My Fair Lady

Phonological features of Cockney English

The 1964 musical adaptation of My Fair Lady, starring
Audrey Herburn and Rex Harrison, portrays Cockney English
by means of characters speech, but also by means of
comparison to RP(Received Pronunciation).
The character Eliza Doolittle is a speaker of Cockney English
Pholological features
H-dropping and Diphthong Alterations
Eliza drops her “h” in headache, for example
 *Eliza, if I can go on with a blistering headache, you can.
 * I’ve got a headache too.
 Eliza’s father too drops “h”(for instance, he pronounces
“harm” and “happiness” without [h])
 *not that I mean any harm, mind you
 *makes a man feel prudent-like and then good-bye to
happiness.
Diphthong alteration is noticeable in Eliza’s
pronunciation in one of the exercises professor Higgins
offer her for practice:
*The rain in Spain stays maunlyin the plain.
The diphthong alteration /eɪ/ → [æɪ~aɪ]
rain [raɪn]
Spain [spaɪn]
stays [staɪz]
mainly [maɪnli]
plain [plaɪn]
Goose-fronting
“You” is pronounced by characters speaking Cockney as
[jy:]. This is an instance of a phonological process called
goose-fronting.
Wells (1982b) defined this lexical set, which is sometimes
referred to as /u:/ or “uw”. It usually occurs in the
sequence /ju:/
G-dropping
There are other instances of dropping various sounds, at
the end of some words
*Look where you’re goin’, dear. Look where you’re goin’.
*And you wouldn’t go off without payin’ either.
* What’s all the bloomin’ noise?
Insertion
The insertion of the sound [r] can be noticed in one of
Eliza’s songs (in the pronunciation of the word lovely)
and also in Mr. Doolittle’s speech :
*Oh, wouldn’t it Be loverly
*It’s nearly 5:00. My daughter Eliza’ll be along soon.
Between the pronunciation of “Eliza” and “ll” he
introduces the sound [r].
Vowels
In Cockney dialect, the vowels are pronounced differently from RP, as
shown
* /ʌ/ → [ɐ] or a quality like that of [a]: [dʒamʔ’ts ap h ] “jumped up”.
*/ɑ:/ has a back, open, unrounded variant, [ɑ] which Beaken (1971)
claimed characterizes “vigorous, informal” Cockney (Wells, 1982b, p.
305).
*/æ/ may be [ɛ] or [ɛɪ], with the latter occurring before voiced
consonants, particularly before /d/: [bɛk] “back”, [bɛ:d] “bad”.
*/ɛ/ may be [eə], [eɪ], or [ɛɪ] before certain voiced consonants,
particularly before /d/: [beɪd] “bed”.
*(e) /i:/ → [əi~ɐi]: [bəiʔ] “beet”. (f) /ɒ/ may be a somewhat less open
[ɔ]: [kɔʔ] “cot”
Th-fronting
/ð/ can become [v] in any environment except word-
initially when it can be [ð, d, l, ʔ, Ø]
*[mavə] mother
*[dæɪ] they