The historical sociolinguistics of elite accent change: On why RP is not disappearing

Abstract

There is a perception common in the UK today, especially amongst journalists, that the RP accent is disappearing: for example, Public School pupils and younger members of the Royal Family are now often said to be speaking Cockney instead of RP. This claim is totally erroneous, but it is possible to point to a number of factors which can account for this perception. This paper attempts to elucidate what these factors are; and it uses evidence from the history of English to argue that the linguistic events currently affecting RP are sociolinguistically nothing new or modern, and indeed are the result of sociolinguistically inevitable processes of diffusion and change which have persisted for very many generations.