SOUNDS OF ENGLISH Introduction Language has a very important social purpose. Without language, human civilization, as we see it today, would have been impossible. In a restricted sense, language can be called a special gift to human beings. Animals also communicate with each other, for instance, a dog barks, bees perform specific dance movements, and so on, but humans have ‘language’. Only humans have the power of speech. For us, humans, language is not just a system of communication but also + amedium of thought, * avvehicle for literary expression, * a social institution, a matter for political controversy, * a factor in nation building, and much more. In some way or the other, everybody uses language on a daily basis. So we need to understand how language is organised and how it is used. Language can be used in two ways for the purpose of communication—spoken or written. However, it is the spoken form that takes the spotlight due to the following reasons: « In the history of any culture or language community, speech comes first. In fact, there are still hundreds of languages in the world that exist only in spoken form and do not have a written script. A majority of languages of Africa lack a written form. + In the history of an individual also, speech comes first as we start speaking long before we start writing. « Advancement in modern technology (in the form of the telephone, the tape- recorder, the radio and television, video calling and now Artificial Intelligence aided voice assistants like Siri and Alexa) have also contributed a lot to enhance the value of the spoken language.bs UNIMAX AEC-I : LANGUAGE SKILLS : LISTENING AND SPEAKING The English Language Nowadays, English is spoken as the first or second language by @ large number of people in different parts of the world. In some countries like the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia, English is the first language while in certain other countries, particularly the countries of the Commonwealth like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria etc, English is spoken as a non-native or second language. Here it is used for various purposes—official, educational, social and interpersonal. There are certain countries like Germany, Russia and France where the status of English is that of a foreign language. Second Language vs Foreign Language ne which is used for various purposes within the country—as an associate official language, as a language of administration and higher education or as a link language among educated people with different mother tongues. A foreign Janguage, on the other hand, is used for international purposes or to read and understand the culture or literature of a particular country. It is not used for administrative purposes. For instance, French is a foreign language in India. ‘his used all over the world, it is but natural that it has developed several there arises a need to fix one standard A Second language is 0 ) Since Englisl regional varieties as well. In such a scenario, variety that can be used uniformly for official and international purposes. By a historical coincidence, we in India are used more to British English than to American, Australian or Canadian English. So, our obvious choice is one of the varieties of British English. However, in British English also there are many dialectal variations in terms of accent and grammar. But one particular native regional accent of English that has gained social prestige is the Received Pronunciation of England (RP for short). It is the variety of English spoken by the educated English speakers of the South East of England. RP today is equated with the ‘correct’ pronunciation of English. There are certain historical reasons as well for choosing RP as a standard model : «It is the variety of English that is well documented in dictionaries and books. «It is generally used by BBC news readers and serves as a model for Indian news readers as well. In the context of English as a second language (as in India), it pays to have a good grasp over the RP variety of English as it is much sought after in professional,