be it an American, British, or Australian variety. The extent to
which a learner seeks to speak with a native-like accent and
sets this as his or her personal goal, is a personal one. It is not
necessary to try to eradicate the phonological influences of
the mother tongue nor to seek to speak like a native speaker.
Jennifer Jenkins in her recent book argues that received
pronunciation (RP) is an unattainable and an unnecessary
target for second language learners, and she proposes
a phonological syllabus that maintains core phonological
distinctions but is a reduced inventory from RP.
A pronunciation syllabus for English as an International
Language would thus not be a native-speaker variety but
would be a phonological core that would provide for
phonological intelligibility but not seek to eradicate
the influence of the mother tongue.