COCKNEY SLANG
CONTENT
Introduction ……………………………………...3
- Cockney slang…………………………………….4
- The Etymology of Cockney………………………5
- Who speaks Cockney……………………………..6
- Features of Cockney……………………………...7
- Cockney Rhyming Slang…………………………8
- Grammatical features…………………………….9
- Mockney………………………………………….10
- Conclusion………………………………………..11
- List of references………………………………....12
The Theme: Investigation is London slang Cockney.
The Task: To Know how we can use this slang in real life. Can it be useful in learning foreign (English) language?
The aim: To prove the hypothesis of this investigation
The hypothesis: We can’t understand Londoners without Cockney slang
Introduction
The theme of my investigation is London slang Cockney. I think we can’t understand Londoners without learning modern slangs and dialects. London is not only the capital of Great Britain, but also the country’s "linguistic center of gravity." The most interesting accent in London is Cockney. Because it’s spread all over English-speaking world. There are a lot of funny TV-shows where speakers use Cockney. This slang also is used in everyday dialogues in order to emphasize it emotionally. That is why I decided to investigate this phenomena.
The Etymology of Cockney slang
The etymology of Cockney has long been discussed. "Cockney" literally means a misshapen egg such as sometimes laid by young hens. In the 17th century it was talked about weak townsman, opposed to the tougher countryman. Than the term meant a Londoner. Today Londoners use it with respect - “Cockney Pride”.
Cockney is characterized by its own special vocabulary and usage, and traditionally by its own "rhyming slang". It is part of the true Cockney culture and sometimes used for an effect.
The cockney accent has become synonymous with working-class London. Some examples of the accent include replacing the “th” sound in words such as “think” with an F sound. Likewise the H sound in words such as “hospital” or “holiday” will be dropped, so that the words are instead pronounced as “ospital” or “oliday”. The cockney greeting “Awite mate!” means “How are you, friend?”
Who speaks Cockney?
To be a true Cockney, a person has to be born within hearing distance of the bells of St. Mary le Bow, in the City of London. These accents have often become the foundation for British "soap operas" and other television programmes. The BBC is showing one of the most popular soaps set in this region, "East Enders" and the characters’ accents and lives within this television program provide wonderful opportunities for observers of language and culture.
Features of Cockney English:
MOUTH vowel
Cockney users change /th/ into /f/
Example:
mouth = mauf
thin = fin
brother = bruvver
three = free
bath = barf
Glottal stop
The glottal stop as also particularly characteristic of Cockney.
Examples:
Waterloo = Wa’erloo
City = Ci’y
A drink of water = A drin' a wa'er
A little bit of bread with a bit of butter on it = A li'le bi' of breab wiv a bi' of bu'er on i'.
An "Estuary English" speaker uses fewer glottal stops for /t/ or /d/ than a "London" speaker. However, there are some words where the omission of ‘t’ has become very accepted.
Examples:
Gatwick = Ga’wick
Scotland = Sco'land
statement = Sta'emen
network = Ne’work
Dropped ‘h’ at beginning of words
In the working-class ("common") accents throughout England, ‘h’ dropping at the beginning of certain words is heard often, but it’s certainly heard more in Cockney.
Examples:
house = ‘ouse
hammer = ‘ammer
Vowel lowering
Examples:
dinner - dinna
marrow - marra
Ll = u
milk - miuk
mail – maiu
Cockney Rhyming Slang
The concept of rhyming slang is that everything rhymes with what it actually means. The way it works is that you take a pair of associated words where the second word rhymes with the word you intend to say, then use the first word of the associated pair. Some rhymes have been in use for years and are very well recognized.
Examples:
"apples and pears" – stairs
"plates of meat" – feet
Grammatical features:
Use of me instead of my, for example, "At's me book you got 'ere". It cannot be used when "my" is emphasised; e.g., "At's my book you got 'ere" (and not "their").
Use of ain't
Use of double negatives
Example:
"I didn't see nuffink"
By the 1980s and 1990s, most of the features mentioned above had partly spread into more general southeastern speech, giving the accent called Estuary English; an Estuary speaker will use some but not all of the cockney sounds.
Studies have indicated that the heavy use of South East England accents on television and radio may be the cause of the spread of cockney English since the 1960s. Cockney is more and more influential and some claim that in the future many features of the accent may become standard.
Mockney
Mockney is an affected accent and form of speech in imitation of cockney or working-class London speech, or a person with such an accent. A stereotypical mockney speaker comes from an upper-middle-class background.
A person speaking with a mockney accent might adopt cockney pronunciation but retain standard grammatical forms, whereas the genuine cockney speaker uses non-standard forms.
It is an affectation sometimes adopted for aesthetic or theatrical purposes, and at other times just to sound "cool", to generate street credibility, or to give the false impression that the speaker rose from humble beginnings and became prominent through some innate talent rather than the education, contacts and other advantages that a privileged background tends to bring. Britpop band was said to have a "mockney, down-the-dogs blokey charm". Mick Jagger is often accused of being the first celebrity in modern times to overplay his regional accent in order to boost his street credibility.
Eastuary English. Cockney speakers are in new territories
Estuary English is a result of certain long-lasting processes leading to language changes in the region where it appears, in which the influences from London play a significant role. It is not a variety that has spontaneously emerged recently. Therefore, what can be read about ‘the sudden emergence of a new type of English’ results from irresponsible disregard for the facts. Cockney speakers’ accommodation in the new territories. One of the presumable causes of the rise of Estuary English is forced migration around the London area after World War II (overspill building programmes for Londoners). Cockney speakers would modify their speech to accommodate to the rest of the population traditionally settled in the places where they were transplanted, creating in the course of years an intermediate variety or intermediate varieties reflecting pronunciation compromises between the newly migrated and the rest of the new towns dwellers.
The opposite (the locals changing their speech towards Londonish speech) would also be the case. This hypothesis has been challenged by Susan Fox in her Basildon Project. Working class town developed in the 1950’s in response to the need of East End Londoners forced to leave the city and find new houses in the post-war period. The location of the town, approximately 25 miles east of London, would imply that the dialect spoken there is Estuary English as Rosewarne (1984) believed that the variety was based by the banks of the Thames, but also used in the south-east of England. “Estuary English may … be the result of a confluence of two social trends: an up-market movement of originally Cockney speakers, and a down-market trend towards 'ordinary'(as opposed to 'posh') speech by the middle class.”
This claim is supported by Kerswill (1994): “people who speak this are often highly mobile, socially and geographically; they can converge on it from 'above'(RP) or 'below'(local dialect)”. He adds: “Because it obscures sociolinguistic origins, ‘Estuary English’ is attractive to many. The motivation, often unconscious, of those who are rising and falling socio-economically is to fit into their new environments by compromising but not losing their original linguistic identity.”
Coggle (1998 – 1999) explains why the young prefer using Estuary English to speaking the accents of their parents in a similar way: “Actually, young people have always tended to fall in line with their peers (rather than with their parents) and it is now considered unacceptable by younger people (and sometimes even by middleaged people) to sound too "posh" and privileged, whereas in the past people had fewer qualms about their wealth and privilege.”
Practical part
The research was made among students of high school with the Intermediate level. In my school we’ve got the data of quality research: The most of students don’t know that Englishmen often use slang expressions in the communication culture. At the same time, the majority (69%) understand that they come across with unknown phrases, abbreviations, pronunciation when watching TV shows and blogs in English. Many also believe that you can understand an Englishman without slang. The majority of students (77%) watch various programs, series and films in English. At the same time, 85% of respondents would like to study slang in school program. Thus, we can conclude from this study: the majority of students would like to learn English slangs as part of the school program, so they feel the need to understand foreign content.
Conclusion
To my mind it’s very interesting adventure to investigate slangs. I have seen a lot of video and programs about this phenomena. But the most funny stories are about how foreigners try to use this accent and speech constructions. That’s why I suppose our hypothesis that we can’t understand English language without Cockney is not true. Let’s learn all the linguistic sides of English, but speak like British royal family.
Glossary of rhyming slang:
- «Bees and honey» (пчёлы и мёд)— «money» (деньги);
- «Bottle and stopper» (бутылка и пробка)— «copper» (полицейский);
- «Cut and carried» (вырезан и перенесён)— «married» (женат);
- «Day’s a-dawning» (дневной рассвет)— «morning» (утро);
- «Early hours» (ранние часы)— «flowers» (цветы);
- «Fisherman’s daughter» (дочь рыбака)— «water» (вода);
- «Light and dark» (светлый и тёмный)— «park» (парк);
- «Loop the loop» (делать мёртвую петлю)— «soup» (суп);
- «Lump of ice» (глыба льда)— «advice» (совет);
- «On the floor» (на полу)— «poor» (бедняк);
- «Satin and silk» (атла́си шёлк) — «milk» (молоко);
- «True till death» (верный до смерти)— «breath» (дыхание);
- «Weep and wail» (плакать и рыдать)— «a tale» (рассказ);
- «Yet to be» (ещё предстоит)— «free» (свободный).
List of references:
- Babbel Magazine “The School Of British Accents — Learn The Cockney Accent”
- Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockney
- https://www.englishbaby.com - lessons/5191/member_submitted/cockney_english
- Parsons, Gudrun. 1998 From "RP" to "Estuary English": the concept 'received'and the debate about British pronunciation standards. [Hamburg MA dissertation.] DOA: 25 February 2003
- Crystal, David 1995 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Coggle, Paul 1993 Do you speak Estuary? The new Standard English: how to spot it and speak it. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd.
