Introduction

What is Cockney?

The origins of the word Cockney are quite interesting. The first and the earliest meaning of Cockney is the egg of a domestic fowl or cock’s egg. (OED). However, there were some alternative uses of the word. One of them is a spoilt or pampered person, especially a child, an indulged or undisciplined person (oed). Cockney also can be referred as the dialect of the English language traditionally spoken by working-class Londoners (De Boinod, 2018). However, Green (2012) states that in 1600 appeared the first such usage, in which the reference is not merely to the working-class Londoner with which it would henceforth be allied, but to a Bow-bell Cockney.

Area

According to De Boinod (2018), in its geographical and cultural senses, Cockney is best defined as a person born within hearing distance of the church bells of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, in the City of London. It has been estimated that, prior to the noise of traffic, the sound of the Bow Bells reached about 6 miles to the east, 5 miles to the north, 4 miles to the west, and 3 miles to the south, which is the jurisdiction of the vast majority of the hospitals of London’s East End (ibid). 

Cockney Rhyming Slang

Cockney, as a dialect is most notable for its argot, or coded language, which was born out of ingenious rhyming slang (De Boinod, 2018). Rhyming slang can be defined as a variety (originally Cockney) of slang in which a word is replaced by words or a phrase rhyming with it, sometimes with the rhyming part of the substituted phrase omitted. (OED). As Green (2002) states, one takes a word one wishes to describe, and in its place provides a brief phrase, usually of two but often of three words, of which the last word rhymes with the word for which it is a synonym. The easiest way to explain how Cockney Rhyming slang works is through examples. “I’m going upstairs” becomes I’m going up the apples in Cockney (De Boinod, 2018). Apples is a part of the phrase apples and pears, which rhymes with stairs; and pears is then dropped (ibid). Other, more straightforward favourites that are recognizable outside the Cockney community and have been adopted into the general lexicon of English slang are the use of Boat Race for “face,” Adam and Eve for “believe,” tea leaf for “thief,” mince pies for “eyes,” nanny goat for “coat,” plate of meat for “street,” daisy roots for “boots,” cream crackered for “knackered,” china plate for “mate,” brown bread for “dead,” bubble bath for “laugh,” bread and honey for “money,” brass bands for “hands,” whistle and flute for “suit,” septic tank for “Yank” (i.e., Yankee, or an American), and a currant bun for “sun” and, with a more recent extension, “The Sun” (ibid). 

Current research

Some scholars have looked into the differences and similarities between Cockney, Estuary English and received pronunciation, as all of them are spoken in London. Altendorf (1999) examined linguistic patterns of diffusion of /t/-glottaling, /l/-vocalisation and TH fronting on the continuum between Cockney and RP and if any of them can serve as ‘boundary markers’ between EE and its neigbouring varieties. Research showed that /l/-vocalisation and /t/-gottaling are widespread in all social accents on the continuum between Cockney and RP (ibid). Nevertheless, TH fronting is still a feature of Cockney which is extremely rare in other social accents (ibid). A research carried out by Tompkinson (2015) evaluated accents such as London Cockney, Received Pronunciation and Northern Irish and how threatening they sound. The Results showed that the non-standard London Cockney accent was rated as sounding significantly more threatening than the RP and Northern Irish guises in the indirect threat condition (ibid). However, the London Cockney accent was also rated as being less threatening in the indirect condition by listeners from the South of England compared to those from the North, suggesting that that listener geographical background could further influence evaluations of threats (ibid).