Following on from our series of key sound changes for those wishing to modify from their native accents to Modern RP, and acknowledging the first day’s play of The Ashes today, here are three key sounds that an Australian speaker of English might explore:
- Australian speakers of English will use a ‘dark l’ /ɫ/ in all positions. This involves contact between the tongue blade and the alveolar ridge, as well as a raised back of the tongue towards the velum (soft palate). While Modern RP does make use of the ‘dark l’, this is only realised when the letter <l> is followed by a consonant sound, or is in a word-final position (e.g. ‘old’ and ‘oil’. In a pre-vocalic position (when preceding a vowel, e.g. silly), Australian speakers of English wishing to modify towards Modern RP will need to lower the back of their tongue, and might consider reducing the surface area of pressure of the tongue blade on the alveolar ridge.
- The TRAP lexical set exists for many Australian speakers of English around the front mid-open vowel /ɛ/ on the vowel chart. DRESS is often realised as a front mid-close vowel /e/. By moving the front of the tongue downwards from the Australian DRESS realisation, and gently cupping it, we find ourselves at the Australian TRAP sound, which is, in turn, the same as the realisation of the Modern RP DRESS sound. Furthermore, cupping the front of the tongue fully, leads to the RP realisation of the TRAP lexical set.
- The MOUTH diphthong is often realised with the Australian TRAP sound followed by a non-syllabic, slightly raised, back mid-open vowel /ɛɔ̝̯/. In order to shift to Modern RP, we can start the diphthong by dropping the front of the tongue to an RP trap sound (as outlined above, in point 2). The second sound is found by lifting the Australian position at the back of the tongue to a mid-close position, and shifting the raised portion slightly forward to an RP FOOT sound /aʊ̯/.