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Futility of pursuing standards in pronunciation

Futility of pursuing standards in pronunciation

Sanjay Arora, Government PG College, Dausa

 

‘Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words; be as one that knoweth and yet holdeth his tongue' (Daintith, 1992) 1

These lines of the Bible hold true in terms of compactness of thoughts and ideas while interacting with people in any language. They form the very basics of expression. Even before languages were invented, men did communicate. But it was mainly through sounds, gestures and movements which gradually got converted into words, phrases and then sentences which formed the corpus of a particular language. But with rapid advancement and multiplicity of dialects within the same language, need for standards became urgent. With the spread of civilizations, there was an urgent need to distinguish the educated lot from the non-educated or less educated. Speech formed the primary mode of a message in any language. Out of all the prevalent languages in the world, English today has attained a dominant position and hence forms the focus of the study.

Before we embark upon finding and identifying standards in English in the native and non-native countries, it is important to know its status in India and England and shatter some of the myths regarding pursuing standards in pronunciation.

In the present paper the focus will be on Received Pronunciation (RP) because this has been our target ever since British rule and continues to be so even today. Only the last decade has seen the Network English (the American standard) invading the world because of the spread of multinationals, computers and outsourcing of jobs. RP is still preferable because it has an element of prestige attached to it. It is also known as the Queen's (or King's) English, because it is spoken by the royalty; also considered its preserver. It is also sometimes referred to as BBC English, because it was traditionally used by the BBC. But the fact is that the BBC news presenters are no longer bound by one type of accent. There is enormous variation in their accents.

RP is that standard form of English pronunciation that tells a great a deal about the social and educational background of a person. But in the past few decades the concept of conforming to RP has changed and many people have unhesitatingly started using regional and class accents. The younger generation that traditionally tried to use RP has started taking liberties. In the native land it is mainly due to the influence of the migrants who have been using English as a second language or a foreign language in their countries. A recent report by Nick McDermott suggests this.1a

RP is often believed to be based on southern accents by some in England itself. Others believe it is based on the south-east Midlands; Northampton shire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire dialects. But the fact is that standard English is a conglomeration of all these accents and also has elements of Essex and Middlesex speech. This also clarifies the reason for its complexity. Today, RP has three different forms; Conservative RP, Mainstream RP and Contemporary (or Advanced) RP (Received Pronunciation, 2007)2. Conservative RP refers to a traditional accent usually associated with the more cautious older speakers and the aristocratic class and is acquired through extensive practice at elocution sessions. It is RP that is emphasized in most of the public schools around the world and probably for this reason the users of English of some countries seem closer to native accent.

The neutral accent that is the buzz word today is what Mainstream RP is all about. Age, occupation or lifestyle of the user does not become the determining factor. Contemporary RP is the English of the younger-generation. But these days there is a great overlap between Mainstream and Contemporary RP, obliterating the difference between the two. Rather they become important determinants in locating the regional origin of the speaker. A Punjabi speaker for example has a typical accent of pronouncing English words. Here are some examples from the speech of one such speaker and a scholar of English at that (Dhawan, 2007) 3:

1.son-in-law /sΛn in la:/

2.characters /kƏrekterz/

3.Canada /kƏna:da:/

It is common among such speakers of English to use the sound /a:/ where the sound /<!--[if gte vml 1]>

So these flaws, with varying degrees, are bound to be present in the speech of non-natives English learners as they get transferred from non-native teachers. To avoid this, the Chinese government, which has woken up to the call of ‘Learn English,' is only employing native speakers of English to teach English to their students in schools and colleges so that the learners can get their ears attuned to listening to native English and accordingly modify their pronunciation to something closer to RP and at the same time also improve upon their vocabulary and grammar.

The problem with pursuing standards in pronunciation is that RP has never remained the same. It has been changing over time. Royal speech i.e. the Queen's ‘speech voice', which was once the standard for foreigners learning English, has also changed since the 1950s.2a The reason for this may be the maturation of the vocal tract of the Queen in the last 57 years. So the important factor is that even in a native speaker, with the passage of time, there may be differences in pronunciation.

Today the number of native speakers of English and the second language users is almost the same. But with countries like China, Japan and France joining the bandwagon of English-learning, the number of second language users is bound to grow thrice than that of the native users. Because of this, almost in every non-native English speaking country, we come across English teaching shops like Cambridge School of Languages, Oxford English Speaking Institute, American Language Center and the like. But they have nothing to do with Cambridge or Oxford in England or any institute in America. The functioning of these and other such English Speaking Institutes is much of a muchness. They are confused how to make the learners speak English. As a result they end up teaching grammar, vocabulary and writing but in no way they are able to prepare students to speak English, forget about correct English. The teachers teaching in such institutes themselves mispronounce common words. If one embarks upon an extensive survey, within a single city one can notice many variations in pronunciation, so no generalization can be made in this regard. Here mention of outdated pedagogical methods is not being made.

RP has gradually become a commodity available for sale in the form of cassettes and CDs. Daniel Jones termed it as ‘Public School Pronunciation' because he felt that it was ‘the everyday speech of families of Southern English persons whose menfolk have been educated at the great public boarding schools' (Jones, 2004)4. In a way RP is democratic because it wipes out information about the speaker's region of origin. The takers of RP in both England and outside are the educated middle class, and in non-native countries even the upper class, as it is linked to social prestige.

In England, the use of RP was considered to be a trait of education and in the non-native world the situation is no different. There are some who advocate the cause of pronunciation vehemently whereas some others do not bother much about it. In the1940s and 50s aping RP in Indian universities by students was common. The emphasis on pronunciation started in the University of Rajasthan a few years ago and continues till date. RP gives a kind of pseudo-satisfaction to the students and the teachers teaching them that they belong to an elite group. This superiority complex can be seen more in the non-native countries where the students have to struggle to conform to standards in pronunciation. It is very commonly seen that those with freshly acquired knowledge of sounds and pronunciation of some common words take pride in pronouncing them correctly and are often seen testing their peers to establish and prove their superiority over them. Those fortunate enough to be educated in good public schools do not find much difficulty in approximating standard pronunciation fast. The same is true of England where graduates from Oxford and Cambridge are a cut above the rest.

From the 1970s, attitude towards RP started changing slowly. This change in England started during and after World War second when the BBC announcers started using strong regional dialects, and earlier in the 1960s, when Prime Minister Harold Wilson used a strong regional Yorkshire accent.

These are reasons of deliberate change being brought about by the natives in their own tongue but for the non-natives the external factors have a stronger influence even if there is a burning inner urge within to learn things correctly. As mentioned earlier, their teachers (who are mainly non-native speakers) are themselves deficient. The fact remains that even if users are not able to conform to RP they are able to make themselves understood. Staunch advocates of RP do make fun of non-native, deficient users of English by citing jokes where mispronunciation of words results into misinterpretation. But such examples of mispronunciation are often quoted to prove the importance of correct pronunciation. There is no denying the fact that one should be able to convey what he wants to but for reasons beyond one's control, one is compelled to use whatever English s/he can manage in a situation which demands its use. A user does lose some reputation if he pronounces ‘water' as /va:ter/, ‘thumb' as /θΛmb/ or ‘petrol' as /pitrol/. So, pronunciation of these types of common words needs to be checked.

Had RP been so important today, the call centres would have been too rigid in their selection of candidates and no non-native user would have been able to cater to their needs. Nor would have the British Council gone soft on the various tests they conduct where despite deficiencies in pronunciation, the non-native test-seekers are able to get higher grades. It is of course known to all that the reason for this compromise with accent and pronunciation is purely due to economic reasons. The natives have also realized the harsh reality that the non-native speakers have inherent barriers mainly determined by their mother-tongue interference and they need to put in persistent effort and undergo extensive training by native experts to establish control over pronunciation. Then if it is a learner of Hindi whose language is syllable-based, will definitely find it impossible to follow the mechanics of a stressed-timed language. Among the non-natives, the ones who have recently realized the importance of English and started picking up the language are the Chinese, the Koreans, Srilankans and the Japanese. They are poor losers presently as compared to their Indian counterparts. But with the passion with which they have started learning English, especially the Chinese, very soon they are going to overshadow and surpass the Indians as they have done in industries and trade.

Here mention also needs to be made of the advertising world which in order to appeal to a larger mass is following the policy of ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do'. A word like ‘pizza' which in the Parantha Pizza ad of McDonald's in the year 2004, was rightly pronounced as /pi:tsƏ/ is now being pronounced as /pi:tza:/, just to sound more familiar to the non-native ears. Mispronunciation may also be due to ignorance. So we find that both the young and the old are using the language of convenience. In such a situation, as per David Crystal's estimate, ‘there could be a tri-English world, one in which you could speak a local English-based dialect at home, a national variety at work or school, and international Standard English to talk to foreigners'(Power, 2005)5. It is very true in the present context. We do have the three English worlds in India. The errors cited below (broadly divided into three categories) are a clear indication to that:

Errors in pronunciation by those speaking a local English-based dialect:

Word Mispronounced as Should be pronounced as

1.was /wa:d<!--[if gte vml 1]>

2.is /id<!--[if gte vml 1]>

3.father /fa:ðer/(aspirated /ph/) /fa:ðƏ(r)/

4.why /va:eI/(aspirated /vh/) /waI/

5.brother /broðer/ /brΛðƏ(r)/

6.plan /pla:n/ /plæn/

7.what /wa:t/(aspirated /vh/) /w<!--[if gte vml 1]>

Errors in pronunciation by those exposed to standards:

Word Mispronounced as Should be pronounced as

1.period /pi:riƏd/ /pIƏriƏd/

2.plan /pla:n/ /plæn/

3.receipt /risipt/ /rIsi:t/

4.granite /granaIt/ /grænIt/

5.sonography /sonogra:fi/(with stress on /-gra:fi/) /sƏn<!--[if gte vml 1]>

6. tarot /tærΛt/ /tærƏu/

7. plumber /plΛmber/ /plΛmƏ(r)/

Errors in pronunciation by those from whom standards are desirable:

Word Mispronounced as Should be pronounced as

1.Poe /po/ /pƏu/

2.Elaine /ælen/ /IleIn/

3.Hazlitt /hæzlet/ /hæzlIt/

4.Jonathan /d<!--[if gte vml 1]>

5.Synge /sind<!--[if gte vml 1]>

6.Thomas /θ<!--[if gte vml 1]>

<!--[if gte vml 1]>

8.hamartia /hæmer ia:/ /ha:ma:ti:Ə/

The classification of the errors above has been done on the basis of observation of English being spoken by the students with limited exposure to English, those with wide exposure to English and third by lecturers of English, teaching English at the post graduate and under graduate levels in various universities and colleges in Rajasthan. The possibility of the second category of users not committing errors of the first category or that in the third category not committing errors of the second category cannot be ruled out. This classification has been done to prove the point that there are different levels of learners using English and they keep on shifting from the lower category to the higher with constant use of and exposure to the language. Here I would like to confess that even after putting in about ten years of teaching, I too had been mispronouncing words like ‘granite', ‘tarot', ‘plumber', ‘hamartia', ‘Synge', ‘Elaine' and ‘Maugham'. It was just about a couple of years ago that I learnt the right pronunciation of these words. There may be many more which, even till date, I may still be mispronouncing but that in no way hampers my communication or becomes an acid test of my knowledge of the language. The key factor is comprehensibility. As long as one is comprehensible, it does not matter whether one is able to pronounce the sound /θ/ correctly or not in words like ‘think', ‘thank' etc. Linguist Jennifer Jenkins points out that international pilots ‘already pronounce the word "three" as "tree" in radio dispatches, since "tree" is more widely comprehensible' (Power, 2005) 6.

Learners who did not have the opportunity of learning English from proficient teachers of English can easily pass the buck on to them and go scot-free. But for advancement in career one needs to take personal responsibility and strive hard to rise up the better- English-pronunciation graph. Moreover, a non-native speaker of English should not forget the fact that there are some mother-tongue-hindrances while pronouncing certain sounds. Sounds like /<!--[if gte vml 1]>

Today English has become the common-link-language. As a result, now even the Koreans, the Germans, the Brazilians, the Swedes, the Chinese and the Japanese are learning to speak English. With such a wide mass using English all over the world, with mother tongue interference and regional influences, how can standards in English pronunciation ever be dreamt of?

Whatever the plight of English is in terms of conformity or non-conformity to standards, one thing is sure that even the very conservative and rigid countries have started realizing the importance of English3a. From such societies which are now adopting English as a basic need out of global compulsions, it is almost impossible to expect pursuance of standards so rigidly. Even in our own country, there has been an increase in the number of English medium schools, indicating the increased importance of English over the mother tongue.

The rising graph of English users all over India may be a positive sign but in no way can we expect the standards to improve because there are not enough teachers who are themselves familiar with the standard RP. There is a lot of disparity in terms of language. Where on the one hand we have a debate in St Stephen's College over the loss of the sound /f/ in the college name in place of the sound /v/4a, on the other we have teachers who are still teaching the students that there are five vowel sounds in English. At present only five per cent of Indian speakers are considered proficient in English but the fact is that ninety five percent of this so-called proficient lot has problems with English sounds and pronunciation.

The problem becomes graver when proficient teachers give up implementing standards, teaching demotivated learners. One such teacher (a lecturer teaching at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in one of the colleges) says that, ‘If I pronounce the word ‘petrol' as /petrƏl/, my class would blow me up' (Deepa, 2007) 7.

It is felt that RP matters only for a limited group of professional users, say for example commercial pilots. The turning down of some well-trained and expert Brazilian pilots due to their non-proficiency in English recentlymade news5a. Standards in English (American mainly) are also desirable for call centre aspirants. Even news readers and telephone operators need to speak polished English.

The problem, especially in India, is that more and more Hindi words are finding a place in English dictionaries. This lexical change is coming up in English at a very rapid pace. At regular intervals, we come across news of Hindi words finding a place in English dictionaries. Words like accha, aloo, arre, chaddi, bhasha, desi, yaar and a host of others that have been added to Oxford English Dictionary are a powerful indication of how Indian English is penetrating the English arena and making its presence felt. The criterion of including a word is on the basis of its ‘citations in the media'.

Similar would be the case in terms of pronunciation sooner or later. If a large number of users retain the sound /b/ in words like ‘tomb', ‘comb', ‘thumb' etc, it will become acceptable gradually with the passage of time. The day is not far when Indian pronunciation of the word ‘foreign' as phoren and ‘father' as phather will also become acceptable. There is an increasing tendency among the younger generation to ignore correct pronunciation. They feel that as long as they can put themselves across, they do not need to care about conforming to standard pronunciation.

Just because the incompetent users outnumber the correct users, the former have developed a ghetto mentality and have started imposing their lexical and phonological inaccuracies.

But the fact remains that if we can manage to conform to standards, we have a lot to gain in the times to come as some of the proficient ones are even today drawing handsome packages at call centres and the corporate world. Just as the Americans, the British and the Australians are selling their English to the world, we too can cash in on our proficiency in English. But with hardly any native teachers left in India, the chances of this are meager unless our government ensures teaching of English through native teachers. The focus in terms of pronunciation in this paper has just been on segmental features. So if both teachers and students in non-native lands are struggling with these features, having command over suprasegmental features without native teachers is impossible. This proves the futility of pursuing standards in pronunciation.

Notes:

1a Nick McDermott‘Behave, don't be badmash', Times of India, 16 March 2007

Over hundreds of years, French, Latin and Greek gently shaped the way the English language developed. But now there is a call for the English taught in schools to take on a much more global flavour.

A report say hybrid languages such as "Hinglish" – a mixture of English and Hindu – and Chinglish – a fusion of Chinese and English – should be part of the curriculum. Instead of naughty, pupils could be told to stop being a "badmash" and canteens might advertise "machi-chips" beside the conventional description of fish and chips.

The call comes from the leftwing think tank Demos, which says Britain is in danger of being marginalized due to an "outdated" attitude to the language. Sam Jones, co-author of the report, said international influences need to be recognized as well as the growing use of hybrid English by immigrant groups.

"English can no longer be seen as a single language, but more as a family of languages, "he said. "Each of these reflect the different ways people experience the world. We all encounter this every day, from the sketch show Goodness Gracious Me to comments on the BBC website.

2a. Agencies ‘Queens' English less posh' Hindustan Times 08 December 2006

Queen Elizabeth II's cut-glass accent is just ain't what it used to be. A study of her famous Christmas broadcasts has found that it now sounds less upper class.

Jonathan Harrington, professor of phonetics at the University of Munich, used digital technology to analyse each of her messages to the Commonwealth since her accession in 1952 and tracked the subtle evolution in her speech. He said it changed from the aristocratic Upper Received Pronunciation or Queen's English to less plummy Standard Received Pronunciation.

Harrington said, ‘in 1952 she would have been heard referring to "thet men in the bleck het", now it would be "that man in the black hat'. Similarly, she would have spoken of ‘citay' and ‘dutay', rather than ‘citee' and ‘dutee'. In the 1950s she would have been ‘lorst' but by the 1970s this became ‘lost"'.

3a Carla Power, ‘Not the Queen's English', Newsweek, 07 March 2005

Governments, even linguistically protectionist ones, are starting to agree. Last year Malaysia decided to start teaching school-level math and science in English. In France, home of the Academie Francaise, whose members are given swords and charged with defending the sanctity of the French language, a commission recommended last fall that basic English be treated like basic math: as part of the mandatory core curriculum beginning in primary school. As it turns out, the minister of Education didn't agree. No matter; French schoolchildren are ahead of their government: 96 percent of them are already studying the language as an elective in school.

4a Anjali Aggarwal, ‘How Stephen's lost the ‘F' word, Times of India, 31 August 2006

Over 125 years after it was established, St Stephen's College is caught in a controversy about how to pronounce its name. Is it St Stephen's pronounced with an ‘f', or is it, phonetically speaking, St Steven's?

Sometime in the last few years, to the horror os many old Stephanians, the college began to be referred by fresh Stephaninas as ‘Steven's'. Apparently, principal Anil Wilson himself ordained in a morning assembly in 2000 that the red-brick campus be called St Steven's.

So that's how younger Stephanians know their college. In fact, the recorded voice that answers the college phone says, "Welcome to ‘St Steven's'". Recent graduates describe their alma mater the way Wilson has proclaimed.

But Arvind Malhotra, who heads the alumni association, says he hasn's met any old Stephanian who uses the v-pronunciation. "I don't think this issue has ever come up in the college's history".

Most students know the college is named after the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death. Due to his Greek origins, the name should have a ‘ph' pronunciation, unlike in Britain where ‘ph' is typically pronounced as ‘v'. His name, meaning ‘crown', has a Greek root pronounced ‘stef-a-nos'.

5a. Saurabh Sinha, ‘No English, no licence for pilots', Times of India, 14 December 2007

Facing a desperate shortage of trained local commanders, Indian carriers' hunt for them abroad is now taking them to places where people may know how to fly but not speak English. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) last week shot down the request of two foreign pilots for getting their commercial pilot licences validated in India. The reason – A Brazilian pilot being eyed by Jet Airways was not proficient in English and the other hired by a general aviation company did not have his papers in order.

References:

1.Daintith, John, Fergusson, Rosalind, Stibbs, Anne & Wright, Edmund (Eds.), Bloomsbury Thematic Book Of Quotations. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, 1992

2. Received Pronunciation, Retrieved December 29, 2007 from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received Pronunciation.

3. Dhawan, R K, "Indian Brides: The Canadian Experience," International Seminar: The Diasporic Eye: Theory & Cultural Interpretation, Subodh PG College, Jaipur, 17 February, 2007

4. Jones, Daniel, English Pronouncing Dictionary, 2004

5-6. Power, Carla, ‘Not the Queen's English', Newsweek, March 7 2005

7. Personal Interview. Deepa, Lecturer (English), Government College, Kota, 12 March, 2007

Sanjay Arora E-mail: sanjayarorajaipur@yahoo.com Mobile No: 098293-45035

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