The vowels of RP STRUT

The vowel is pronounced by many RP and by trad-RP speakers as a centralized and slightly lowered [Λ]. For many speakers /Λ/ is raised centralized [a]: the more central and lowered the vowel is, the more likelihood there is for confusion over RP [a]. There is an increasing appearance, however, of an innovation in which [Λ] is raised and retracted from the centralized, towards (though not to) a half-close advanced position.

Variation in the STRUT vowel is a most prominent feature of north-south distinction in British English accents, and the recent RP raising development might be seen as a ‘fudge’ (Chambers and Trudgill 1998: 110–113) between the Northern  and Southern [Λ]. Interestingly, this feature was noted as the most usual form in the speech of mid-twentieth century traditional dialect speakers in the South and south Midlands (Orton 1962–1971; Upton 1995).