Особенности Лондонского Диалекта

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Introduction

Chapter 1. DIALECTS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

             1.1 Standard English. Variants and dialects.            

             1.2 The origin of dialects.

Chapter 2. COCKNEY.

             2.1 The peculiarities of Cockney

                         2.1.1. Phonetic peculiarities.

                         2.1.2. Lexical peculiarities

                            2.1.3 Grammar peculiarities.                    

2.2 Cockney Rhyming slang in popular culture 

2.3 Cockney Rhyming Slang in other languages  

The conclusion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Введение

 

     Появившись  приблизительно 400 лет назад как  язык социальных элементов бедных кварталов  Восточного Лондона (East End), Cockney не только не утратил свою значимость, а наоборот, с 1980х, испытывает резкий рост популярности, сопровождающийся появлением многочисленных новых примеров как в повседневной разговорной речи Британцев (см. «Приложение»), так и в песнях, фильмах и книгах, т.е. в популярной культуре. (Даже королева Елизавета II в своем Рождественском обращении использует фразы Ритмического сленга Cockney).

     Анализ  литературы также показал, что Cockney не только вышел за рамки территории, где он зародился, но и оказал влияние на другие варианты английского языка. Элементы Cockney можно встретить в Австралийском английском, в Американском, в Шотландском, в Ирландском языках.

     Следовательно, необходимо дополнительное исследование и популяризация данного феномена среди изучающих английский язык и английскую культуру.

     Данная  необходимость объясняет актуальность нашей работы и обуславливает её тему: «Особенности Лондонского диалекта Кокни».

     Цель  исследования: определить основные отличительные черты Лондонского диалекта.

    Объект  исследования: Британские диалекты.

    Предмет исследования – лексические, фонетические и грамматические особенности Южно – Британского диалекта Кокни.

    Для достижения цели исследования были поставлены следующие задачи:

1). Исследовать историю происхождения диалекта (его корни, территорию возникновения).

2). Изучить лексические, фонетические и грамматические особенности диалекта.

3). Проследить влияние диалекта на другие языки и распространение его в современной культуре. 

    Данная  работа состоит из введения, 2 глав, заключения, списка литературы и 1 приложения.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CHAPTER  I. DIALECTS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 

1.1. STANDARD  ENGLISH, VARIANTS AND DIALECTS. 

     Standard English — the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms belonging to various local dialects. Local dialects are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. In Great Britain there are two variants, Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group contains several (up to ten) dialects. [№ 13]

     Dialects are now chiefly preserved in rural communities, in the speech of elderly people. Their boundaries have become less stable than they used to be; the distinctive features are tending to disappear with the shifting of population due to the migration of working-class families in search of employment and the growing influence of urban life over the countryside. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema.

     One of the best known Southern dialects is C o c k n e y, the regional dialect of London. [№ 4].

     According this dialect exists on two levels. As spoken by the educated lower middle classes it is a regional dialect marked by some deviations in pronunciation but few in vocabulary and syntax. As spoken by the uneducated, Cockney differs from Standard English not only in pronunciation but also in vocabulary, morphology and syntax. Cockney has attracted much literary attention, and so we can judge of its past and present on the evidence of literature. For example, Charles Dickens knew about, G.B. Shaw used in his play «Pigmalion».So, what is so special about this dialect? 

     1.2. THE ORIGIN OF DIALECTS

     Cockney was a colloquial name applied to Londoners. The origin of the word has been the subject of many guesses, but the historical examination of the various uses of "cockney" shows that the earliest form of the word is cokenay or cokeney, that is, the ey or egg and coken, genitive plural of "cock", "cock's eggs" being the name given to the small and malformed eggs sometimes laid by young hens. The word then applied to a child overlong nursed by its mother, hence to a simpleton. The application of the term by country folk to town-bred people with their ignorance of country ways is easy. It was not till the beginning of the 17th century that "cockney" appears to have been confined to the inhabitants of London.

     Cockney are inhabitants of East London, so-called East End – the criminal area. Here basically live factory workers, handicraftsmen, fine dealers. The Standard of living here is low. If we look at the given area from the architectural point of view we shall see small buildings, the streets filled with houses of a design “I live above a shop”.

     For the last (approximately) 400 years in this area have been lodging emigrants from the Asian and African countries. Thus, indigenous population, which game consider to be Englishmen of th third estate, has mixed up with Arabs, Africans and Chinese. And it was in turn reflected in an architectural image of quarters and, certainly, on the way of life, and the character of mutual relations.

     Representatives of the “third class” had the special way of life and the real  “Nordic” character.  As a rule, men were real “ hot heads ”, and they served as sailors in royal or a merchant marine fleet or on the piracy ships. Women-wore color clothes, a bright make-up, and they also had free, often vulgar manners.

 [№ 7]     

     Originally the territory where cockney was spoken was not very big. Some authors believe that it was within the sound of Bow – bells. These are the bells in the tower of St. Mary – le – Bow.

     St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, long had one of the most celebrated bell-peals in London, until an air-raid destroyed the bells and the interior of the church in 1941. John Dun, mercer, in 1472 gave two tenements to maintain the ringing of Bow Bell every night at nine o'clock, to direct travellers on the road to town. In 1520 William Copland gave a bigger bell for the purpose of "sounding a retreat from work". It is said that the sound of these bells, which seemed to say "Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London", encouraged the young Dick Whittington to return to the City and try his luck again. [ № 9] 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CHAPTER 2. COCNEY

     2.1 The peculiarities of Cocney.

     Cockney has its phonetics, lexical and grammatical peculiarities. 

     2.1.1. Phonetic peculiarities.

     Cockney was phonetically, characterized by the interchange of the labial and labio-dental consonants [w] and [VI: wery for very and veil for well. This trait was lost by the end of the 19th century. The voiceless and voiced dental spirants [θ] and [ð] are still replaced— though not very consistently — by [f] and [v] respectively: fing for thing and farver for father (inserting the letter r indicates vowel length). This variation is not exclusively characteristic of Cockney and may be found in several dialects.

     Another trait not limited to Cockney is the interchange of the aspirated and non-aspirated initial vowels: hart for art and 'eart for heart.

     The most marked feature in vowel sounds is the substitution of the diphthong [ai] for standard [ei] in such words as day, face, rain, way pronounced: [dai], [fais], [rain], [wai].

     Some other characteristics;

1. when [ð] occurs initially it is either dropped or replaced by [d]: this [dis], them [(d)am];

2.  [1] is realized as a vowel when it precedes a consonant and a vowel, or when it is syllabic:  milk [mivk], table [teibv];

   the preceding vowel is [o:], [1] may disappear completely;

3. [ŋ] is replaced by [n] in word-final position: dancing [ dansin] or it   may   be   pronounced   as   [ink]   in   something,    anything,   nothing;

4. [p, t, k] are heavily aspirated, more so than in RP;

5. [t] is affricated, [s] is heard before the vowel: top [tsop].

   And also.

6. [a] is realized as [aei]: blood [bLod] - [blaeid];

7. [ae] is realized as [e] or [ei]: bag [bæg] - [bog], [boig];

8. [i] in word-final position sounds as [i:]: city [‘ siti] – [‘siti:];

9. when [o:] is non-final, its realization is much closer, it sounds like [o:]: pause [po:z] - [po:z]; when it is final, it is pronounced as [o:a]: paw [po:] - [po:Ə];

10.RP [ou] sounds as [seu]: soaked [saukt] - [sseukt];

11.RP [ao] may be [æa]: now [nao] - [næa]. [№ 2]

     2.1.2. Lexical piculiarities

     The speech of inhabitants of East End abounds every possible vulgarisms, and also obscene lexicon which we can find only in the dictionary “Dirty English”.

     Lexicon:

     For example,

               get soaked = to get wet through by rain

Holler = (vulg) to shout

A copper’s nark = a police imformer

See here instead of Look here

Hold your tongue = (vulg) stop your talk

Wollop = to give a thrashing (пороть to beat)

Ripping = fine, splendid, first-rate

 

                            A person

    Bloke - the guy, small.

    Blighter = annoying fellow

    Toff = a swell (an excellent guy, the important person)

    Rotter = a useless or disliked person

Mug = fool (also in value the person, and in neutral value crammed)

    Balmy = mad

    Governor = sir (as the form of the reference)

                                         

                                Money

    Poppy = money

    Tanner = sixpence

    Facks alive =five (pounds)

    Cock and ben = ten

    Score =twenty pound note 

                                  A talk                   

    Lip = saucy, impudent talk (impudent, impudent)

    Tosh (a nonsense, nonsense) = foolish talk

    Vulgarisms:

    Acause = because

    Cep = except

    Afore = before

    Zif = as if

       

    Cockney is full of exclamations:

    Blimey! - to fail!

    Heavens! = by heaven, Good heavens!

The more detail vocabulary can be found in our Additional Materials. 

     2.1.3 Grammar peculiarities:

     In Cockney the grammar of standard English it is not observed. So, in their speech we can meet

a) double denying, inadmissible in Standart English:

He will not get no cab

b) the use of vulgar ain’t, as the substitution of the denying from for all persons and numbers, etc:

He ain’t no call to meddle with me = he has no reason to meddle with me.

c) wrong formation of Participle II both from correct, and from irregular verbs:

worrited = wottied

knowed = knew.

     Cockney English is also characterized by its own special vocabulary and usage 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. Cockney certainly have been a very effective code, being incomprehensible to the authorities or any eavesdroppers who were not familiar with the slang.

     Initially phrases on Cockney were used entirely, but in due course the second part of many expressions has gone out of use. For example, “butcher’s hook” (a hook of the butcher) meant the word “look” (to look). In due course the word hook has ceased to be used in this phrase, has remained only “butcher’s - the butcher”. Thus, in London it is possible to hear instead of “let’s have a look on it” – “let’s have a butcher’s on it” or “to tell porkies” instead of “to tell lies”. The origin of expression to “tell porkies” ascends the roots to London (сockney: “pork pies” (pies with pork) it is rhymed with “lies”. Numerous examples and usage of rhyming slang can be found in our additional material Here we will dwell upon only the most widespread .

     In some examples we can define the  initial motivation:

      Troubles and strive means “wife”

      You and me = tea

      Dog and bone means telephone. Definition of the given word in this case can be interpreted as follows: the telephone tube reminds under the form a bone, and speaking (sometimes) - a dog.

      Often words are hidden under the names of places: