Editing Received Pronunciation (section)

==Prevalence and perceptions==
Traditionally, Received Pronunciation has been associated with high social class. It was the "everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose men-folk [had] been educated at the great public boarding-schools"{{sfnp|Jones|1917|p=viii}} and which conveyed no information about that speaker's region of origin before attending the school. An 1891 teacher's handbook stated, "It is the business of educated people to speak so that no-one may be able to tell in what county their childhood was passed".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Burrell |first1=A. |title=Recitation: a Handbook for Teachers in Public Elementary School |date=1891 |location=London}}</ref> Nevertheless, in the 19th century some British prime ministers, such as [[William Ewart Gladstone]], still spoke with some regional features.<ref>Gladstone's speech was the subject of a book ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=o5uvJAAACAAJ&dq The Best English. A claim for the superiority of Received Standard English]{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, together with notes on Mr. Gladstone's pronunciation'', H.C. Kennedy, [[Clarendon Press]], Oxford, 1934.</ref>

Opinions differ over the proportion of Britons who speak RP. [[Peter Trudgill|Trudgill]] estimated 3% in 1974,<ref name="trudgillestimate">{{cite web |last=Trudgill |first=Peter |title=Sociolinguistics of Modern RP |publisher=University College London |date=8 December 2000 |url=http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/trudgill.htm |access-date=3 October 2012}}</ref> but that rough estimate has been questioned by [[Jack Windsor Lewis|J. Windsor Lewis]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Windsor Lewis |first=Jack |title=A Notorious Estimate |url=http://www.yek.me.uk/archive45.html#blog443 |website=JWL's Blogs |access-date=17 January 2017 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Upton notes higher estimates of 5% (Romaine, 2000) and 10% (Wells, 1982) but refers to these as "guesstimates" not based on robust research.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Upton |first=Clive |editor-last1=Reed |editor-first1=Marnie |editor-last2=Levis |editor-first2=John |title=The Handbook of English Pronunciation |publisher=John Wiley & Son |date=21 January 2019 |page=251 |chapter=Chapter 14: British English |isbn=978-1119055266}}</ref>

The claim that RP is non-regional is disputed, since it is most commonly found in London and the southeast of England. It is defined in the ''[[Concise Oxford English Dictionary]]'' as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the South of England",{{sfnp|Pearsall|1999|p=xiv}} and alternative names such as "Standard Southern British" have been used.{{sfnp|International Phonetic Association|1999}}
Despite RP's historic high social prestige in Britain,{{sfnp|Hudson|1981|p=337}} being seen as the accent of those with power, money, and influence, it may be perceived negatively by some as being associated with undeserved, or accidental, privilege<ref>{{cite web |last=Crystal |first=David |title=Language and Time |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/yourvoice/feature2_4.shtml |work=BBC voices |publisher=BBC |access-date=18 April 2011 |date=March 2007}}</ref>{{sfnp|McArthur|2002|p=43}} and as a symbol of the southeast's political power in Britain.{{sfnp|McArthur|2002|p=43}} Based on a 1997 survey, Jane Stuart-Smith wrote, "RP has little status in Glasgow, and is regarded with hostility in some quarters".<ref>{{cite book |last=Stuart-Smith |first=Jane |title=Urban Voices |chapter=Glasgow: accent and voice quality |page=204 |editor-last1=Foulkes |editor-first1=Paul |editor-last2=Docherty |editor-first2=Gerard |year=1999 |isbn=0340706082 |publisher=Arnold}}</ref> A 2007 survey found that residents of Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to dislike RP.<ref>{{cite news |title=Scottish and Irish accents top list of favourites |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/scottish-and-irish-accents-top-list-of-favourites-448630.html |work=The Independent |date=13 May 2007}}</ref> It is shunned by some with left-wing political views, who may be proud of having accents more typical of the working classes.{{sfnp|McArthur|2002|p=49}}

Since the Second World War, and increasingly since the 1960s, a wider acceptance of regional English varieties has taken hold in education and public life.{{sfnp|Fishman|1977|p=319}}{{sfnp|Cruttenden|2014|p=78}} Nonetheless, surveys from 1969 to 2022 consistently show that RP is perceived as the most prestigious accent of English in the United Kingdom. In 2022, 25% of British adults reported being mocked for their regional accent at work, and 46% in social situations.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=3 November 2022 |title=Bias against working-class and regional accents has not gone away, report finds |url=https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2022/nov/03/bias-against-working-class-and-regional-accents-has-not-gone-away-report-finds |access-date=3 November 2022 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref>