14/03/2023

LO - To explore cockney "rhyming slang" dialect as an example of lexical variation

Watson (2006) - dialect levelling on Merseyside

[Velar fricative /x/] --> affrication of plosive sounds

Stigmatised outside Liverpool --> unique

Resisting supra-local features, like t-glottaling --> what - "wo"

Cockney accent and dialect - accent and dialect

"schwa" more procounced ["0" + "-"]

"docter" --> "docta"

Don't sound out h's (h-dropping)

"L" can sometimes sound like "w" (l-vocalisation)

Glottal T (t-glottaling)

"Th" --> "v" or "f" (th fronting)

Sounds come from around the mouth (rounded vowels)

Rhyming slang made to confuse people, used by hard-shelled communities

For example, "apples and pairs" --> stairs

"brown bread" --> dead

trouble and strife

bricks and mortar --> daughter

bread and honey --> money

half inch

ball of chalk --> walk

cheery ripe --> pipe

dicky dirt --> shirt

pen and ink

north and south

loaf of uncle ben

early doors

George rot

bees and honey

rubba-a-dub

frog and toad

stewed prune --> tune

richard the third --> bird

plates of meat --> feet

lady godiva --> fiver

frothing bubble --> trouble

Jeremaiah

bottle and glass --> arse

elephant's truck

Bristle city --> titty (joke he shoehorned in)

Multicultural London English (MLE)

There's an argument that it's replacing cockney features in London English

Fallacy to think that MLE is only restricted to one ethnicity

MLE does not have h-dropping

A lot of cockney vowels are dipthongs

Becomes a monothong in MLE

More speakers of traditional cockney in places like Kent

People who work in more traditional and rural accupations are more likely to hold on to their accent