Cockney Its Characteristics And Its Influence On Present Day English

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Department of English and Linguistics), course: Introduction to English Linguistics, language: English, abstract: The Cockney dialect was long frowned upon by anyone who felt superior to this allegedly substandard, uneducated and vulgar manner of speaking. The Cockneys were considered stupid, poor and uneducated themselves. That was the prevailing attitude towards Cockney until very recently when the acceptance of the dialect and its speakers noticeably changed. What is a Cockney, though? A true Cockney has to have been born within the sound of the Bow Bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church in London's East End. The Cockney distinguishes himself by staying true to his origins deeply linked to the dialect. Cockney is one of the most remarkable dialects all over the Englishspeaking world. Back in 1938, though, William Matthews, author of "Cockney - Past and Present",feared the decline of the dialect altogether because of the virtually non-existing acceptance in English society. Cockney was mainly a working-class accent, but was also aquired by criminals who enjoyed the population's incapability to understand the accent and dialect. The dialect was eventually made a scapegoat for the corruption of Standard English. A lot has changed since. When having a look at popular culture today, one might have the impression that the perception of the dialect has revolutionised. Cockney even seems to be on the rise again, being promoted by films like "Lock, Stock" and "Two Smoking Barrels", "Snatch",and music by "The Streets" for instance. In this paper, I want to examine in how far the recent obervations can be seen as a development of taking Cockney characteristics over into present-day English. By present-day English neither Received Pronunciation (RP) nor any other kind of Standard English (StE) is exclusively meant, but rather a broad definition of the English that can really be heard in England. Nonetheless, comparisons to RP and StE will be found because points of reference will be needed in the course of this paper. In the first part, Cockney will be contrasted to RP, for example, to illustrate its variation from the standard. The Cockney that forms the basis for the paper is the modern dialect. Like any other language it has undergone a great change since it was first recorded and to examine or only include several stages of its development would go beyond the scope of this paper.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Duisburg-Essen (Fachbereich 3), 20 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper aims at giving an overview on the two topics that will be briefly compared at its end: Cockney on the one hand and Estuary English on the other. This comparison and combination results from the question in how far Cockney as one of the two main reference dialects of Estuary English has influenced this rather new accent which recently has gained a lot of public attention. First, a historic account on Cockney is given as well as an overview on its specific phonetic and grammatical features. Finally, its social perception is elaborated. Secondly it is attempted to explain to which phenomena the term Estuary English refers to. In this context, the two influential reference sources are discussed: RP and Cockney at antipodal ends. Furthermore some syntactic and phonetic features of Estuary English are listed. Furthermore, the geographical as well as the social expansion of Estuary English is illustrated. Finally, a brief comparison of Estuary English and Cockney in terms of linguistic status, acceptability, mobility as well as social perception is given. The research on Estuary English is based on two different sorts of texts: On the one hand the advanced layman Rosewarne, who coined the term Estuary English in the first place and who even claims that it could possibly become the new RP, was consulted. On the other hand critical, more recent texts by two linguists served as sources: Ulrike Altendorf s and Joanna Przedlacka s studies, which investigate if a definite Estuary English exists in general.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Rostock, course: Proseminar Englishes around the globe, language: English, abstract: 1) Introduction: the terms' dialect' and 'Cockney' The paper shall explore the question of the english urban dialect Cockney as an influence of the English language, its spread all over the world and its validity nowadays. The term 'dialect' indicates a regionally specific variety of language, that differs from the Standard in phonological, grammatical and lexical regards. A standard form is in every language a defined variety of the language in phonological, grammatical and lexical regards. Beside the English Standard variety there exist a lot of rural and urban dialects. The rural dialects lost their importance in relation to the spread of the Standard, but the urban dialects still play an important role - nowadays the same as in the history of the English language, when they emerged during the urbananisation of England.They are language varieties that were built in the big urban regions and among them the best known nowadays is Cockney, which exists beside a large group of other dialects (for example the Scouse in Liverpool or the Geordie in Newcastle-upon-Tyne). By speakers of a more "educated" accent these dialects were often seen as "harsh" and "ugly", but for the speaker of the dialect they are a possibility to express an identification with a certain group of people. Cockney is often seen as the language of London's working class, but actually it is a variant that arised in the East End region and that has its basis there (in general every English urban dialect is a working-class accent of the area it belongs to). Allegedly it goes back to the Middle English word "coken-ey" (a cock's egg) which was a scournful nickname for a certain group of people (town-dweller). Strictly speaking a Cockney is a person that was born near the bells of the chur

Since Speech in the English Novel first appeared in 1973, it has won international recognition as an important pioneering study of a topic that lies on the frontiers of literature and linguistics - the nature and function of fictional dialogue and its relationship to real speech. Drawing on a wide range of examples from many periods, the book includes general and theoretical chapters and also case-studies of particular texts, as well as a whole chapter devoted to Dickens. It has been found stimulating and useful by teachers and students in many countries, and has been praised by numerous scholars. The Year's Work in English Studies described it as a 'classic'; Studia Neophilologica said that it 'opened up new vistas for research'; Language and Style found that it 'admirably bridges the gap between linguistics and English studies', and English Studies judged it 'a thoroughly readable and even entertaining book'. This new edition incorporates numerous revisions, new examples, and additions to the bibliographies.

The first comprehensive book-length analysis of personal pronouns in present-day English.

How do educated English speak English? Does it sound like Oxford or rather like Cockney? Why did traditional pronunciation habits and criteria of acceptability change radically during the 20th century, when even the BBC world service got a new sound? How to cope with the impacts of this change; what is the actual ‘standard’? Speech accent is not only a regional, but also a social marker. Ingrid Wotschke discusses educated pronunciation in its changing social contexts, supported by numerous speech samples and illustrations. Besides, she presents the alternative model of current Educated English English. This book is written for scholars and students of English and for anyone else interested in English language and culture.

Although Cockney can be considered to be one of the most important non-standard forms of English, there had been little to no scholarly attention on the dialect prior to William Matthews’s 1938 volume Cockney Past and Present. Matthews traced the course of the speech of London from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century by gathering information from many sources including plays, novels, music-hall songs, the comments of critics and the speech and recollections of living Cockneys. This book will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

New Zealand English - at just 150 years old - is one of the newest varieties of English, and is unique in that its full history and development are documented in extensive audio-recordings. The rich corpus of spoken language provided by New Zealand's 'mobile disk unit' has provided insight into how the earliest New Zealand-born settlers spoke, and consequently, how this new variety of English developed. On the basis of these recordings, this book examines and analyses the extensive linguistic changes New Zealand English has undergone since it was first spoken in the 1850s. The authors, all experts in phonetics and sociolinguistics, use the data to test previous explanations for new dialect formation, and to challenge current claims about the nature of language change. The first ever corpus-based study of the evolution of New Zealand English, this book will be welcomed by all those interested in phonetics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and dialectology.