What's the accent of PM Tony Blair?

Question

What's the accent of PM Tony Blair?Of course it is some kind of British Accent, but which?Is it RP? But it is certainly different from the RP used in the BBC broadcastingAnd though Tony Blair was born in Scotland, I don't think he is speaking in a Scottish accent.Would someone help me about the question?Thank you!

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Tony Blair speaks Received Pronounciation (RP), like the BBC presenters or the Royal Family. RP is actually a very broad accent, varies considerably and is not based on location but on class, which is what makes RP so interesting to linguists.

It is not unusual for Tony Blair to have been born in Scotland and speak RP because of the 'class' fact. You will find people all over the UK (myself included) who never learnt their local accent and speak RP.

And an interesting fact, only 6% of the UK actually speak RP - the other 94% speak regional accents.

R.G. · Answer

Anonymous
Tony Blair speaks Received Pronounciation (RP), like the BBC presenters or the Royal Family. RP is actually a very broad accent,

........

And an interesting fact, only 6% of the UK actually speak RP - the other 94% speak regional accents.

Thank you so much, anonymous, for your detailed answer!

I've learnt a lot from it, and actually I've even downloaded it and saved it in my computer.

Anonymous · Answer

Its also interesting to note how his accent changes according to who he's speaking to.
To a certain extent everybody's does, but there was some interesting examples of how much Blair's changes in a recent Radio 4 programme.
He can speak a fairly esturial english when suited, especially when speaking to lower class, or young people.

NB Estuary English is a name given to the form(s) of English widely spoken in and around London and, more generally, in the southeast of England — along the river Thames and its estuary. Tends to be spoken by lower class people, and as such has distinct class connotations for other native speakers.

Jamie

Anonymous · Answer

hey jamy,
im preparing for a presentation on a survey of enlish dialects. as im german i can just get material out of books which is differently reliable to what actually people state. so just these maybe ridicule questions which are however interesting for me: do people who have an accent and write personal letters or text messages write in their dialects? of course knowing that the other person also speaks with the accent? is there another tv series like east enders where there is dialectic speech? does the queen have an accent? Are there films in which people mainly speak a certain dialect?
ok, this should be enough...i dont want to bore you:)
i would be very happy if you would answer these questions, i would then help you out with anything you want to know about germany:)
anne

Anonymous · Answer

Excellent definition -- in fact there are many RP speakers outside of the UK who have trained extensively in Public Speaking or Elocution. Even the most famous RP Speaker ever Richard Burton never grew up in London and the famous Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray spoke with a similar BBC baritone. RP today is a hallmark of education and class in any Commonwealth country more so than just a reference to the "standard British"dialect

MrPedantic · Answer

AnonymousIts also interesting to note how his accent changes according to who he's speaking to.

Yes; he uses the "glottal stop" more, when he talks to a "younger" audience, or to gatherings of Labour Party voters. (In the House of Commons, he rarely uses a glottal stop.)

His pronunciation of "it" is also odd: he says "ut" (with a schwa, rather than an "i").

This means he doesn't have to enunciate the final /t/ as distinctly (a distinct final /t/ would seem more RP).

Presumably both tendencies are deliberate.

MrP

What's the accent of PM Tony Blair?

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