An ELT Glossary : Rhotic Accents

Rhotic accents are those where a post-vocalic "r" (ie one occurring after a vowel in the written form) is pronounced. This does not happen in non-rhotic accents.

For example, the words where, hard and butter would be pronounced as /weə/,  /hɑːd/ and /bʌtə/ in a non-rhotic accent but as /weər/,  /hɑːrd/ and /bʌtər/ in a rhotic accent.

Many N. American accents are rhotic, as are some British accents - eg Scots and Somerset - though most British accents and other varieties such as Australian English are non-rhotic.


Related Reading

A classic work on the phonology of English - updated to reflect modern pronunciation.

Cruttenden, A. (2014) Gimson's Pronunciation of English, Routledge






Don't forget that Amazon often have both new and used copies of the books you want at prices much lower than those in their links. So it's always worth clicking to find out. (And no - we don't earn anything from your clicks!)