The social life of cultural value

In this article I discuss processes through which the values of cultural forms are formulated, maintained and communicated across social populations. My empirical focus is the emergence and spread of a prestige register of spoken British English, nowadays called 'Received Pronunciation'. I discuss a number of characterological discourses of speech and accent that articulate the values of the register and bring them into circulation before particular audiences. I argue that the historical spread of the register was linked to the circulation of such discourses during the 18th and 19th centuries. I propose specific models for understanding the circulation of discourse across social populations and the means by which these values are recognized, maintained and transformed. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.