In England there are local variants and class variants of pro nunciation. The higher we ascend the social scale in all districts, the greater the uniformity in the pronunciation. The uniformity of the educational system—public school and university—of cer tain social classes leads to a uniformity in the pronunciation of those classes. This type, provided it is free from pedantry and affectation, is generally regarded as the nearest approach to a standard pronunciation of southern English. It is the style of pronunciation heard most often in public speech, in parliament, in the church, in the law courts, in the universities and the public schools, and in such of the State schools as recruit their teaching staff from the ranks of those who use this style of pro nunciation. In detail it may differ slightly from county to county; from school to school, from speaker to speaker, but in the main it is recognizable as one pronunciation. Those who use it have approximately the same vowels; its rhythm is the same wherever we hear it ; its intonation follows the same general principle ; it uses the same means to achieve the effects of emphasis : and it is characterized among other things, by a peculiar treatment of the "r" sound. In most of these respects southern pronunciation differs from what is known as northern pronunciation, and in all of them it differs from American and Canadian pronunciation which have their own vowels, their own rhythm, their own intona tions, their own distinctive treatment of the "r" sound, which reacts in no uncertain manner upon their vowel systems. America and Canada have their own pronunciation problems, for their enormous geographical extent is giving rise to local varieties, and localized standards. There is no standard pronunciation of English in these countries, any more than there is in Great Britain. The increased use of inter-continental oral communication, by means of telephone and wireless broadcasting, the interchange of teachers and actors, the use of the speaking film, may tend towards a certain degree of uniformity in the pronunciation of the English-speaking world, but these must be supported by definite action on the part of those responsible in all countries for the teaching of the mother tongue. It is agreed that a uniform pro nunciation of English is desirable, but it is by no means certain how it is to be brought about. A group of English and American linguists met in London in 1927 to discuss the matter.
In 1926 the British Broadcasting Corporation set up an Ad visory Committee to deal with doubtful questions of English pronunciation, and to settle, in the case of (I) unfamiliar words, (2) words having alternative pronunciation of equal currency and authority, (3) foreign words, upon one pronunciation to be used by the official speakers of the Corporation. The first list of this committee's recommendations was published in 1928.
man's physical and mental limitations. The link that holds the speech of one generation to that of the next is but a feeble one; speech persists as a series of recollected auditory images, asso ciated with certain kinesthetic movements, which are however of secondary importance as far as the speaker is concerned. He is more concerned with the expression of his thought than with the physical adjustments by means of which his thought receives audible expression. This combined mental and physical process appears to produce upon the mind of the listener impressions of a fugitive character, which are less durable than the impres sions created by the combined visual and physical processes in volved in the visual language. Speech, as such, perishes in stantaneously, having no permanent existence, being handed on by oral tradition, and during the centuries, like all else that lives only by word of mouth. So pronunciation changes from age to age, partly because it hangs on so fragile a thread as man's aural memory, and partly because the unconscious physical processes that give rise to the sounds, in themselves suffer modi fication owing to the lack of consciousness with which they are controlled. "Pottage" and "porridge" are now different "words " They are in reality but two pronunciations of the same word, and the curious story of their separate existence can still be learnt by listening to the bus conductor who announces Swiss Cottage as Swiss "Corridge." It is probable that wider study will tend to establish the fact that a given speech sound, under given condi tions, will always change in a certain way. But it must not be forgotten that it has hitherto proved impossible to define what is meant by the term "speech sound," and we should do well to remember that the governing conditions are likely to prove more complicated than they appear upon examination of cases that have happened in the past. The principles governing the change in vowel sounds, the formation of which involves no tactile sen sation in the mouth, appear to have nothing in common with the principles governing the change of consonant sounds, in the forma tion of which there is definite contact between two parts of the mouth, or enough constriction to give an impression of contact.
The teaching of pronunciation requires, on the part of the teacher, training of a highly specialized order, and it should not be considered that a teacher is competent to teach the pronuncia tion of a language merely because that language happens to be his mother tongue. We are all, without special training, unaware of the various features that constitute the pronunciation of our language; we become conscious that there is a highly compli cated system underlying our pronunciation only when we hear the system disturbed by foreigners who speak our language badly, i.e., with the pronunciation system of their own.