Universität Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen
Hauptseminar: Language in Society
WS 2005/ 2006, 10. Fachsemester

Cockney and Estuary English
A Comparison

von: Silja Recknagel

Table of contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Cockney  4

2.1 Brief historic overview on Cockney  5

2.1.1 Dialect or accent  6

2.2 Overview on the most prominent features of Cockney  6

2.2.1.Phonetic features 7

Labiodental approximant  7

2.2.2 Grammatical features  8
2.2.3 Rhyming Slang 9

2.3 Social perception 10

3. Estuary English  12

3.1 What is Estuary English?  12
3.2 Influences on Estuary English  13

3.2.1 Received Pronounciation  14

3.3 Typical features of EE  15

3.3.1 Lexical features  15
3.3.2 Phonetic features 16

3.4 Expansion of EE  19

3.4.1. Geographic expansion of EE  19
3.4.2. Social expansion  20

3.5. Conclusion  22

4. Comparison 24

5. References 26

1. Introduction

This essay 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. Chapter II gives a historic account on Cockney and then moves on to its specific phonetic and grammatical features. Finally, its social perception is elaborated. Chapter III starts with an attempt to explain to which phenomena the term Estuary English refers to and then continues with a description of the influential reference sources, as there are RP and Cockney at the antipodal ends. Furthermore some syntactic and phonetic features of EE are listed. The last paragraph gives an account on the geographical as well as the social expansion of EE.

Finally, Chapter IV gives a brief comparison of Estuary English and Cockney in terms of linguistic status, acceptability, mobility as well as social perception and furthermore draws a conclusion.

My research on Estuary English is based on two different sorts of texts: On the one hand I consulted 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. On the other hand I worked with the critical, more recent, texts by two linguists: Ulrike Altendorf and Joanna Przedlacka, who investigate if a definite Estuary English exists in general. Futhermore, I used more sources on both Cockney and Estuary English which are given at the end of the essay.

2. Cockney

The term traditionally refers to the speech of those “ born within the sound of Bow bell, that is in the City of London”.1 Here, to be born “within the sound” signifies the radius around the Curch of St Mary-le-Bow in the Eastside quarter of Cheapside, London, within which those bells can still be heard. This feature applies to a distance of approximately three miles. As this defintion was given in 1617, the area of Cockney obvioulsy has spread: today the term Cockney is used for all speakers of this certain mode who live in the Home Counties, also often referred to as Greater London. This term applies to the counties surrounding the City of London, such as Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

The etymologic source of the term Cockney is not absolutely conclusive: On the one hand it is derived from the merger of the Old English terms cok and nay or (n)eye for egg, thus depicting a cock´s and therefore a small and imperfect egg2, on the other hand there is an explanation that is derived from the Norman nickname for London which is claimed to have been the `Land of Sugar Cake´:

Chambers in his Journal derives the word from a French poem of the thirteenth century, called The Land of Cocagne, where the houses were made of barley-sugar and cakes, the streets paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods without requiring money in payment. The French, at a very early period, called the English cocagne men, i.e. bons vivants (beef and pudding men).3 There is the possibility of a transformation from cocagne/ cocaigne to cockenay and then Cockney.

Almost every dictionary names Cockney to be the (obsolete) term for a spoiled child or a “squeamish woman”4, beside the expression referring to the speech of an Eastend- Londoner. If Cockney is derived from Middle English cocker which stands for pampering or fondling, the image of being spoiled obviously has an associative connection to the “Pais de cocaigne”. Nevertheless, “Wedgwood suggests cocker (to fondle), and says a cockerney or cockney is one pampered by city indulgence, in contradistinction to rustics hardened by outdoor work.”5 Following this definition, Cockney refers to the Londoners and both meanings have their seeds in the close connection to urban city life in the capital.

2.1 Brief historic overview on Cockney

[...]

1 Minsheu John: Ductor in Linguas, 1617. Edited by Schäfer, Jürgen, Delmar: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprint, 1978.

2 Cp. “Cockney” in: Webster´s Unabridged Dictionary, 1913: http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/Webster/data/284.html

3 http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/cockney

4 http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/cockney

5 http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/cockney