back-11871382
Although some activists want to think that an accent should not be a decisive factor, people with strong foreign and regional accents miss out on wonderful opportunities. Since the times of George Bernard Show's play Pygmalion and up until now, people who aspired to get ahead in life realized that without RP many doors will never be opened to them.
Received Pronunciation is a Pronunciation taught for many decades since it was popularised by the BBC. In the past, it was called Queen’s English and Oxford English. Therefore, this accent is associated with a certain social and economic position and the quality of one's education. It is interesting to note that a study revealed, that the more refined is the RP of a person the higher is their social status. A higher social status often means a better economic situation.
There are two main types of Received Pronunciation:
1. General RP, which is used as a teaching model and used in pronouncing Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries. Therefore it is the most understood version of the English accent. General RP is also a compulsory accent to learn in London drama schools.
2. Refined/heightened RP is associated with the aristocracy, certain professions such as officers in the navy of a certain generation. It is spoken, for example, by the Queen. General RP is spoken by the Queen’s grandchildren.
In the article, Fiona Hill, a British-born US security adviser suggested that "her accent would have held her back if she still lived in the UK". My American ex-husband lives and works in the USA now and is often involved in recruiting IT specialists in Silicon Valley. He told me that many Indian and Chinese born IT specialists get lower paid positions because of their strong accents. He added that a strong accent distracted him from focusing on his work and was hard to deal with during conference calls.
When I had a very strong Russian accent I felt that people looked down on me. I was also very annoyed that people often asked me to repeat myself, as they didn't always understand what I was saying. But after I studying with Linda James, one of the top RP teachers in the UK, I noticed that people started to treat me differently, with respect and consideration. I was very surprised. Also, my communication with people became much more enjoyable.
I thought that there are many people like me in London who might benefit from learning RP. Linda and I wrote a book, and to my amazement, it became an international best-seller. Today we have published five books and eight apps in the series Get Rid of your Accent. Recently we have also published two video courses on Udemy to support our books and apps with demonstrations of the speech organ positions for each RP sound, sentence stress and English intonation.
Many people benefited from our books, apps and video courses. The most successful of our students book their speech analysis with us and enrol on accent reduction courses to be more effective in their study.