ABSTRACT
Research into the social evaluation of dialect has been held for considerable time (e.g. Labov 1972) to be a necessary counterpart to the study of social differentiation. Whatever the descriptive facts of dialect distribution, it is individuals' and groups' classifications, evaluations and responses to dialect varieties — the 'emic' dimension — that guide and constrain patterns of dialect in use (Coupland 1987). In the case of Received Pronunciation (RP), the evaluative focus has a particular salience. After all, as Gimson (1962: 83) notes in the first edition of IPE, RP is equated with the 'correct' pronunciation of English, and to that extent it can be defined evaluatively. Quite plausibly, RP can, therefore, be envisaged as an accretion of evaluations, an 'ideal' variety of English pronunciation, inherently conservative but predictably varying over time and space.
