In the early years of the BBC under John Reith, its Advisory Committee on Spoken English (1926–39) was established to settle the pronunciation of doubtful words, particularly foreign words. But the Committee, comprising members of Britain’s social elite and leading linguists, took it upon itself to ‘educate the masses’ on how to pronounce ‘properly’ and thus attempted to standardize spoken English on the basis of a fixed variety of Received Pronunciation. Its deliberations and findings were communicated to the public via the Radio Times. Protracted discussions about the pronunciation of variou ... More

In the early years of the BBC under John Reith, its Advisory Committee on Spoken English (1926–39) was established to settle the pronunciation of doubtful words, particularly foreign words. But the Committee, comprising members of Britain’s social elite and leading linguists, took it upon itself to ‘educate the masses’ on how to pronounce ‘properly’ and thus attempted to standardize spoken English on the basis of a fixed variety of Received Pronunciation. Its deliberations and findings were communicated to the public via the Radio Times. Protracted discussions about the pronunciation of various words revealed the elitist and prescriptive nature of the Committee. Linguistically, the Committee as a whole proved incapable of accepting linguistic descriptivism and multiple, equally valid, varieties of pronunciation. Eventually they began using the International Phonetic Alphabet when giving advice, increasingly listened to opinions of the BBC’s audience, and incorporated an ever-expanding circle of foreign language experts into their deliberations. By 1937, however, the BBC had stopped publishing its pronunciation advice in the Radio Times and returned to the original remit of the Committee—to instruct only announcers and newsreaders about its findings. The outbreak of the Second World War provided a welcome opportunity to suspend the Committee. After the war, instead of reactivating the Committee, the BBC established its own in-house professional BBC Pronunciation Unit. The Committee’s activities over time contributed to the emergence of what was perceived to be an objective ‘broadcast English’ variety, and succeeded in raising awareness of language issues among the general population.