Received Pronunciation: a brief review of Accent Reduction courses

Abstract

This paper proposes to analyze Accent Reduction courses for the learning of the Received Pronunciation (RP), the non-regional variation spoken by the wealthiest classes in the United Kingdom. Based on the parameters listed by Ron Thomson in his text Myth 6: Accent Reduction and Pronunciation Instruction are the same thing, which is part of Linda Grant's Pronunciation Myths: Applying second language research to classroom teaching. In order to do this, we seek to understand the intention behind the interest of a native or non-native speakers to learn a language variation (the Received Pronunciation) that is little used by the native speakers of the United Kingdom, as well as to understand how accent reduction courses make use of a language's phonology to teach a new skill to both native and non-native speakers of English. The choice of courses analyzed was done using the Google search engine and we evaluated the websites of the companies to see if they fit the parameters of Thomson. We will also bring the vision of several theorists who work with the teaching-learning of pronunciation and with linguistic variation, such as MUNRO and DERWING (2014), LIPPI-GREEN (1994) and TRUDGILL (2008) as well as MILROY (2001) dealing with the Received Pronunciation and PENNYCOOK (2017) and PHILLIPSON (2013) covering the domain of English in contemporary societies.