2. The aim: to examine the development of Cockney
dialect through ages and its influence on the
English that can really be heard in England
nowadays.
Objectives:
to examine the quintessence of the Cockney
dialect;
to analyze typical features of the Cockney
dialect;
to research the popularity of the Cockney dialect
in modern society.
3. According to traditional definition, a "true"
cockney is someone born within earshot of
the Bow Bells, i.e. the bells of St Mary-le-Bow
church in Cheapside in the City of London.
Cockney cock and egg (Middle
English 'cokeney' < 'coken' + 'ey', lit. cocks'
egg), meaning first a misshapen egg (1362),
then a person ignorant of country ways
(1521), then the senses mentioned above.
4. The region in which
"Cockneys" reside has changed
over time. Nowadays not only
East Enders speak cockney but
also the traditional core
neighbourhoods of the East
End: Bethnal Green,
Whitechapel, Spitalfields,
Stepney, Wapping, Limehouse,
Poplar, Millwall, Hackney,
Shoreditch, Bow, and Mile End.
6. 1. Me instead of my
2. Ain’t instead of isn‟t, am not, aren‟t
3. Double negatives: I didn‟t see nothing.
4. “That” indicates a strong degree
(He is that pig-headed.)
“Pretty” – a weaker one.
(He is pretty pig-headed.)
7. Sam Weller from Charles
Dickens's novel The Pickwick
Papers
Bert in the movie Mary Poppins
Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard
Shaw's Pygmalion
EastEnders soap opera
Stan Shunpike in Harry Potter and
the Prisoner of Azkaban
Mordor Orcs in Peter Jackson's
film trilogy The Lord of the
Rings
The Artful Dodger from the
Charles Dickens novel Oliver
Twist
8. Traditional Cockney
rhyming slang works by
taking two words that are
related through a short phrase
and using the first word to
stand for a word that rhymes
with the second. For instance,
"bread" means “money” as
“bread and honey” rhymes
with “money”.
9. 1. The film Limey (1999) features Terrence
Stamp as Wilson, a Cockney man
recently released from prison who
spices his conversations with rhyming
slang.
2. The British comedy Mind Your
Language (1977) features a character
who uses Cockney Rhyming Slang
extensively.
3. Rock band Deep Purple used Cockney
rhyming slang in the title for the song
“ A piss” etc.
10. 1. The traditional cockney is not so much dying out
but new kinds of mixed accents are developing.
(Prof. David Crystal, BBC Voices consultant)
2. The cockney dialect is not disappearing
altogether, but shifting to outlying towns and
boroughs. (Laura Wright, senior lecturer in
English Language at the University of Cambridge)
3. A new type of speech, influenced by a number of
foreign languages and pronunciations such as
Bengali, Bangladeshi, rap music and popular TV
programmes have altered traditional cockney.
11. The cockney dialect is an English dialect spoken in the East
End of London, although the area in which it is spoken has
changed considerably.
The term cockney comes from a Middle English word cokenei
which means “city dweller”.
The primary characteristics of cockney dialect include h-
dropping, the use of double negatives, contractions and
vowel shifts.
One of the more unique aspects of cockney speech is
cockney rhyming slang, where a word is replaced with a
phrase, usually containing a word which rhymes with the
original word.
Some linguists have become concerned that the cockney
dialect may fall out of spoken English, due to the influence
of multicultural immigrants in London who have added
their own regional slang to the dialect.
