Received Pronunciation & Mid Atlantic English

Welcome to the Forums, Bluealbatros,

Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, sometimes defined as the "educated spoken English of southeastern England". According to the Fowler's Modern English Usage (1965), the term is "the Received Pronunciation".
If you want a more in-dept information about it, visit the Wikipedia website: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation

Mid-Atlantic English describes a version of the English language which is neither predominantly American or British in usage. It is also used to describe various forms of North American speech that have assimilated some British pronunciations. These pronunciations once had some currency in theatre and film, and were also found among members of the upper classes of society.

Again, visit wikipedia for more information: [link] According to Wiki, Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, and John Wayne spoke with that accent.

Hmm, LanguageLover, I think the Wiki article suggests that the actors you listed actually promoted American dialect rather than speaking mid-Atlantic English - to a Brit like me they all sound especially American!  I agree with the article that Christopher Plummer has a mid-Atlantic accent.  As a native Brit, its quite hard for me to tell which side of the Atlantic he comes from!  

A more recent actor I'd include in this category is Sam Neill.  He was born in Northern Ireland, but brought up in New Zealand and has homes in the US, Australia and NZ.  He has played New Zealanders, Australians, Brits, Americans - in fact characters from most of the English speaking world!  His accent is intriguingly hard to place.  Listen to him in a film like "Dead Calm", and see if you can work out his roots!

This is an interesting one LanguageLover.  The success of American actors trying a British accent ranges from the impressive to the truly awful!  I could name several in the latter category - Including Dick Van ***'s legendary attempt at Cockney in "Meery Porpins" (Mary Poppins) and Mel Gibson was a bit dodgy with his Scottish accent in Braveheart.  When Mel does an English accent he is more succesful - I think this is partly because of his Australian upbrining (Mel is pretty much "bilingual" in US/Australian English), and Australians seem to find an English accent easier to master because its not so different from their own.  The worst "Americans doing British" usually appear in American sitcoms, where a US actor is used to play a Brit.  Because they're often "one episode" characters, it seems they don't bother with accent coaches!  So often, the actors attempt some kind of upper class, or "royal" accent (that less than 0.01% of Brits actually use), and yet miss the most obvious differences! (eg. the pronunciation of the "r" in words like "motor").

In the more succesful category, I would include Gwyneth Paltrow, as you suggest, in "Emma", "Shakespeare in Love", but especially "Sliding Doors", where she played a modern London girl.  She sounded very natural to my ears.  Another success was Renee Zellweger in the Bridget Jones movies - a bit of a departure from her Texan drawl!  But even these are "safe" accents from the south-east/London area of the UK.  What I would LOVE to hear, is a US/Canadian actor do a more extreme regional British accent, like Scouse (Liverpool) or Geordie (Newcastle upon Tyne), now that would be interesing!  Does any one know any examples of N Am actors attempting these accents? 

LeicesterLad wrote:

Interesting - the auto editor has blanked out Dick's surname, but not his first name!