• Vocabulary

Cheers is often used in place of thank you, but it’s also possible for it to mean good-bye. The word basically is used frequently in conversation. An increased use of Americanisms can also be seen in EE and evidenced by such examples: There you go being used in place of the more standard Here you are and There is acts as an invariable form of usage in both singular and plural contexts. In addition, sorry is often replaced with excuse me and engaged in the context of the telephone, has been replaced by the word busy.

• Grammar

The major difference between EE and Cockney as being grammatical correctness. Cockney speakers use more non-standard grammar than do speakers of EE. Examples:EE - you were, Cockney - you was [8; 189]

Cockney

The Cockney accent is generally considered one of the broadest of the British accents. The term Cockney is often used to refer to working-class people of London, particularly east London, and the slang used by these people. It is also often used in reference to the "cockney accent." A "true" cockney is often said to be 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 (which is not itself in the East End). [See Appendix 2]

Features of Cockney English:

• Monophthongization

This affects the lexical set mouth vowel.

• MOUTH vowel

The "mouth" vowel is a "touchstone for distinguishing between "true Cockney" and popular London" and other more standard accents. Cockney usage would include monophthongization of the word mouth

Example:mouth = mauf rather than mouth

• Glottal stop

The glottal stop as also particularly characteristic of Cockney and can be manifested in different ways such as "t" glottalling in final position. A 1970’s study of schoolchildren living in the East End found /p,t,k/ "almost invariably glottalized" in final position.

Examples: cat = , up = , sock =

• Dropped ‘h’ at beginning of words (Voiceless glottal fricative)

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, and in accents closer to Cockney on the continuum between that and RP. The usage is strongly stigmatized by teachers and many other standard speakers.

Examples:house = ‘ouse, hammer = ‘ammer

• TH fronting

Another very well known characteristic of Cockney is th fronting which involves the replacement of the dental fricatives, and by labiodentals [f] and [v] respectively.

Examples:thin = fin, brother = bruvver, three = free, bath = barf

• Vowel lowering

Examples:dinner = dinna ,marrow= marra

• Cockney Rhyming Slang

Cockney English is also characterized by its own special vocabulary and usage in the form of "cockney rhyming slang". 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 to indicate the word you originally intended to say. Some rhymes have been in use for years and are very well recognized, if not used, among speakers of other accents.

Examples:"apples and pears" – stairs,"plates of meat" – feet There are others, however, that become established with the changing culture.

Example:"John Cleese" – cheese,"John Major" – pager[1; 262]

East Anglian English

East Anglian English is a dialect of English spoken in East Anglia. This easternmost area of England was probably home to the first-ever form of language which can be called English. East Anglian English has had a very considerable input into the formation of Standard English, and contributed importantly to the development of American English and (to a lesser extent) Southern Hemisphere English; it has also experienced multilingualism on a remarkable scale. However, it has received little attention from linguistic scholars over the years. East Anglian English contains: Norfolk dialect (Broad Norfolk) and Suffolk dialect. [See Appendix 2]

This dialect is very similar to the Southern:

• t between vowels usually becomes a glottal stop.

• /ai/ becomes /oi/: time > /toim/.

• non-rhotic, i.e. the 'r' in "hard" and similar words is not pronounced, unlike West Country English.

• "yesterday", as well as any other words ending in '-day' becomes "-di" as in "yesterdi" and "Toosdi".

• "int" is used for "have not", and is similar to "ain't" in London English.

• - "ant" is used for "has not".[6; 164]

The West Country English

The West Country English is said to be pure native Anglo Saxon. The accents used by much of the indigenous population of South West England, the area popularly known as the West Country. This region encompasses the city of Bristol and the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset. [See Appendix 2] The core area of West Country dialects is in Somerset.

Academically the regional variations are considered to be just dialect forms. The Survey of English Dialects captured manners of speech across the West Country that were just as different from Standard English as anything from the far North. Close proximity has completely different dialects such as Cornish, which is a Celtic language related to Welsh, and more closely to Breton.

• initial s often becomes z (singer > zinger).

• initial f often becomes v (finger > vinger).

• vowels are lengthened

• The final "y" is pronounced /ei/. For example: party /paːɹtei/ silly /sɪlei/ etc...

• All "r"s in a word are pronounced (as an approximant rather than a trill), in contrast to Received Pronunciation where "r" is only pronounced before vowels. West Country pronunciation of "r" corresponds with that in Ireland and in most of North America. For example: park, herd and car.

• In many words with the letter "l" near the end, such as gold or cold, the "l" is often not pronounced, so "an old gold bowl" would sound like "an ode goad bow".

In various districts there are also distinct grammatical and syntactical differences in the dialect:

• Bist may be used instead of are for the second person, EG: how bist? ("how are you?") This has its origins in the Old English – or Anglo-Saxon – language and is the form adopted as standard in modern German ("Du bist").

• An a prefix may be used to denote the past participle; a-went ("gone").

• In other areas, be may be used exclusively in the present tense, often in the present continuous; Where you be going to? ("Where are you going?")

• The use of to to denote location. Where's that to? ("Where's that?"). This is something you can still hear often, unlike many other characteristics.

• Use of the past tense "writ" where Standard English uses "wrote". e.g.: I writ a letter ("I wrote a letter").

The West Country accent is probably most identified in film as "pirate speech" – cartoon-like "Ooh arr, me 'earties! Sploice the mainbrace!" talk is very similar. This may be a result of the strong seafaring and fisherman tradition of the West Country, both legal and outlaw. Edward Teach (Blackbeard) was a native of Bristol, and privateer and English hero Sir Francis Drake hailed from Tavistock in Devon. Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Pirates of Penzance may also have added to the association. West Country native Robert Newton's performance in the 1950 Disney film Treasure Island is credited with popularizing the stereotypical West Country "pirate voice". Newton's strong West Country accent also featured in Blackbeard the Pirate (1952). [11; 98]