Received Pronunciation
1
8.0
- noun
- UK
:
pronunciación recibida
- The BBC once required all its announcers to speak in Received Pronunciation.
Examples
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Many people associate Received Pronunciation with the British elite.
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Is Received Pronunciation really necessary?
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Many dictionaries use Received Pronunciation as the basis for their pronunciation guides.
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She learned to imitate Received Pronunciation for her role as a television news anchor.
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The accent used by the BBC is known as Received Pronunciation.
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Many schools in England teach children to speak with Received Pronunciation to prepare them for formal communication.
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With its distinct clear vowels, Received Pronunciation remains a marker of social status in British society.
Synonyms
1
7.7
Standard British English spoken by educated people, especially in southern England and by the royal family
How Prestigious
Surface Forms
Morphology
A learner who knows 'received' as 'accepted/standard' and 'pronunciation' as 'way of saying words' will likely infer a meaning like 'the accepted or standard way of pronouncing (English)', so the core sense is compositional. However, the term is a fixed proper name for a specific prestigious British accent (sociolinguistic and historical nuances used in broadcasting/education) that are not fully predictable from the parts, so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
Received Pronunciation comes from an old meaning of received and pronunciation and meant the way of speaking 'accepted' at top schools and universities. Because teachers and the BBC used that accent, it became the 'standard' British way of speaking.