Territorial varieties of English pronunciation The English language is spoken in a variety of ways. It’s the official language of the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in a number of former British colonies. English spoken in these countries differs in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. The varieties of the language are conditioned by language communities. Speaking about the nations we refer to the national variants of the language, that is the language of a nation, the standard of its form, the language of its nation’s literature. It’s important to distinguish between dialect and accent. Dialect refers to variations in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, while accent means a type of pronunciation, that is the way sounds, stress, rhythm and intonation are used in the given language community. Today all the English-speaking nations have their own national variants of pronunciation (and national pronunciation standards) and their own peculiar features that distinguish them from other varieties of English. National pronunciation standards are associated with radio and TV newsreaders and public figures. It is generally accepted that for the "English English" the national standard is "Received Pronunciation" (RP), for the "American English" - "General American", for the "Australian English" - "Educated Australian" Estuary English intonation is characterized by frequent prominence given to prepositions and auxiliary verbs, in some cases the nuclear tone can fall on prepositions: Let’s get \to the point. The pitch of intonation patterns in Estuary English appears to be narrower than that of RP. Estuary English nowadays is believed to describe the speech of a far larger and currently more linguistically influential group than advanced RP speakers. The popularity of Estuary English among the young is significant for the future. The RP speakers may be aware that RP (Conservative and Advanced) can arouse hostility and general RP is no longer perceived as a neutral accent. So Estuary English is attractive to many, as it obscures sociolinguistic origins.