Dictating to the Mob: The History of the BBC Advisory Committee on Spoken English

298 Pages·2016·29.939 MB·English

by  Jurg R. Schwyter

DICTATING TO THE MOB

Dictating to the Mob
The History of the BBC
Advisory Committee
on Spoken English
Jürg R. Schwyter
1
3
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Earlydaysarecrucialonesineitherindividualexistenceorcorporate
organisation. I repeat we had no precedent. Almost everything
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J.C.W.Reith,BroadcastoverBritain,1924,p.24

Contents
Preface ix
The InternationalPhoneticAlphabet(IPA)
and BBCModifiedSpelling xi
NamingConventions xv
1 Introduction 1
1.1 TheBBCand‘BBCEnglish’ 1
1.2 Theproblemof‘standard’:Alinguisticapproach 4
2 Inthe Beginning 16
2.1 ‘TheResponsibility’ 16
2.2 ‘TheKing’sEnglish’ 28
2.3 ‘WhatSayThey?’:AlisteningBBC? 41
2.4 ‘APublicService’:Achievements 57
3 Crises and Reconstitution 66
3.1 Thecrisisof1929 67
3.2 L’affaireOnions 81
3.3 Reconstitution 93
3.4 Newcommittee—problemsnewandold 101
3.5 LaterchangestotheMainCommittee 110
4 Some Linguistic Changes 122
4.1 TheInternationalPhoneticAlphabet(IPA) 122
4.2 TheSub-CommitteefortheInventionof
NewWords 129
4.3 Expertsinotherlanguagesandforeignembassies 147
Contents
5 The End 161
5.1 Majorityvoting,‘alternativepronunciations’,
andtheendofroutinepublicationinthe
RadioTimes 162
5.2 Suspension 181
6 Legacies and Conclusion 190
6.1 Legacy:TheHomeService 191
6.2 Legacy:EmpireBroadcasting 204
6.3 Conclusion,orwhatcameofit 211
Appendix I: Membersofthe BBCAdvisoryCommittee
onSpoken English 219
Appendix II: Minutes ofthe Reconstituted
Advisory Committeeon Spoken English,
20 September 1934 224
Appendix III: Statementby the ChairmanofGovernors,
BBC,to the AdvisoryCommitteeon Spoken
English, 29January 1937 230
Appendix IV: A Sub-setof WordsDiscussedby the BBC
AdvisoryCommittee onSpoken English 234
Acknowledgements 261
Bibliography 265
Index 277
viii
Preface
This book about the BBC Advisory Committee on Spoken Eng-
lishhasbeeninthemakingforalongtime.Crucially,Isuffereda
brainstrokein2009andwasforcedtopauseinthewritingofthe
book.
Originally it was triggered by Lynda Mugglestone’s ‘Talking
Proper’: The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol (2003), where she
describes, in passing in the chapter ‘The Rise (and Fall?) of RP’,
theroleoftheBBC,JohnReith,andtheBBCAdvisoryCommit-
teeonSpokenEnglishasthe‘standardsetting’institutionforthe
pronunciationofEnglish.
Historically, the Committee was conceived to advise the BBC
on pronunciation, but soon the members took it upon them-
selvestoprescriberulesforpronunciationandlanguageatlarge.
As a historically minded linguist, I find such attempts very
interesting in view of the frequently failed or futile attempts to
regulate and standardize spoken language. The role of spoken
EnglishinBritishsocietyinparticularis stillevidentinBritain’s
classsystemtoday,butitwasmuchmoresointhepast.Sincethe
First World War, great efforts have been spent on attempts to
‘engineer’ language. The BBC played a unique role in these
attempts, as the rise of radio as a communication tool occurred
at the same time. Even so, the BBC, through its Advisory Com-
mittee on Spoken English, had to experience its own learning
curve to discover that standardization and regulation of spoken
language is extremely challenging, bordering on the impossible.