Features of RP and Singlish
A feature of RP is the word stress pattern and the articulation of single phonemes within words. As was pointed out by British phonetician John Wells (1982), RP is no “homogeneous invariant monolith” – there is considerable variation among speakers and consequently there is variation in the pronunciation. The word stress can generally be seen in the relatively long words. Take for instance the words like cigarette, brochure, address, laboratory, garage and comparable - these words have stress patterns that differ from other standard English, like American English. As seen in the following table, the stressed syllable is preceded by an apostrophe:
However, these differences in stress patterns are perhaps not as notable as those in the pronunciation of certain phonemes. One characteristic is the rhotacisation of some vowels or “bunching of the tongue” to make a post-vocalic ‘r’. Speakers of the RP accent tend to pronounce the ‘r’ with a r-less sound as in car and cart in contrast to their AE counterparts who would pronounced both words with a r-full sound. As such, RP is classified as non-rhotic accent.
Meanwhile, in Singlish the ‘r’ is often substituted by ‘l’. This could be attributed to the laziness of the Singlish speaker to stress on the correct diction of the letter. Some of the common spoken Singlish words with this phenomena are seen in the table below:
Another feature present in RP is the dynamics of speech or prosody. Speech intonation in conjunction with rhythm can have linguistic meaning as it can indicate whether it is the end of a statement or whether it is a defining or a non-defining clause. Depending on the occasion and the speech style (informal, formal, solemn), RP seemed to have a fairly wide range of rates of speech, and also greater pitch modulation that is often exaggerated by elocuted speakers.
The rhythmic profile of an accent may be created by prosodic features in combination with the pronunciation of vowels or consonants. The Singaporean English accents strike the listener as ‘staccato’ in effect. This impression is derived partly from the precise cutting-off of equal length to each syllable to create a consistent pace. This is also partly to do with the extensive use of the sound known as the ‘glottal stop’, both between words and to replace certain consonants at the end of words.
In relation to speech is voice quality. As highlighted in the preceding paragraph, there was more to the description of different types of speech than segmental features of the types of stress and intonation. Voice quality can provide information about the characteristics of the speaker himself as deduced from his voice. The basis of voice quality is ‘articulatory setting’: the physical arrangement of different parts of the vocal tract as people speak. Hearers respond powerfully to voice quality as part of the overall impression of an accent.
There is no need to elaborate more on the voice quality of one with a Singlish accent. Anyone listening to one can more or less figuratively formed an image of the person behind the voice. Just imagine PCK reading the news over the ladio (radio).
Next we like to discuss the regional variation in accent. Although RP is regional in origin, it is no longer regionally confined but strictly a class accent, to be found in the educated all over England. English accents tend to be associated with the different English-speaking areas. However, when it comes to specific regionally differentiated varieties of English, we are confronted with the issue of dialect. The difference between accent and dialect is that the former consists of pronunciation while the latter comprises grammar, words and their meanings, and pronunciation. But it is difficult to draw precise boundaries between them, and the question of where accent ends, and dialect begins is dependent on the situation and region.
Differences in pronunciation were affected by the ‘Great Vowel Shift’, which affected the vowel pronunciation in England from around the fifteenth century. The long vowel that is now pronounced in a word like food (/u:/) in RP was the typical pronunciation in a word like cow in the Middle English period. And in present day RP vowel (/i:/) in a word such as team occurred in the word blind in Middle English. During the Great Vowel Shift, there was a systematic shift affecting the long vowels of English. They became ‘closer’ (i.e. articulated with the tongue raised higher in the mouth). Those that were already close (where the tongue could not move any higher) became dipthongs. The Great Vowel Shift had a considerable impact on the pronunciation of English in different parts of England. It had given rise to a division between northern accents-which had kept some of the old pronunciations-and the rest.
As for Singapore English, according to Tony Hung of NUS, there is less than 14 vowel sounds present in contrast to the standard 26 vowel sounds found in RP. This explains the staccato effect found in the Singapore accent. Singlish has evolved and become more established and profound in our culture and this is attributed more to the post-independence generation. This was largely contributed by the absorption of the vernacular schools into the mainstream English schools. The variation of the Singapore accent can be detected in how the different varieties of English are spoken. There is the standard type as spoken by the educated in the English-medium schools. The non-standard accent can be further sub-divided into two varieties: (1) associated with the less eloquent English speaker whose sentence structure, vocabulary and grammar can be atrocious; (2) the really Ah Beng-ish version where there is a mixture of Malay and Chinese words. The latter is more spoken by the Chinese-speaking community, taxi drivers and heartland shopkeepers.
The first type of non-standard accent can sound like these examples:
The second sub-variety of the non-standard accent is seen in this fictional conversation between Phua Chu Kang and his nephew, Aloysius (who speaks standard English), ala-PCK style:
Aloy : Why is making love so enjoyable?
PCK : Aiyah, ah boy, enjoyable becaws, same like when you dig
your nose with your finger mah!
Aloy : Why do women hate it when they get raped?
PCK : Ai-yah! Say, you walk along the load (road),den someone
come over and dig your nose, you like or not? Ehhh? Don't
pray, pray ah!
Aloy : Why is making love carried out in private ?
PCK : Ah boyyyyy, use your blain, use your blainnnnn, you go and
dig your nose in flont of your whole class izit ?? Stupid lah!!
Aloy : Wah ...... Uncle Chu Kang, you are very good.
PCK : Aiyah ...... best in Singapore and JB, and some say Batam
also ah!!!
Status of RP
Let us now delved on how RP has occupied an influential and powerful position in the world in relation to Singlish. The whole point about RP seemed to be that possession of it enabled people to suggest to others that they belonged to a certain social class or that they have had a superior education and were worth mixing with for those whom such qualifications were important.
RP can also traced its roots to history where it had an influence over the vassal states of the British Empire across the globe. The only channel if the elite of these vassal states wanted to communicate and be understood by its colonial masters was for them to be proficient in the language.
The rich and powerful also have its close association with RP. The social meaning of RP would accommodate the many different styles of RP parallel to the many different classes of RP speakers, namely, aristocracy, landed gentry, professions, civil service, clergy, armed forces, etc.
For a long while the media was used by the BBC to exert its influence over television viewers and radio listeners. It was the voice of Britain bringing news, information and entertainment into almost every home and between 1927 and 1940, it developed a sophisticated system of broadcasts for schools, to which by 1939 over 9,000 schools were listening regularly to BBC English. The ‘BBC accent’ became the RP of its time. Thus, the BBC exerted an immense and exclusive linguistic influence on Britain and internationally through the BBC World Service and its co-operation with the Linguaphone Institute for half a century.
In matters of commerce within and without of Britain, RP became globally accepted as the language of business as well as in banking and stocks trading. In the area of law, RP was also the medium used in all court proceedings. Solicitors representing both sides of the law need to have a good command of RP in order to plea their cases clearly to the judge and jury.
Even in aviation, RP is essential as all traffic controllers guide pilots in and out of airports so as to prevent any untoward accidents. A poor command of English can result in disastrous consequences as in the case of SIA’s SQ 006 crash at Chiang Kai Shek Airport in Taiwan on 31 Oct 2000. Though the stormy weather and runway signages were the main contributors to the crash, it was alleged that the tower duty controller had not given clear instructions for the pilot to take off. Reportedly, the duty controller on that fateful night did not report for work the next day and had apparently also resigned.
In relation to RP’s international status, Singlish will continue to exist side-by-side the standard accent in our local context in many of the areas mentioned above. This is because there is still a sizeable vernacular speaking local populace.
Conclusion
The importance RP has played goes to show that without a good and clear diction of English, it can be difficult to communicate the message or instruction what one party wants to convey to the receiving party. RP is so well received that it has become the official and working language of many international conferences. Though some delegations may not have a good command of RP, there is bound to be at least one member who is RP proficient enough to translate what his or her delegation wants to convey to the meeting, press conference or to a foreign counterpart. Hence, we concur with the notion and that there is enough evidence to justify that indeed RP had been a great influence, thus fortifying its position as a powerful communication tool in the world today.
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(2,199 words)
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Wright, Susan (2002), Accents Of English, p.260
Wright, Susan (2002), Accents of English: p. 260
Refers to pitch, pitch range and loudness or vertical modulation of speech.
Refers speech rate, length of syllables and pauses forming the linear modulation.
Wright, Susan (2002), Accents of English, p. 268
Glottal stop is sometimes represented in writing as an apostrophe as in wha’ for what or bu’er for butter.
A PCK joke circulating over the Internet.
