Dialects of London East End and Their Representation in the Media

Vanja Kavgić

Dialects of London East End and their

representation in the media.

Cockney dialect and Multicultural London English in British sitcoms.

MASTER THESIS

submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Programme: Master's programme English and American Studies

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt

Evaluator

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Alexander Onysko

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt

Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Klagenfurt, June 2018

Affidavit

I hereby declare in lieu of an oath that

- the submitted academic thesis is entirely my own work and that no auxiliary materials have been used other than those indicated, - I have fully disclosed all assistance received from third parties during the process of writing the thesis, including any significant advice from supervisors, - - any contents taken from the works of third parties or my own works that have been included either literally or in spirit have been appropriately marked and the respective source of the information has been clearly identified with precise bibliographical references (e.g. in footnotes), - to date, I have not submitted this thesis to an examining authority either in Austria or abroad and that - - when passing on copies of the academic thesis (e.g. in bound, printed or digital form), I will ensure that each copy is fully consistent with the submitted digital version.

I understand that the digital version of the academic thesis submitted will be used for the purpose of conducting a plagiarism assessment.

I am aware that a declaration contrary to the facts will have legal consequences.

Vanja Kavgic e.h. Klagenfurt, 28.06.2018

Table of Contents AKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 4 ABSTRACT ...... 5 CHAPTER 1– INTRODUCTION ...... 6 CHAPTER 2- THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ...... 12 2.1. Language variation and change ...... 12 2.1.1. Age ...... 13 2.1.2. Ethnicity ...... 14 2.1.3. Social class ...... 16 2.2. Language - (dialect) Contact ...... 17 2.3. Dialect Levelling and geographical diffusion ...... 18 CHAPTER 3- LANGUAGE IN THE MEDIA ...... 19 3.1. Dialect in Film ...... 21 3.2. The appearance of MLE as ‘Jafaican’ in print media ...... 22 CHAPTER 4- THE DIALECT OF LONDON EAST END ...... 23 4.1. Traditional Cockney Dialect ...... 24 4.2. London East End and Social Change ...... 25 4.3. Dialect Contact and Change ...... 26 4.3.1. Emergence of Multicultural London English (MLE) ...... 29 4.4. MLE as New Cockney? ...... 31 CHAPTER 5: LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF COCKNEY ...... 33 5.1. Rhyming slang ...... 33 5.2. Phonological features ...... 34 5.2.1. The vowel system...... 35 5.2.2. TH-fronting ...... 35 5.2.3. H-dropping ...... 36 5.2.4. Glottal stop ...... 36 5.3. Grammar ...... 37 5.4. Vocabulary ...... 38 CHAPTER 6: MLE (THE ‘NEW’ COCKNEY) LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS ...... 39 6.1. Phonological features ...... 39 6.2. Grammar ...... 42 6.3. Pragmatic markers ...... 42 CHAPTER 7- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...... 43

7.1. Overview, Research Questions and Hypothesis...... 43 7.2. Data Collection, Subjects and materials ...... 45 CHAPTER 8 ANALYSIS AND RESULTS ...... 45 8.1. Till Death Us Do Part and the Cockney dialect ...... 46 8.1.1. Vocabulary ...... 46 8.1.2. Grammar ...... 48 8.1.2.1. Ain’t ...... 48 8.1.2.2. Double negation ...... 49 8.1.3. Phonology ...... 50 8.1.3.1. Glottal stops ...... 50 8.1.3.2. TH-fronting ...... 51 8.1.3.3. H-dropping ...... 53 8.2. The Phone Shop and MLE ...... 53 8.2.1. Vocabulary ...... 54 8.2.2. Crossing ...... 56 8.2.3. Phonology ...... 57 8.2.3.1. Glottal Stop ...... 57 8.2.3.2. TH-fronting ...... 58 8.2.3.3. H-reinstatement ...... 60 CHAPTER 9- FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...... 60 9.1. Interpretation of the results ...... 62 9.2. Applications ...... 68 9.3. Limitations ...... 69 CHAPTER 10- CONCLUSION ...... 70 APPENDICES ...... 73 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 115

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Alexander Onysko for his patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques during the planning and development of this research work. His willingness to give his time so generously has been very much appreciated.

I would also like to express my very great appreciation to Sonja Babic M.A. who has given me an enormous help with valuable and constructive suggestions for this research paper. I shall not fail to mention members of the committee: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Werner Delanoy and Univ.- Prof. Mag. Dr. Allan Richard James for their contribution to this research paper.

Finally, the exceptional thanks goes out to my family who have encouraged and believed in me. Most importantly, I wish to thank my loving husband, Danijel, for his support and faith. The product of this research paper would not be possible without them.

ABSTRACT

This thesis examines linguistic features of Cockney dialect and Multicultural London English and their representations in two British sitcoms. Focusing on linguistic features of the two dialects and exploring the differences and similarities between represented (media) language and real-life language in use, this research attempts to investigate whether the language of the two dialects has the same linguistic features as their media representations in two selected sitcoms. Since not many studies have dealt with Cockney and MLE as represented so far, this thesis tackles important issues regarding spoken language in the media and language change. The approach of the present Master Thesis is to compare dialect features apparent in the media representations with actual dialect features described in the literature. In order to do that a detailed review of the literature is provided. In addition, the empirical part investigates transcribed episodes of the two sitcoms featuring speakers of these dialects. The research includes data on the characteristics of Cockney dialect and MLE collected from numerous sources such as books, academic articles, newspapers and media, as well as the linguistic analysis comparing real-life language with the media language used in sitcoms. The aim of the research is to determine whether the frequent appearance of certain linguistic features of a new variety in the media can lead toward their standardization. Preliminary results of the research show us that some language features found in the media language mirror spoken language in use. Furthermore, certain Cockney and MLE features differ in the same way in media as in spoken language. The results show that dialects spoken in the sitcoms resemble their dialects spoken in real life. It can be said that media language in this case does not differ from spoken language, and that the effects of the sitcoms on language change are slow and only marginally present.

Keywords: Cockney dialect, Multicultural London English, media language, language change, dialect standardization, speech representations.

CHAPTER 1– INTRODUCTION

Language diversity of England’s capital city, London, has always been raising interest among sociolinguists. London is considered as a melting pot of different cultures, languages and religions with inhabitants from around the world. Around 300 languages each day circulate through the City of London. According to the census in 20111, 77.9% of London's population spoke English as the main language, 19.8% spoke English as a second language or well to very well, 3.5% could not speak English well and 0.6% could not speak English at all. London has been known for its upper-class speech, Standard English and Received Pronunciation (RP), as well, as for ‘BBC English’. Even though upper-class speech set the historical grounds for Standard English and RP, “[…] working-class accents are today the most influential source of phonological innovation in England and perhaps in the whole English-speaking world” (Wells 1982: 301). Since the time of industrialization and WWII, following the beginning of twenty- first-century linguists have recognized the need to investigate working-class dialect and to deconstruct it in order to evaluate the social structure of London East End. “By the twentieth century London had become a vast city 60 kilometres across, and all its thirty-two boroughs have a socially mixed population” (Wells 1982: 303). Paul Newland (2008) concludes that the territory of London East End suggested by Glinert (2005), in his book A Literary Guide to London, would embody places such as Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Shoreditch, Stepney, Poplar and Bethnal Green. “Others argue that the East End stretches to Hackney in the north and past Stratford towards East Ham in the east” (Newland 2008: 17).

The East End of London has been recognized by its way of speaking. Most of the working-class people spoke with an East End dialect known as the Cockney dialect. Cockney has been attracting people’s attention since the time of Shakespeare and Dickens. Its remarkable wordplay has proved to be very common among working-class people usually used for the purpose of suspicious business. Their accustomed use of rhyme from the early times, in order to hide their ‘businesses’ from the authority, became their tradition and one of the most significant and researched features. Cockney represents far more to London citizens than just a dialect. It is a tradition that has remained part of the great City for over 400 hundred years. In geographical terms, the East End traditionally includes “[…] within about a quarter of a mile

1 Office for National Statistics, “Census 2011”, www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011census (January 16, 2018)

6 of the church of St Mary-Le-Bow in Cheapside in east central London and not far from London Bridge, Billingsgate fish-market and the Mansion House” (Matthews 1972: 11). Nowadays it is difficult to state the actual territory of the Cockney dialect. It has been reported that the dialect is moving out of the city together with his Cockney speaking inhabitants and that it leaves behind a linguistic vacuum to be filled by other ethnicities and languages. Due to the changes in the wider East London population, other ethnicities and cultures together with remains of Cockney get to paint the picture of the new East End London dialect.

Looking back into history, the working-class people of London always regarded themselves as Cockneys. “The term Cockney came from Middle English cokeney ‘cock’s egg’ and meant a small or misshapen egg and was probably used as synonym for something odd. It became a term of reproach and ridicule, meaning an effeminate silly person, probably first used by villagers living round the capital to describe the Londoners they met” (Wright 1981: 11). Its meaning was used to point out an uneducated native of London which was regarded as ‘truly ignorant’. It took long enough to investigate and accept the Cockney dialect as an official dialect of East End London. Education was not always accessible for working-class people especially for those that came from the poor parts of the East End. Younger generations who managed to afford education had to use Standard English in school during classes. However, inner family circles and among peer groups have managed to shape the language that we associate with Cockney.

Peter Wright (1981) reports in his book on Cockney dialect and Slang that Cockney has been neglected as a dialect. He mentions the works of Eva Sivertsen and William Mathews (1972) as the only studies since the 1980s that have been discussing Cockney phonology and rhyming slang. Wright notices adjustments in Cockney speech mostly from literary works written in 1883 which were obvious signs that the dialect has been progressing. Some early differences captured in the dialect appeared under the influence of Americanisms (Wright 1981). The current study cannot cover the vast amount of changes that have appeared in the Cockney dialect, from the period of Cockney not being accepted as a standard dialect till the present time where Cockney dialect is spoken in the area of East End London and beyond. Nonetheless, it will incorporate evidence that is necessary to better understand the language situation in the East End of London.

The Cockney dialect has found its space in written and spoken form. During the early period of interest in Cockney from the 1960s to the 1980s, the dialect has been mainly tracked

7 in literary works. Matthew Williams (1972) reports that the earliest signs of interest in Cockney speech are “… the weirdly spelled letters which appear in some eighteenth-century novels” (26). Since that period Cockney has evolved into a dialect with recognizable features (which will be explained in further chapters below) that differentiate it from another dialect of English, especially from Standard English. In addition, Cockney has been noticed on television, media as well as in literature. Cockney does not only represent the language of a certain social group but it is also seen as a humorous tool used on television to express everyday situations in London through comedy and satire. On radio and television, there are a great deal of situation comedies where actors use Cockney dialect for humorous purposes.

Cheshire, Fox, Kerswill and Torgersen (2008: 1) suggest that in the 1950s plenty Londoners, mainly white, moved from the inner London to the outer London boroughs and further astray, particularly to Essex. In contrast, the inner London borough has “[…] a high proportion of recent migrants from overseas”. During that period of time, the popular dialect of working-class people on this area has been the Cockney dialect. However, due to the great influx of multi-ethnic immigrants in the East End, Cockney speakers moved towards the suburbs. A great accumulation of diverse ethnicities has established a major impact on the language of the young Londoners. Studies on “Linguistic Innovators: The English adolescents” in London have investigated informants from Havering and Hackney (selected on the basis of demographic and social differences) in order to prove ethnicity as a factor of a linguistic innovation (Cheshire, Fox, Kerswill and Torgersen 2008). Hackney turns out to be more innovative on all linguistic levels than Havering, bearing in mind that in Hackney 40.6% of the inhabitants are non-white. This fact further explains the importance of different factors involved in the birth of new varieties in London East End. Ethnicity, as one of the factors, plays a role in the present research, because it includes different ethnicities together with their languages as potential sources of dialect change.

Moreover, in the late twentieth century several European cities in countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Great Britain have reported the emergence of “new, distinct varieties of the host languages in multilingual, working-class neighbourhoods” (Cheshire 2011: 152). The main focus of nearly every research included adolescent ways of speaking in their neighbourhoods (Cheshire 2011). Even press reports have been talking about a new, mixed, multicultural dialect in London’s traditional East End, apparently displacing traditional Cockney, which ends up being pushed to the edges of the city and beyond (Kerswill 2014). Some insist that the Cockney accent will disappear from London streets within 30 years.

Paul Kerswill (2011) claims that Cockney will be replaced by Multicultural London English- a mixture of Cockney, Bangladeshi and West Indian accents.

The interest in English varieties of East End London has increased since the first studies (Kerswill 2004, 2010) were done that defined innovations in London youth speech. Their main concern was to prove how multiculturalism influenced the language spoken in this area and whether the innovations discovered come from young Londoners or from minor ethnic groups living in the same area of London East End. Adolescents analysed in the studies were born in London and were of recent immigrant background. The findings proved that a certain patois was created among the youth which is used not only among multi ethnic social groups but also among white Anglos. The findings of these two studies raised attention to the varieties spoken on the East End. The outcome of the innovations found in inner-London has led to a variety, or set of varieties, termed Multicultural London English (Fox, Khan, Torgersen 2011). Linguists agree that the speech pattern is fast becoming a genuine sound of modern urban London, the native tongue of black, white and brown youth. There are some records in which informants acknowledge MLE as a slang that is used only among the youth of inner circle East End. Still, Multicultural London English has found its place in media as well. As mentioned above in the case of Cockney, MLE users can be found among famous musicians, rappers, actors and many others. This would suggest that the new variety has found its place in popular culture. The TV as a popular source of entertainment offers sitcoms whose actors use the new variety while playing their characters. The sitcom Phone Shop is an example of a series that tries to picture the spirit of London citizens through humour. The sitcom is set in a phone store where different characters use MLE for their everyday situations.

It goes without saying that both, Cockney and MLE have established firm roles in defining the class, race and social groups of people living in East End London. Because of that, the current language situation in this area of London is still a popular topic among linguists. There are many factors that can be responsible for some changes that happened, either phonological, lexical or grammatical. The research engages in the fair amount of studies which introduce different factors for dialect change, particularly, ethnicity, contact and age as possible factors for the birth of new patois. The hypothesis with which this research started was that a dialect on the media could be taken as a possible initial step towards standardization of the dialect. However, this is not to say that language change has occurred because of the media. The question is how media representations of language relate to community usage. Linguists are careful in claiming any involvement of media into language change as a main factor. Stuart-

Smith (2013) points out that the starting point for language variation and change is live social interaction. The records on linguistic evolution show that language variation and change occur between speakers during their ongoing social interactions in which some adaptations are made based on social, individual or ideological factors (Stuart-Smith, Pryce, Timmins, & Gunter 2013). This paper further deals with representations of the above-mentioned dialects in British sitcoms in order to explore their authenticity and the adjustment of dialect features in the powerful tools of media, in this case, television.

Based on previous investigations pursued in this field and on the literature on this matter, several questions attracted my attention. First, I chose to investigate media representations of MLE and Cockney dialect features in two British sitcoms in order to define similarities between the representations and their actual versions in the literature. Second, I have hypothesized that language (dialect) in the media can be seen as a step towards standardization. This implies that the present research will provide evidence on language variation in East End and that those variations may be supported by their representations in the media. While the question whether this might help their integration into society at large cannot be answered in this paper, the potential of media representations in spreading the dialect and “standardizing” it will be discussed.

After the introductory section of the thesis, the second chapter provides information on sociolinguistic approaches in order to theoretically support evidence for dialect change. This chapter will include some of the vast amount of studies published on language variations, urban dialectology and dialect levelling. Each segment contributes to the language situation of East End London. The second part of the chapter leads the reader towards another important segment of the thesis and that is language on the media. It is important to elaborate how media and language cooperate. Here the reader will have a chance to see how language manages to colour its characters and the society the characters belong to. Furthermore, some relevant studies will be included to point out several findings that explain the correlation between television and language.

After briefly explaining the theoretical approaches towards dialect change and elaborating the correlation between language and the media, the discussion moves to East End London, focusing on its language history. In this part, the research will follow the process of dialect evolution from Cockney towards MLE. Moreover, since the history of Cockney dialect is long and complex, the chapter will briefly explain the dialect changes that have occurred in

10 wider East part of London. Chapter 3.- discusses: language contact, ethnicity and age as factors of dialect change, describing the dialect in use. The chapter describes the multiethnicity of London working-class, supported by statistics to better understand the demographics the of London population.

After familiarizing the reader with the history and the present language use in East End London, and after providing the sufficient background of the language situation in London, the fourth and fifth chapter will deal with Cockney and MLE more thoroughly. The reader will get more information on features of both dialects. Having in mind that Cockney is considered a tradition in East End London, it will be necessary to mention rhyming slang and other features of Cockney which may or may not be analysed. The focus of the study is on the use of the dialect in the media. On radio and television there are a great deal of situation comedies where actors use Cockney dialect for humorous purposes. According to Wright (1981), one of the best known has been Till Death Us Do Part, which is a comedy centred round garrulous Alf Garnett and his family and set in East London. Alf is a typical Cockney representative whose life circles around work and home, capturing the political situation in England at the time. It is his precise use of Cockney dialect what makes his speech vital for the research. As one of the most accurate representative character of Cockney dialect in this sitcom, Alf Garnett’s speech carries great part in this research.

Aspects of MLE will be further discussed in chapter five, providing the reader with significant features that characterize and separate this urban dialect from other dialects of East End London. In order to analyse MLE features in the media I have chosen another British TV series Phone Shop. This sitcom describes everyday life of the phone shop workers whose dialogs are rich with multicultural language that is used in the community. The sitcom further provides speeches from different ethnicities that belong to the working-class community of East End London.

Having covered all the necessary theory, the research methodology of the study will be explained next. Chapter 6 will present the research questions, propose the main hypothesis and thoroughly describes the steps of the current research methodology. In order to answer my research questions and to support my hypothesis, I conducted a research on the texts from the TV Shows mentioned above. In this chapter, the reader is introduced with the nature of the sitcoms and the main characters whose speeches will be analysed. The analysis will further

11 display language features that occurred most frequently in the texts and prove if their frequent use in the media leads to transmission of such over local communities and their integration.

CHAPTER 2- THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This chapter describes relevant linguistic theory to better understand the language changes that appear in the dialects of London East End. One cannot talk about dialects without explaining the original understanding of a meaning of a dialect. Trudgill and Chambers (1998) define dialect as “… a substandard, low-status, often rustic form of language, generally associated with the peasantry, the working class, or other groups lacking in prestige a term which is often applied to forms of language, particularly those spoken in more isolated parts of the world, which have no written form” (3). This admittedly causes a number of difficulties. In addition, they produce an alternate explanation of a dialect as a subpart of a language. Additionally providing “… the benefit of characterising dialects as subparts of a language and of providing a criterion for distinguishing between one language and another” (Trudgill & Chambers 1998: 3). Until recently the main focus of dialectology (the study of dialects) has been on geographical variation, with studies investigating, recording and preserving non- standard dialect forms in rural locations. The innovative work of Labov changed the course of dialectology, redirecting the focus from a rural area towards an urban area. The centre of the research became social groups defined by their class, gender, age and/or ethnicity, and the attention was directed towards phonetic and phonological variations. The name Urban dialectology has been born as a product of this paradigm shift (Foulkes & Docherty 1999).

2.1. Language variation and change “Not all variability and heterogeneity in language structure involves change, but all change involves variability and heterogeneity” (Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968: 188). Since the 1960s language has been seen in correlation with social factors. Sociolinguistics as one of the most significant branches of linguistics deals with social factors, especially with their influence on language development. Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics that considers social context as an inevitable part of language. The primary focus of sociolinguistics is to investigate the correlation between language use and social structure. Additional significant aspects of sociolinguistic studies are the mechanisms responsible for language variation and change. The founder of modern linguistics, Saussure, claimed that “… speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other” (1916: 8). Kerswill and Torgersen (2004) provide insight into the categorization of social factors responsible for language change mentioned by McMahon in her work Understanding

Language change. She divides them in two groups, external (contact-driven) factors and internal (system-driven) factors. Still, difficulty arises in the external-internal clear-cut division which cannot be easily drawn. “…it is obvious that the simple labels ‘internally-motivated’ and ‘externally-motivated’ language change do not do justice to the complex and intricate relationship between how speakers act linguistically in their community and the postulated abstract level of structure which is taken to provide the basis for speakers’ behaviour. It is clear then that linguistic reality is too complex to be captured entirely by a simple binary division of change types into ‘internal’ and ‘external’ (Dorian 1993: 131). Hickey (2012: 402) further explains that these two categories should not be considered as ‘mutually exclusive’ but preferably regarded as possible sources for a language change, “…the description of whose differential interaction is an essential part of accounting for this change”. Papers such as presented by Labov (2006 [1966]) and Trudgill (1974) provide sociolinguistic research on language change in different social groups. The paper will further focus on externally- motivated change that includes any language change under the influence of factors which can be connected with the community or society using this language. The social factors (or independent variables) crucial for the present research incorporate age, ethnicity and social class.

2.1.1. Age Chambers (2002) refers to the age as one of three overriding social categories in modern industrialized societies, next to gender and social class, and as “… the social attribute that is the primary correlate of language change” (349). According to Eckert (2008), “…the study of age in relation to the study of sociolinguistic variation lies at the intersection of life stage and history” (151). Eckert (2008) further adds that every individual speaker or ‘age cohort of speakers’ at any given moment serves simultaneously as a place in history and a life stage. “Age stratification of linguistic variables, then, can reflect change in the speech of the community as it moves through time (historical change), and change in the speech of the individual as he or she moves through life (age grading)” (Eckert 2008: 151). Age is considered as an important factor in variation studies because of great number of examples of language variations found in adolescents’ speech. Furthermore, the vocabulary of adolescent slang attracted the interest of sociolinguists because it can be related to the youth culture and English language (Cheshire 2006: 765). Namely, variational studies from Labov, Kerswill, Cheshire, Fox, Milroys, Eckert, and vast number of others that will be mentioned in the following chapters, discuss the importance of age as a social factor in the process of language change.

The foundation of the present research is built on two studies of London youth language by Paul Kerswill: “Linguistic innovators: The English of Adolescents in London (2004-2007)” and “Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition, and diffusion of a new variety (2007-2009)”. In the first study, the research has been made on adolescents from inner and outer London borough, Hackney and Havering, consisting of both white Anglo speakers and non-Anglo speakers from other ethnicities. The idea of investigating two sites with different sociodemographic factors was created for the purpose of testing the claim that “…linguistic innovation originates in inner London as well as to consider the effect of speaker ethnicity on London English” (Kerswill 2008: 1). The study showed certain phonological changes that appeared in Inner London Hackney and some amount of the same appearing in Havering. The difference is clearly stated between adolescent speech in Hackney, Inner London, and speech in Havering in outer London. The study further offers a complex model of innovation, diffusion and levelling regarding the social complexity of metropolises and intergroup relations. Furthermore, there appeared to be variation in adolescent speech as opposed to adult speech which discovered the effects of ethnicity. The second study that was designed to explore the language of working-class children and adolescents in London was “Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition, and diffusion of a new variety (2007-2009)”. In this study, as well, participants were divided into Anglos and non-Anglos. However, this study focused mainly on the language used in multiethnic Inner part of London covering the areas of Islington, Haringey and Hackney. An extremely high proportion of speakers of language varieties other than the local variety is what distinguishes London’s inner city from other instances of language change ‘generated-internally’. Innovations occurred in the study include, among others, linguistic features such as: diphthong changes and discourse-pragmatic form this is + speaker (Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox and Torgersen 2012: 190). The two studies involve two other social variables significant for language change: ethnicity and social class, which will be described further below.

2.1.2. Ethnicity When it comes to language change, all the factors must be included in order to define the source of the change. Most of the linguistic studies done so far focused mainly on social factors such as gender, age and social class leaving effects of ethnicity poorly explored. Ethnicity as one of the crucial factors for the present research is not about “[…] what one is but about what one does” (Fought 2002: 444). London has been a centre of multiple ethnic groups, specifically- the inner part of the city contains an accumulation of different ethnicities.

London East End is the area that is out of great interest for the research because of the ethnic groups that live there. In order to familiarize ourselves with the language situation of English spoken in London East End it is important to include ethnicity as one of the factors responsible for new language variations in this area. The term Multicultural London English already carries in its name an explanation for the new variety. It is easily noticed that the new variety appears in multicultural surroundings. Not only the ethnicity of an individual produces effects in language variation but also the ethnicity of friendship networks. Kerswill (2007-10) proves the role of ethnicity to be a crucial agent for both phonetic and discourse variables in inner London (Cheshire, Fox, Kerswill and Torgersen 2008). His two studies mentioned in the previous subchapter both analyse the language of speakers from Hackney. Correspondingly, as stated in the census from 2001, 10.29% of people in Hackney were Afro-Caribbean and 11.98% were black African (the largest non-Anglo ethnic group in Hackney). Together, with other minorities this leads to a total of 40.6% of people in Hackney that were non-white. Most of the informants were part of friendship groups that included members of different ethnicities from 60% up to 80%. Most of the innovations that were found came from non-Anglo speakers. “All the Hackney adolescents use the phonological innovations to some extent. The most extreme innovative variants, for both vowel and consonant variables, are used by non-Anglo speakers in general and specifically by speakers with a high multiethnic network” (Cheshire, Fox, Kerswill and Torgersen 2008: 18). They proved to be more open for using new varieties than Anglo speakers.

In her study of language variation in Tower Hamlets, Sue Fox (2007, 2015) claims that the white working-class Cockneys who have represented the majority of the population in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets have moved out to the suburbs of London. Thus, leaving free homes for newcomers around Docklands who have nothing in common with what might be termed ‘Cockney culture’ (29). There appears to be another working-class sector the Bangladeshi community which represents one third of the total population in Tower Hamlets. Fox (2007) in her unpublished PhD dissertation has focused on the role of ethnicity for language change in Tower Hamlets. Her speakers are mixed in terms of ethnicity and they consist of white-Anglos, black, mixed race, and Asian origin, mainly Bangladeshi (Fox 2015). The informants belong to the working-class adolescents that attend the same Youth club. The final results show innovations in phonology by non-Anglo speakers, predominantly. Realizations discovered differ from Cockney realisations and consider an innovation in East End language. There is not enough room to do full justice to all the studies and discuss all the

15 changes they discovered. Accordingly, the following chapters will incorporate some of the linguistic features significant for this study.

2.1.3. Social class “It is assumed that children first acquire the language of the primary caregiver (Kerswill 1996; Kerswill and Williams 2000) and then, during a period of vernacular reorganisation, focus on a new norm, driven by social forces, gradually increasing their use of the new forms” (Cheshire 2011: 154). Social class makes another valuable variable in language variation and change. It is important for every sociolinguistic study that takes into account social parameters of speakers in a certain area. Labov (2006) states “[…] that the language of individuals cannot be understood without knowledge of the community of which they are members” (5). Since Labov’s study of New York (1966) most of sociolinguistic research has been more or less involved with the correlation of linguistic variables and various social classes, which further leads to a common conclusion that social class has a significant role on linguistic variation (Nødtvedt 2011). The target community for the current study is wider East part of London which used to be mostly populated by white working-class people, known as Cockneys. Some popular implications linked tightly to Cockneys are poor use of standard English and lack of education. It goes without saying that these implications resemble the nature of London East Enders. The traditional East End has suffered a great amount of social and economic ‘upheaval’ especially in the second half of the 20th century. This further led to a characterisation of the area by considerable social and ethnic division, where once the population was white working class (Fox 2015). After the sudden closure of the London docks, the busiest port in the 1970s which resulted in increased unemployment in the area, many of the local citizens moved further east to seek employment at the only working dock in Tilbury or moved elsewhere. The increase in population since 1981 was brought by in-migration of Bangladeshi families to the area of East End. Since the time first studies (Sievertsen 1960, Mathews 1972, Wright 1981) appeared investigating Cockney, the character of East End London has changed. Subsequently, new studies (Kerswill 2004-7, 2007-10) in Milton Keynes, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Havering, prove that the language of the working-class in the East End has changed. Not only did the nature of social class spread its influence but also the influx of ethnically Bangladeshi people. The new wave of multiethnic immigrants with different educational background populated the area of Cockney, which, consequently, led Cockneys to moves out into London suburbs, further to Essex. The modern generation of working-class Londoners from South-East now consists mostly of immigrants of Bangladeshi origin first generations born in London (Fox 2015).

2.2. Language - (dialect) Contact Kerswill, Cheshire, Fox and Torgersen (2013) consider language change to occur from ‘face-to-face’ contacts between speakers set in particular sociolinguistic contexts and to extend over particular periods of time (258). To understand the nature of the contact it is important to include social contexts of the contacts. This means that contact may appear in different contexts, such as: due to relations in peer groups involving young people, contexts of trade or social domination. Other important elements specified by Kerswill et al. (2013) are the frequency and intensity of the contact, whether they are temporary as in the case of tourism or enduring as in the case of immigration. Having in mind that different age groups acquire language in different ways, adolescents, children and adults obtain distinct ‘types of social relations with other people’. Finally, it is significant to define language varieties in question (dialect or language in contact) and their similarities and differences (258). However, the analysis of children’s and adolescents’ speech occurs within “[…] dominant variationist paradigm of speech community in which the relationship between the language varieties depend on social differentiation along gender and class lines (or other relevant parameters) […]” (260). This is known as the Labovian notion of ‘inherent variability’ (Labov 1969) which further explains that the variation presented by speakers either individually or collectively is understood both as socially and linguistically structured. Therefore Labov, in this model, sees contact as an ‘external force’ that interferes with the speech community (Kerswill et al. 2013, see Labov 2001: 20). For Labov diffusion is the primary contact mechanism in which linguistic aspects are spread across a geographical area by “adult-to-adult contacts” (Labov 2007, see Kerswill et al. 2013: 261). Even though Labov’s approach is not completely adequate, it however, indicates the significance of social contexts, including speakers age, “[…] through which language is mediated, whether or not contact is implicated” Kerswill et al. 2013: 261). Labov’s diffusion model involves the speakers who are adults. On the other hand, an extensive amount of evidence shows that young children also acquire features which are diffusing geographically. One of the exemplary features in British English is th-fronting (replacement of dental fricatives /ð/ and /θ/ with the /f/ and /v/). The feature is mostly found among children of Milton Keynes, Reading, Hull and Durham, though not in the parent generations (Kerswill 2003: 232-8). The transmission through parents is less likely since the feature is spoken mostly by children. Other factors might include: the interaction with older children, contact with working-class teenagers (the group that uses this feature the most), or some effects that might be transferred through media tools such as television (Stuart-Smith’s study on th-fronting in Glasgow 2006). “In cases where a diffusing feature is being adopted by children, face-to-face

17 contact remains a measurable factor which is, however, easily overridden by others, including social class […] as well as engagement with television as a part of everyday social practice” (Kerswill et al. 2013: 265).

2.3. Dialect Levelling and geographical diffusion Kerswill (2003) considers two mechanisms, dialect levelling and geographical diffusion, which are responsible for “the loss of the localized features in urban and rural varieties of British English and their replacement by features found over a wider region” (223). Geographical diffusion, as mentioned in the previous chapter, includes the spread of features out from a populous and economically dominant centre (Kerswill 2003, Britain 2002). Speakers are exposed to other individuals who have previously adopted the new feature and through face-to-face contact are willing to adopt the same feature themselves. The loss of /h/ is one ‘well-known’ and ‘well-studied’ phonological features that diffused from London into East Anglia in a period of 150 years (Trudgill 1983:44). /H/-omission has been a marked feature of urban London; however, it spread further to other cities and also to some rural area. The explanation given by Trudgill (1983) was supported by the fact that “features that are salient are accommodated to- and thus subsequently diffused- then /h/ and its absence are clearly highly salient” (Trudgill 1983: 45). The second mechanism mentioned by Kerswill (2003) is dialect levelling, which is best explained as ‘the reduction of marked (unusual or in a minority) variants’. The traditional term dialect levelling was established in the European dialectological literature (see Haag 1929), referring to the “eradication of socially or locally marked variants which follows social or geographical mobility and resultant dialect contact” (Watt & Milroy 1999: 26). The Dialect levelling project, “The role of adolescents in dialect levelling (1995- 1998)”, included three towns (Milton Keynes, Reading and Hull) with a similar geographical location, demographic characteristics and social composition. The aim of the project was to explain the phenomenon of dialect levelling in England. Levelling has been occurring among the population that is mobile where high level of dialect contact is present. It is expected from such areas where people find themselves in everyday face-to-face interaction with speakers of other varieties to avoid marked regional features in order to avoid comprehension difficulties. This process can further lead to permanent language change where marked variants disappear and the features that are widely used are then retained (Williams & Kerswill 1999, Trudgil 1983). Marked features can be addressed as features of a certain social class, such as is the case with Cockney features. In the above-mentioned dialect levelling project, levelling has been

18 demonstrated by many vowel features in the Southern towns (Reading and Milton Keynes). For instance, the vowel in MOUTH is pronounced as RP [aʊ], which is noted mostly by adolescents in Milton Keynes and Reading. However, the vowel of PRICE is realised as a London variant [ai] (Williams &Kerswill 1999: 149-161). In the area of Hull there seem to be no traces of dialect levelling, most likely because of the limited social and geographical mobility. Another case of dialect levelling has been investigated in the area of Tyneside, Newcastle where vowels of FACE [əɪ] and GOAT [oʊ] seem to be replaced by more northern pronunciation [e:] and [o:] (Watt 1999). The youth of Newcastle align their language rather with traditionally Northern dialects. Even though they are aware of the traditional realisations being considered as old-fashioned, “there seems to be a „trade-off‟ between being oriented towards more modern forms and regional loyalty, and thus adopt the mainstream Northern variants” (Nødtvedt 2011:17, see also Watt 1998, Watt & Milroy 1999).

The levelling process that has been reported in studies mentioned above is typical of the loss of traditional urban varieties of English in United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Cockney dialect also takes part in a dialect levelling process since it is a subject to external influence. If we take into consideration dialect levelling as a plausible explanation for the language change in East End London, certain conditions are required such as: mobility of speakers of the East End (either actively or passively), and contact with other varieties of English. Another important prerequisite as we have seen is the willingness to adopt these mainstream forms. There are also exceptions to this; according to Trudgill, some expressions, fashionable pronunciations of individual words or idioms may be imitated and adopted from television or radio. That is how some American English features are adopted into British English. Still, phonology and grammar of modern British English remains unaffected, i.e. both varieties of American and British continue to diverge quite rapidly (Trudgill 1983: 41).

CHAPTER 3- LANGUAGE IN THE MEDIA “The English language is more widely dispersed across the world than most languages are, and comes into contact with hundreds of others every day. A huge amount of variation is inevitable; any other language would in all probability vary in just the same way” (Watt 1998: 287-288). Chapter 2 included social factors and other theories which were vital for the process of language change. It goes without saying that language develops constantly either under the influence of internal or external factors. So far, this study has explained some of the factors that play a great role in language change. These included everyday contact with different ethnicities, languages and social classes. In this chapter we take media into consideration as

19 one more aspect that may help better understand language change and variation change. Equally significant for this research is media, and language that is used in the media. The title of the thesis clearly states that we are also dealing with language representation. Even though, the role of media in processes of linguistic change is not completely understood, this chapter will try to explain in more detail the relation between language and media and how the two means of communication are relevant for the present research. Media is a wide term and this paper will not be able to analyse every aspect of media. Since the main issue of the paper is the representations of dialects in British sitcoms, the focus will also be on television as one of the aspect of media. In his book Mediatization and Sociolinguistic Change, Jannis Androutsopoulos (2014) refers to media language as often perceived as artificial or truly standardized. That is why it is considered fully distinct from what is thought of as “the genuine empirical object of sociolinguistic study i.e. conversational language in the community” (8). He further explains that the influence of television on language use and attitudes can be better understood by taking different genres and styles of media language into account in order to define patterns which have most or any influence on audiences (2014: 8). The variationist approach in the process of language change is asserted in the transmission of linguistic innovations during face-to-face interaction. Stuart-Smith claims that “The consensus seems to be that since we cannot interact with television characters in the same way as with our friends, neighbours and workmates, represented television dialects are unlikely to affect our own speech” (2006: 140). Similarly, Trudgill (1986) adds: “The point about the TV set is that people, however much they watch and listen to it, do not talk to it (and even if they do, it cannot hear them!), with the result that no accommodation takes place” (40). Trudgill (1983) suggests that highly salient words or pronunciation which can be heard from radio or from television such as some idioms or fashionable words can be adopted but that does not imply change in language or dialect, e.g. some words adopted from American English. The purpose of analysing Cockney and MLE dialect representation in British sitcoms is to discover if the dialect representations resemble their (non)standardized versions. If that is true we could further conclude that the variations used in the spoken dialogs are frequent and their usage in mass media could further mean that they are close to the process of standardization. Cockney dialect has already been recognized as an official dialect of London East End (Sievertsen 1960, Matthews 1972, Wright 1981); however, the variation, in adolescents’ speech in the last twenty years in the same area deviates from its standard.

3.1. Dialect in Film The way in which people speak provides information about their social and regional background. Thus, it is possible to associate different varieties of English with different social groups from various regions. When it comes to Films or TV shows, these kinds of aspects may be used to characterise the scene or a whole movie. Jane Hodson depicts in her book Dialect in film (2014) different aspects of movie representation used for the scene creation, such as camera work, lightning and the tone. In her analysis of the first two minutes of the film (Nil by Mouth, by Oldman 1997) she is focused on the setting and on the character. It is the spoken dialect of the main character that reveals where this man comes from and who he is. She assigns the accent to South East England because of the features which are recognized as the standard of the dialect in real life. The actor’s /h/ omission, TH-fronting and T-glottalization clearly belong to someone coming from London. According to Kozloff (2000) language varieties are used in film for the purpose of character portrayal, such as background of the character and his cultural heritage. “[…] clichéd dialects are used on-screen to sketch in a character’s past and cultural heritage, to locate each person in terms of his or her financial standing, education level, geographical background or ethnic group” (Kozloff, 2000:82).

In her study “Television can also be a factor in language change: evidence from an urban dialect”, Jane Stuart-Smith et.al. (2013) provide insight into possible factors which could have led to an accelerating linguistic change, TH-fronting and L-vocalization, in Glaswegian youngster accent. Both features are associated with Cockney dialect and its rapid diffusion may show some sign of Cockney influence either through language contact (through relatives) from East End or media. The aim of the research is to investigate, alongside linguistic and social factors, also the psychological engagement with the TV show East Enders, in order to find out if influence from television accelerates the diffusion of linguistic change. Stuart-Smith (2013) states that “Rapid linguistic diffusion is motivated and accelerated by a combination of factors working together, from the fragmentation of social networks and enhanced opportunities for geographical mobility, to the association of social meanings with variation during shared social practices and developing social identities” (505). Since geographical mobility and contact with the source varieties of the changes is limited for most Glaswegian adolescents, the reason to suspect on media influence has proved to be understandable. The research project included 36 adolescents and 12 adults all of whom belonged to the working-class. The results of the analysis showed that the changes that had spread through youth speech might have looked like as being adopted from media but both of these changes had arrived in Glasgow many years before East

Enders were broadcast. Thus, the broadcast media may play a role in sound change but it is not sufficient for causing the mentioned changes, “nor is there any reason to assume that media should be essential for linguistic diffusion” (Stuart-Smith et al. 2013: 531). The current research opens up more questions about media influence. It is still unclear how far should media be counted in the process of language change. The questions that appeared media influence on core structural change, language use and social meaning.

The dialogs of the sitcoms in this paper contain characters which belong to the same social class and region but have different dialect features. The dialog of the main protagonist in the first sitcom (Till Death Us Do Part) portrays a working-class Cockney speaker who lives in London and deals with the political and economic situation in London. The dialogs used in second sitcom (Phone Shop) on the other hand portray the language of working-class adolescents who do not identify themselves with Cockney but choose to embrace the dialect as their own variety, addressed in Kerswill (2014) as slang. It is important to mention that the two sitcoms are from different time periods. This will be further analysed in the Methodology chapter.

3.2. The appearance of MLE as ‘Jafaican’ in print media In the paper “The objectification of ‘Jafaican’. The discoursal embedding of Multicultural London English in the British media. “, Kerswill (2014) talks about mediatization of a language variety in real life. In this case Multicultural London English is recognized as ‘Jafaican’ in the media. Most of the language features found in MLE are believed to be of Jamaican origin that is how the name ‘Jafaican’ occurred as fake Jamaican (Kerswill 2014: 433). In the studies on London youth (2005-2007) the speakers tended not to associate themselves with the term Cockney, either as an identity marker or a language variety. There was no specific label other than ‘slang’ for the variety they spoke among each other. Since the new variety had many terms of Jamaican origin we can assume how it got the label ‘Jafaican’ in the media. Kerswill (2014) used an online corpus of British newspapers to research information on this style of speech in print media. The research selected online newspapers chronologically and tracked the discourses in which the term ‘Jafaican’ appeared. The first appearance of the term as fake Jamaican occurred in the US media in 2002 referring to the people who dressed in a ‘fake Jamaican’ manner at music festival in New York (Kerswill 2014: 438). Other appearances in UK media refer to youth in London and date from 2006 onwards. In the first published articles ‘Jafaican’ has been seen as negative occurrence that is ‘pushing’ Cockney out of East End heartland. Another occurrence shows ‘Jafaican’ as a problem that

22 needs to be solved. Even though ‘Jafaican’s use among adolescents is mentioned in many articles as a problem, it still continues to attract attention in the media. Furthermore, according to Kerswill (2014: 444) we are dealing here with full enregisterment of Jafaican which occurs only in the media discourse and is spreading rapidly. When speakers or the media, name a language variety, “[…] this is part of the enregisterment of that language variety: this is the association of linguistic forms with specific social characteristics and specific ideologies,such as social class or correctness” (Johnstone 2011: 34–5, mentioned in Kerswill 2013: 130). The British media is not concerned for the faith of the English language, however their focus is on the Cockney dialect, as a symbol of ‘Englishness’. “Part of the British press concentrate their energies on what they see as the social consequences of the use of multiethnic language varieties” (Kerswill 2014: 253).

CHAPTER 4- THE DIALECT OF LONDON EAST END London East End has been considered as a traditional area of Cockney speakers. The traditional East End is comprised of the areas north of the River Thames that include: Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, Shoreditch, Hackney, Mile End and Bow, Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Wapping, and Millwall. Southwark, Bermondsey and Walworth are areas that are also strongly associated with Cockney speech south of the river (Mott 2012:71).

Figure 1: Map of London. The heartland of Cockney (Santipolo, 2001: 414)

The traditional belief held that a true Cockney speaker is someone born within the sound of St. Mary-le-Bow church bells (Matthews 1972); however, St. Mary-le-Bow does not belong any more to the East End. It is now part of the City of London. The East End has been understood as the area inhabited by working-class people. “Indeed, individuals who have mobilised around the identity of the East End have not just been sociologists or other outside observers, but also proud urban working class, political groups and immigrant communities (Newland 2008: 25, see Keith and Pile 1993). Marked not only by class, the East End has been defined also in terms of race, and impact of immigration. Thus, population of London has been “one of the most ethnically diverse in England” (Rustin 1996: 1, cited in Newland 2008:25). The Bangladeshi community, in particular, accounted for eighty percent of the population that inhabited Tower Hamlets, at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Newland, 2008). Due to the melting pot of population in London East End, it is understandable that next to English innumerable other languages can be heard. As the traditional region of Cockney speakers has changed, so does the traditional dialect, too. According to Trudgill (1990), elements from traditional nineteenth- century Cockney dialect are hardly evident in modern Cockney. Some traditional features vanished from London, such as articulation of /v/ as a kind of /w/ sound in word such as village. The first changes in dialect have begun as early as in the seventeenth century (Matthews 1972), and the dialect has continued to evolve since then. Research on various fronts (lexical, morphological and phonological) has documented many more distinctive features than had previously been recognized. Around the time Cockney past and present was published Matthews further claims, that the dialect still varied. Due to the large London area, mixed population and educational modifications, standardized pronunciation hardly existed (Matthews 1972: 76). The question concerning the next two chapters is whether the features of traditional Cockney have increasingly changed over time so that they cannot be considered anymore as features of Cockney?

4.1. Traditional Cockney Dialect “Perhaps Cockneys are a prejudiced race, but certainly this inexhaustible richness seems to belong to London more than any other great city” (Virginia Woolf, Review of E. V. Lucas's “London Revisited” 1916). Cockney dialect has long ago ceased to be just a dialect of London East End. It has represented much more, it is considered as an identity of the London East End working-class people. The usage of Cockney can be traced back to the time where its slang was mostly used by people involved in criminal activities. It was more of a code (argot) than a dialect, which enabled

24 communication without interference by outsiders. “Cockney is characterized by its own special vocabulary and usages, including an extensive development of rhyming slang” (Wells 1981:302). Cockney slang progressed over some period of time into a dialect which was introduced into literature, theatre and spoken by ordinary people. However, years had to pass before it was assigned as an official dialect of London East End. Sam Weller from Dicken’s Pickwick Papers is widely familiar by his pronunciation of /v/ as /w/, as in wery good (Mott 2012: 72).

The dialect found its way into the media as well. It was used in a humorous way on television, radio and in real life. Some situation comedies are mentioned in Wright’s book Cockney dialect and slang (1981) where characters use Cockney dialect to express humour. One of them, which will also be analysed in the paper, is Till Death Us Do Part, centred round Alf Garnett and his family and set in East London. The episodes for the series were filmed in Wapping, so people living there would identify themselves with Alf. The dialect in the series is quite genuine, with lots of bloody, blimey, aints and glottal stops (23). Peter Wright (1981) further explains that there was no shortage of Cockney speech evidence. There were countless opportunities at various levels to hear and study Cockney (23-24).

4.2. London East End and Social Change Fox (2015) states that after the two World Wars working-class families have moved out from the area of Traditional East End and spread towards London suburbs. In the 1980s, the population of London East End was left down to nearly fourth of what it had been before the Wars. According to Fox (2007) major changes that had befallen East End and provoked social changes included a “slum-clearance” programme which resulted in decreasing population in the first place and, the closure of the busy Docks in Tower Hamlets in the 70s which left workers in need to seek jobs elsewhere. Furthermore, due to immigration the Bangladeshi community comprises today about one third of the population in the traditional East End. They have become, a meaningful part of the “new” working class (Fox 2007: 2-3). It was not only the Bangladeshi community that created the colourful community of London East End, the influx of immigrants started years before. After the census in 1851 the eastern part of Cable Street (a road in East End) was home for Irish people. In the nineteenth century Russian and Polish Jews arrived, since the 1950s immigrants have arrived from old British colonies such as the West Indies, India and East Africa (Newland 2008: 26). Indeed, the traditional East End and its population (Cockneys) has changed in recent years.

Figure 2. Map of London boroughs: the shaded areas show ‘East End’ in recent times (Fox 2015: 8).

Figure 2 (above) shows a map of London boroughs. The faded areas represent the current territory of the East End. Fox wonders whether the term Cockney can be applied to inhabitants of today’s East End. She further states that the term Cockney these days “no longer appears to be applied to a particular group of people nor used as an identity marker but, rather, it has become synonymous with a particular accent used by a broad group of people in a wide south- eastern area of England (Fox 2015:8). It is unclear if the current East Enders are talking with the same dialect that has been spoken for hundreds of years in this area. Indeed, it is doubtful if the current East Enders can be referred to as Cockneys. The research on current Cockney has been in progress, and the studies discussed in 4.4. may provide some insight in ongoing dialect situation into the ongoing situation in the East End.

4.3. Dialect Contact and Change The dialect spoken in London East End has attracted the attention of many linguists, reportedly by its unusual use mostly by adolescents. What is heard today in London streets is not traditional Cockney dialect, it is yet another variety or patois which is spoken by youth. Very large inflation of different ethnicities has initiated a major impact on the language of the young Londoners. A great amount of recent research testifies the hybrid variety appearing in

26 the area that once has been assigned to Cockney dialect. Linguistic changes that occurred have been a result of years of long influence of other factors that have changed the social structure of the East End. The next studies provide an investigation of language within the social context of the community in which it is spoken. Thus, they are considered as a crucial part of the present research on Cockney and (Multicultural London English) MLE.

Kerswill (2014) argues that today “[…] the vernacular for most working-class, inner- city young speakers has moved away from a traditional Cockney-derived variety…” (436) to one that is today considered as an ethnolect rather than a variety or a dialect. In his earlier paper “Identity, ethnicity and place: The construction of youth language in London” (2013) Kerswill discusses the Linguistic Innovators project (2004–2007) which included 49 adolescents aged 16-19 from a very multicultural borough of Hackney (inner city). The language of the adolescents was further compared with a language of 8 older speakers in the same borough, as well as with 51 adolescents and 8 older speakers from Havering (outer city). Regarding ethnical diversity between Hackney and Havering the research expected considerable differences in language use and social attitudes (4). One of the questions concerning Kerswill’s research is the notion of a “local” vernacular. What they have observed is that the acquisition of a local speech repertoire is similar for those for whom English is a mother tongue and for those who have English as a second language at home. In addition, “Anglo” speakers (English/British heritage) do not acquire the localised “Cockney” vernacular even if their parents are Cockney speakers (Kerswill 2013: 133). The greatest reaction in Hackney is along ethnic lines because non-Anglo people refuse to be seen as Cockneys because Cockney is identified with white working class. On the other hand, in Havering young people see themselves as different from Londoners they identify more with Essex (Kerswill 2013: 160) “London’s inner city is, …, more strongly associated with non-Anglo speakers than with Anglos, and this is true even when a voice is heard as “Black” but contains phonetic cues which are from another city altogether” (Kerswill 2013: 137). Further, voices that sound “White” are assigned to Essex. Some significant innovations that were found in the research are general lexis, slang and pragmatic markers. The pragmatic marker you get me has been used in both boroughs of Hackney and Havering by non-Anglo speakers. There is a difference in frequency between the two with, Hackney showing a higher frequency. Other words that have appeared in the study will be helpful for the purpose of present research and its analysis. Pragmatic markers such as: blood and its spelling variant blad, man, bruv appear in Hackney frequently, but in Havering there are only very few examples. Due to the contact of non-Anglo speakers with Anglo speakers

27 the influence of different languages onto the host language is especially marked in inner city. Because of the great accumulation of people in inner cities, the contact is more intense and accelerating. Suburbs such as Havering, have much less of a mixed population and of innovations. Innovative features that when appear they usually take more time and are less frequent there. Kerswill points out that new working-class identities are emerging in London, but the further question raises regarding their localization and standardization.

In yet another study on adolescents’ speech in Tower Hamlets (Fox 2007), which is referred to as the traditional East End of London, more innovations are found in the inner city. Tower Hamlets is a remarkable area “[…] which has undergone one of the most rapid social and economic transformations that has taken place anywhere in Britain” (Fox, Khan and Torgersen 2011: 22). The reason for these transformations include moving from East End after the WWII, closure of the London docks between 1967 and 1981 and a great influx of immigrants of Bangladeshi origins. The Bangladeshi community constitutes 33 percent of the total population of Tower Hamlets, in January 2007, 63 percent of all Tower Hamlets school- age children were of Bangladeshi origin (Fox et al. 2011: 23). What was once home to the white working-class families who spoke the Cockney as their dialect and identified with being Cockney, now represents an area that of social, economic and ethnic diversity. What they have tried to discover are the consequences these diversities have on language spoken in the area. The research on adolescents’ speech took place at the youth centre in Tower Hamlets and was taken for nine months (Fox et al. 2011). There has been reported different vowel use in the speech of adolescent non-Anglo and Anglo males. As reported for PRICE vowel, out of six variants that were identified, there are at least three variants that are not associated with the traditional Cockney dialect. Variants [æ] and [aɪ] are predominantly used by Bangladeshi boys, the variants are also used by Anglo boys, and mixed race but very few girls use this variant. These innovations may witness that levelling is taking place, “[…] with more extreme variants and at opposite ends of the continuum in the process of being levelled away and a new multicultural variant emerging” (Fox et al. 2011: 25). In the case of the FACE vowel, the results also indicate that the newer variants [e̝ ɪ] [eɪ] [are commonly being used by adolescents. Fox et al. (2011) explains further that results that appeared in her study all point out that the new variety nowadays spoken at this area has features that are not used in traditional Cockney. She also adds that the difference in the speech between young girls and boys is that girls tend not to use the new variety. They speak a variety that corresponds more closely to RP. The present

28 study will focus on the results of the adolescent boys. It will not take into account the speech by girls since gender as a variable is not included in the research.

4.3.1. Emergence of Multicultural London English (MLE) In Multicultural London English (Cheshire et al. 2011), the main focus is on language acquisition. We follow the process of the use of different features across ethnic groups and a creation of ethnically neutral variety. In this project on MLE (Multicultural London English) all participants were from inner city, Islington, Hackney and Haringey. The recorded individuals were between 4 and 40 years old, in order to consider significant life-stages: “pre- school years, early childhood, puberty, adolescence, early adulthood and mature adulthood” (Cheshire et al. 2011: 161). Multicultural London English (MLE) refers to the various language features used in multiethnic areas of London, “[…] conceptualizing MLE as a repertoire of features” (Cheshire et al. 2011:154). The study is observing language features of informants in order to determine the method in which new features (innovations) have been acquired. One of the starting points is the one that follows Labov’s (2007) notion of “transmission with incrementation” as a primary mechanism of change. It is assumed that children acquire language from their primary caregivers. In order to find out if there have been any innovations since the 1980s study by Mark Sebba (1981-1984), in which 11 young London Afro- Caribbeans were interviewed when speaking ‘Patois’, Cheshire et al. suggest apparent time theory adopted from Kerswill and Williams (2000). In addition, she assumed that the young and adolescent speakers already acquired the new features characteristic of this (multiethnolect) variety. The comparison of old and apparent time data is crucial for the purpose of vowel shift recognition. The results show that there is striking difference between the interview speech from 1980s and that of today’s non-Anglos. One of the factors is the time span of 20-25 years. The results show that newer non-Anglo vowels, all the diphthongs (FACE, PRICE, MOUTH) have almost identical values to the ‘Patois’ styles and not to the interview style of the earlier speakers. The origins of these innovations are questionable since they were not borrowed from Jamaican Patois and Afro-Caribbeans are nowhere near of an absolute majority but live with different ethnicities from different backgrounds (Cheshire et al. 2011). A new term that could explain the origin of these changes. This is the concept of a ‘feature pool’ as proposed in Mufwene (2001: 4-6). He considers the ‘feature pool’ as a product of dialect contact and language contact situations in which different speakers select various features from the ‘pool’ of participating language features. In this way they create new

29 structures in the output varieties (cited in Cheshire et al. 2011: 176). Innovative features that may form part of MLE, which are found in the study are:

- a new quotative (this is + speaker): this new quotative occurs frequent enough to be noticed in young people’s speech. Evidence shows that the form is used by the 12-13, 8-9-year olds and also adolescents 16-19 group. The results show that the quotative is not used by caregivers and by the 4-5-year olds. Consequently, the assumption is that adolescents have introduced the new quotative form into the system.

According to Cheshire (2011), one of the explanations for the emergence of the new quotative from the ‘feature pool’, can be seen in, as mentioned above, frequency, but this cannot completely answer this phenomenon since “[…] it is still a minor part of the quotative system of all speakers who use it” (Cheshire et al. 2011:177). Another factor that can be accounted for this is + speaker form is salience. Siegel (1997, see Cheshire et al. 2011) states that the concept of salience is not simple to define, but the form this is + speaker has some characteristics of salience. Some of the characteristics the form contains are: free morphemes and ease of perception (see Siegel 1997). The origin of the form cannot be assigned to caregivers since most of them speak English as a second language or are still in the process of acquiring the language. It can be concluded that the source are the children that live in multilingual and multiethnic communities and acquire language from their peers.

- Another change that is also associated with adolescent speech is the BE LIKE form that is spreading through the age groups and reaches its highest use in adolescent speech (16-19-year-old group). After this age the usage decreases, it becomes less frequent among older speakers. - Past tense BE, the non-standard negative form wasn’t is yet another characteristic of MLE that is used equally by both Anglos and non-Anglos in the study, especially in younger groups.

The role of children and adolescents is important in the changes presented above, especially for the emergence of the set of contact features that are named Multicultural London English. Another point that is expressed throughout previous research is that the selection of competing (output and input) features from the feature pool is constrained by the same factors that have been found important in other language contact situations. For some features the output varieties depend on the frequency of input varieties and social factors such as multiethnic friendship patterns or the influence from peer groups. Moreover, some may be characterised

30 by means of salience, such as the this is + speaker form. “What distinguishes the London’s inner city from other cases of language change generated community-internally is the presence of an exceptionally high proportion of speakers of language varieties other than the local variety…” (Cheshire 2011:190)

4.4. MLE as New Cockney? Based on the evidence presented in previous chapters on innovative language forms at the area of London East End, it goes without saying that we are dealing with a new variety spoken mostly, but not exclusively by adolescents. However, another important point is the identification of dialect when it comes to the dialects of London East End. There is some ambiguity regarding the identity of the dialect of London East End which needs to be clearly divided. As mentioned in a variety of studies (Sivertsen 1960, Wright 1981, Matthews 1972, Trudgill and Hughes 2005), Cockney has been the official dialect of London East End. On the other hand, if we consider data from recent studies on new varieties in adolescent speech (Kerswill 2014, 2013, Torgersen and Kerswill 2004, Fox 2007, 2015, Cheshire et al.2011, Eckert 2004) we can conclude that what is spoken today on London streets is not the language nor the people recognized as Cockney(s). This chapter will attempt to resolve the Cockney question and provide an explanation to the recent dialect situation in London East End.

To be able to clarify the dialect situation in London, this chapter will include recent work from Sue Fox (2015) The New Cockney: New Ethnicities and Adolescent Speech in the Traditional East End of London, which describes the dialect in Tower Hamlets and provides an insight into social and language structure of the Tower Hamlets community. The aim of the study was to present a systematic sociolinguistic investigation of the traditional East End since the last conducted was the one from Eva Sivertsen (1960) Cockney Phonology. The study took place in Wapping, part of Tower Hamlets, which has the highest concentration of Bangladeshi people. Wapping seems to be a perfect example of a new image of traditional East End since there has been out-migrations of white working-class people and in-migration of Bangladeshi families. Some of the earliest docks were opened in Wapping but with the arrival of steam power the ships became too big and had to unload their cargo in bigger docks downstream eventually leading to the closure of the docks in 1969. Subsequently, many industries and businesses closed, leading to unemployment and abandonment (Fox 2015). At the same time, a great influx of Bangladeshi immigrants overflooded the area in the search of housing. Bangladeshi families inhabited the housing that was left for demolition and over the years created one of the largest Bangladeshi communities in the area of Tower Hamlets. Indeed,

31 social and demographic changes that occurred in the Tower Hamlets, Wapping specifically, have left major mark on the linguistic structure of the area. It is not white working-class that we are dealing with anymore in the traditional Cockney area. Due to the social changes that had occurred new ethnicities constitute the area of traditional Cockney. Accordingly, Fox’s study focuses on “[…] the process of language change in a multiracial urban youth centre based in Wapping, in what I call the traditional East End” (Fox 2015: 57). The aim of her study is to discover what changes, if any, have been brought about by “the social and demographic changes that have taken place in the area” (Fox 2015: 57). The research involved 39 adolescents aged 12-17, out of which there were nine girls of white Anglo origin, 11 boys of Anglo origin, 17 boys of Bangladeshi origin and 2 mixed race white/black Afro-Caribbean. All informants were born in Wapping or were born in Bangladesh but came to Tower Hamlets before the age of three. In addition, it is important to consider that Bangladeshi boys and girls are usually separated and tend not to spend their time together. That is why the results from both genders differ greatly. Although, the thesis does not include gender as a social variable the results from Anglo and non-Anglo boys and girls will only demand any additional classification of results. The results showed that language difference exist between the traditional Cockney and what we may call a new Cockney these days or Multicultural London English in everyday speech.

When it comes to vowel changes PRICE and FACE provided a good testing ground for emphasizing change to the phonological system. Both of the vowels represent a diphthong shift, typical of London speech according to Wells (1982). When compared to RP, the beginning of the diphthong is said to be lower for FACE and further back for PRICE. In Fox’s study, PRICE and FACE variable specifically, show that new variants emerged from the Bangladeshi community. Even though, new variants have emerged for both of these variables among Bangladeshi boys, they have also been adopted by the white Anglo and mixed-race boys (Fox 2015). Furthermore, white Anglo girls also showed a tendency to use the new variants in the study. Another change led by Bangladeshi informants is the lack of use of intrusive and linking /r/ (Fox 2015: 175). The variable change shows the same pattern as the change in PRICE and FACE. It is again used among Bangladeshi boys and mixed-race boys. This further shows the effect of friendship networks and social practices. Chapter 6 includes much detailed linguistic patterns of MLE, some of them will be included into the analysis of dialect representation.

There are still few traditional white working- class families in the area of London East End but many other speakers that live today in the same area do not consider themselves as

Cockneys. “The social and demographic changes that have occurred are reflected linguistically and we might say that this is simply ‘a new Cockney’” (Fox 2015: 230). She further states that recent sociolinguistic studies (Cheshire et al. 2011) propose ‘Multicultural London English’ as a more inclusive term which “more accurately describes the varieties of London English used by speakers from many different linguistic backgrounds” (Fox 2015:230).

CHAPTER 5: LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF COCKNEY Cockney dialect has always been attracting attention for its unique language style. It has often been thought to be humorous or colourful. Even in Shakespeare’s time at the Globe Theatre, “[…] near the south bank of the Thames, most of his low-life characters were played by Cockneys even when the setting was abroad” (Fowler 1984:2). One of the characteristics of Cockney is its slang, that consists of words used in joking. The origin of the Cockney slang that is spoken today comes from five major sources including “boxing, the army, nautical language, thieves’ language, and America” (Fowler 1984: 3). Because of its nature to change rapidly, slang is difficult to understand for outsiders. Wright (1981) in his book Cockney dialect and slang talks about several types of Cockney slang two of which are significant for the paper: ordinary slang and rhyming slang. The first slang is by far the commonest, it considers ‘language’ that is ordinary for its practitioners and may sound extraordinary for outsiders or tourists. One of the words that may be familiar for outsiders is quid, a word that originates from 1688 meaning formerly a guinea but now is a pound, which can still be heard in use in London. However, the most proficient and witty of Cockney language devices is that of rhyming slang.

5.1. Rhyming slang Kate Sanderson (2013) claims in her book Cockney dialect: A selection of Cockney Words and Anecdotes, that it may have been around 1840s when Cockney rhyming slang began to be used in the East End by costermongers. Seaman recognized the potential of Cockney words and spread its use into other ports, such as the docks in Glasgow (Sanderson 2013: 3). It was also used by thieves as a tool of communication among each other which was not understandable to police. Additionally, it was spread from working-class East End to well- educated residents in suburbs. The best type of rhyming slang according to Fowler combines “[…] a rhyme with an appropriate or provocative social description, such as artful dodger- lodger, hockey at the halt-golf, good an’ bad or sorry an’ sad-dad, and ‘Gawd forbids-kids, generally shortened to just Gawders” (Fowler 1984: 10). The creation of rhyming slang includes replacing a common word with a phrase of two or more words, in which the last word (usually) rhymes with the original word. After that, the secondary rhyming word is omitted

33 from the end of the phrase in order to make the meaning more ambiguous to listeners. Some of the basic examples of rhyming slang are: apples and pears-stairs, mince pies- eyes, plates of meet- feet, dog and bone-telephone. When it comes to omission of the second part for the purpose of greater confusion among listeners, the slang is harder to decode, for instance: trouble-and-strife- wife (trouble). One of the characteristics of traditional rhyming slang is that it has two stressed syllables. Some of the examples of the case are: Nellie Blighs- flies, pot an’ pan- old man (meaning husband), and daisy roots-boots. Even though, rhyming slang is supposed to have words that rhyme, in most cases there is no rhyme at all. One example of this is Jack Jones-alone, which can sometimes be heard shortened as: on his Jack- on his own. Rhyming slang has found its way into comics “[…] which enthral many schoolchildren and which through the power of pictures and the written word may well convince them that the slang is well established and worth imitating” (Wright 1981:97). Sanderson (2013) claims that Cockney voice can rarely be heard among market traders these days, since the reason is the migration of Cockneys to Essex, some traces of Cockney rhyming slang may still be heard at Romford Market (London borough of Havering). Furthermore, a study of 2,000 adults, including half from London, provided findings about Cockney rhyming slang. The survey, commissioned by The Museum of London, showed that 80 percent of Londoners do not understand rhymes such as donkey’s ears- years, bacon and eggs- legs and mother hubbard – cupboard. Significantly, Londoners’ own knowledge of the jargon is now almost as bad as those who live outside of the city.

5.2. Phonological features Currently, Cockney dialect is extremely varied across London and its mixed population. In addition, social factors such as education have produced many modifications to even its most characteristic sounds. That is why it is hard to expect for any uniform system of pronunciation to exist. However, overtime, Cockney speech has managed to acquire its characteristic features which today separate it from other dialects. Next to rhyming slang, it is Cockney’s phonology that characterizes the uniqueness of the dialect. Some phonetic phenomena that is traditionally associated with Cockney dialect involve TH-fronting, H-dropping, glottalization, l- vocalization and monophthongization. This chapter will focus only on traditional Cockney features selected from previous studies on Cockney dialect including works of Sivertsen (1960), Matthews (1972), Hughes and Trudgill (1996), Wright (1981), Upton (2006), Wells (1982).

5.2.1. The vowel system For the purpose of better understanding of the Cockney dialect it is important to mention its vowels. Although, the vowels will not be analysed in the dialect representations for the reason of the possible inaccurate analysis (chapter 7), one cannot talk about Cockney dialect without mentioning its vowels. “The dominant feature of Cockney is its use of diphthongs in words which in standard English are pronounced with monophthongs, and its use of monophthongs where standard English employs diphthongs” (Matthews 1972: 78). The first case is called monophthongisation, and it is a “touchstone for distinguishing between ‘true Cockney’ and ‘popular London’ “and other more standard accents, for instance: mouth [mæuf]= [mæ:f], near [nɪəʳ]= [nɪ:ʳ]. Additionally, characteristic of Cockney dialect according to Wells (1982) is that it exhibits a set of phonetic changes which he calls Diphthong Shift. The vowel sounds are shifted around so that Cockney day sound is pronounced as [dæɪ] (close to the word die) and Cockney buy approaches near [bɒɪ] (close to the boy). Other examples may include the sound see as in [si:] = [sɪi] [səɪ] [seɪ], pay [pei]=[paɪ], ride [raɪd]=[rɔɪd]. Cockney’s soup may sound identical to RP soap when both are pronounced [səʊp] (Gimson 1980:25, cited in Wells 1982: 307). In PRICE [aɪ] in Cockney the second element may be reduced or absent, so that there are variants such as [ɑ+ə, ɑ+:]. The broadest Cockney variant of the sound GOAT is [aʊ], there is another variant which is a more refined Cockney [ʌ∅]. The realisations given this far are only meant to be a small overview of some of the highly simplified Cockney vowel characteristics and that the variables considered in the present study will be presented further in chapter. The present study deals with consonants and lexical characteristics that are found in dialect representations.

5.2.2. TH-fronting TH-fronting has been an extremely old feature of Cockney dialect. Examples of TH- fronting have been reported in one of the earliest works on Cockney dialect (Sivertsen 1960, Matthews 1972). TH refers to the spelling /th/ which in RP is realised as a dental fricative, either as /θ/ or as /ð/, for instance in words such as thin [θɪn] and brother [brʌðə]. The process of TH-fronting implies the loss of distinction between labio-dental and dental fricatives. TH- fronting occurs when th either voiceless /θ/ or voiced /ð/ is replaced by [f] and [v] (Wells 1982: 328). TH-fronting of /θ/ with the voiceless fricative /f/ appears in initial, medial and final position:

- initially thin /fɪn/ - medially Cathy /kafi:/

- finally both /bəʊf/ but fronting of /θ/ with voiced /v/ appears only in medial and final position:

- initially together /təˈgɛvə/ - medial bathe /beɪv/

(Hughes and Trudgill 2012: 76)

Trudgill (1986) claims in his book Dialects in Contact that TH-fronting variable occurs not only in London, he further provides evidence suggesting that the feature continues to spread over Britain as a result of geographical diffusion from London. He found that the variable is being used by teenage informants in all the urban centres in East Anglia such as Norwich and Ipswich (Trudgill 1986:54) In a more recent study, Kerswill (2003) also reports the spread of TH-fronting in Northern England, in Hull to be more specific. Some studies imply that this feature is now also present in the speech of middle-class speakers. Williams and Kerswill (1999: 161) report instances of TH-fronting among middle-class speakers in Milton Keynes and Reading.

5.2.3. H-dropping H-dropping is recognizable characteristic of Cockney dialect. It refers to the omission of (mostly) initial h in a word, e.g. house [‘aʊs], home [‘əʊm], history [‘ɪst(ə)ri]. It is almost impossible to hear a Cockney speaker pronounce the sound h. If it occurs then only in stressed positions. Wright (1981) reports that the h is omitted; however, he also adds that Cockneys at least at that time were prone to wrongly inserting h, for instance: Hi ham ‘ere to hopen this hexcellent ‘all (1981:134). Even though h-dropping is a non-standard feature, it has been highly salient and mainly assigned to working-class people. As a result of geographical diffusion, H- dropping is also spread out of London into other parts of England, such as East Anglia (Trudgill 1986). However, recent studies suggest that h-dropping is not any more the case in East End. There is a tendency now of reinstatement of h in initial positions, studies in Milton Keynes and reading claim that occurrences of initial h are standard among adolescent informants (Kerswill and Williams 1999: 157).

5.2.4. Glottal stop The glottal stop is extremely common in Cockney speech. It is not only limited to the London area but it is spread out of London into other regions as well. The glottal stop is often recognized as a loss of phoneme /t/. However, it can also lead to the loss of /p/ and /k/, the

36 voiceless plosives in general. Glottalling depends on the phonetic environment and social factors. T-glottalling can be found in many kinds of English. Matthews (1972) states that “the chief consonantal feature of the (Cockney) dialect is the prevalence of the glottal stop (cited in Wells 1982: 323). According to Sivertsen (1960), the glottal stop appears before syllabic nasals and sonorants, e.g. bottom [ˈbɔʔm], Britain [ˈbrɪʔn], put them [pʊʔm]; the glottal stop can be heard among men and children and among women in colloquial style as a simple interlude before vocoids, e.g. better [betə] [ˈbeʔə], potato [pətejtə] [pəˈtsæɪʔə̃ ], started [stãhtid] [ˈstɑʔɪd]. /p/ and /k/ glottaling are not as frequent as /t/ glottaling but they also appear in Cockney dialect, e.g. paper [ˈpeiʔə], sock [sɒʔ] (Siversten 1960, Wells 1981). When it comes to t-glottalling it is not solely a feature of Cockney dialect or other London accents, it is wide spread variable that can be traced outside of Britain too. Geographical diffusion may have an influence on the spread of the feature, but also social factors have helped in the spreading process. Wells (1982) further adds that the social mechanism of accommodation (the feature perceived as “modern” or appealing) may be another reason for adopting the variable (1982: 106).

5.3. Grammar “[…] What strikes some outsiders the most is not always the pronunciation or even the special words but the grammar used to connect them” (Wright 1981: 114). Cockney has often been considered as a dialect with ‘no grammar’. Namely, its grammar disobeys the rules of Standard English, “because every language and every dialect must have its grammar in order to link words and ideas” (Wright 1981:114). Cockney grammar contains many non-standard features such as:

1. double negation There aint nuffink like it (There is nothing like it) and past participle done and seen for did and saw, e.g. I done it yesterday, I just seen er. 2. Question tags are also used to invite agreement or establish one's position, e.g. I'm elpin you now, inneye? (I am helping you now, ain't I?) 3. The prepositions to and at are frequently omitted in relation to places, e.g. He's round ‘is mate's (He is round at his friend's house). 4. Dominant is the shortening of auxiliary verbs, ain’t and innit (or ennit) which appears before a main verb,e.g. Ain’t (Isn’t) it goin’? or it is tagged to the end of sentence, e.g. Warm today, ain’t it. 5. When it comes to adjectives and adverbs Cockney speakers do not follow the rules of Standard English, for instance: adjectives occasionally occur with double comparatives

as in: more safer, more uglier; adverbs may appear without final -ly as in: This car’s runnin’ slow (slowly); 6. Exclamations are popular in Cockney, for instance: Oi! In order to attract someone’s attention. (Wright 1981: 121).

Another characteristic of Cockney speakers is their speed of talking. It is common for Cockney speaker to talk faster than the average British person. This makes it harder for outsiders to understand them; however, if they are aware of the situation, they will talk more slowly out of politeness toward new comers. “A further impetus to faster speech comes from losing an initial syllable when the main stress arose originally on the second, e.g. cos ‘because’, lastic ‘elastic’, lectric ‘electric’, prentice ‘apprentice’, scuse me ‘excuse me’, […] (Wright 1981: 139).

5.4. Vocabulary Since Cockney has been in use for centuries, it has built its own lexicon of different types of words. The most familiar lexical characteristic is its rhyming slang. We have discussed rhyming slang in chapter 5.1. That is why in this chapter we will focus on some type of words that are in frequent use by Cockney speakers. Cockney is rich with different types of words that mark either places, nicknames, body parts, different ethnicities, nationalities, greetings and farewells, comparisons, coarse words, and many others that in one way or another are unique and are not accepted by standard norms. The present thesis refers to types of words that are more frequent in Cockney speech. Having that in mind, swear (coarse) words, nicknames, nationalities, greetings and farewells will be focused on further. Language representations mostly rely on stereotyped features of a language or dialect. What is noticeable in Cockney dialect is that swear words, nicknames and mocking words are very frequent in dialect representations as will be shown in the speech analyses. It must be repeated that the paper will not analyse each type of words mentioned above, but it will focus on words that are present in texts of both dialect representations. As every paper, this one also has some space limitations that do not allow the analysis of all word types. In spite of the limitations, we will be able to recognize the nature of lexical features in dialect representations and their frequency.

Cockney is recognized as a dialect with a vulgar side to it due to the frequent use of strong language (swear words). One of the most familiar that has been heard on London streets is bloody, for instance: It’s a bloody shame. Wright (1981) mentions that the word lost its original meaning, it was supposed to be a shortening of the old Christian oath, By your lady! The word today conveys “an air of mild irritation” (1981:51). Other words that can be listed together with

38 bloody are: blimey, blinkin’, flamin’, euphemistic alterations of damn (darns, dashes and drats). Strong language in Cockney dialect did not have the same meaning as in other dialects. It became extremely common in the 1930s even for children to swear. It may seem that the insertion of swear words into every second-third word reveals certain limitations in vocabulary (Wright 1981:54).

A great number of Cockneys will greet each other as ‘ello mate! Ah yer bin? How have you been? Ah are yer? How are you? A Cockney speaker will refer to his friend or co-worker as mate. Mate also spread to other parts of London. It is not exclusive to working-class only. Another example of greeting however mostly among men, are chief, governor, boss and squire. The last four ‘terms of endearment’ may have been used for the purpose quickest way to establish good relations (Wright 1981). A Cockney might rarely address his woman as love as opposed to some speakers in the Northern parts. The most common name to address his wife would be deary, duck or pet. However, in dialect representation of the sitcom Till Death Us Do Part Alf Garnett refers to his wife as a silly old moe for the purpose of entertainment.

CHAPTER 6: MLE (THE ‘NEW’ COCKNEY) LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS Recent studies on adolescent speech in London have suggested that a new variety of multicultural London English has arisen under the influence of different social factors. Most of the studies focused on London East End which has been the centre of working-class people. It is the structure of the working-class that succumbed to the change due to the substantial immigration of different ethnicities from the 1950s until now. The changes that appeared may have had an influence on traditional Cockney dialect and its existence in London East End. What we can hear on London streets today is not Cockney. It is another variety that has overtaken the language of youth. The next sections will provide some of the features that characterise the variety that represents a new patois of adolescents.

6.1. Phonological features The features that are discussed have been taken from recent studies conducted in East End London. Additionally, in order to get a complete picture of the language used in the East End, we will focus on different studies investigating new variety (varieties) in London East End. The study conducted in Tower Hamlets, according to Fox (2015: 2), is the first study that provides a systematic sociolinguistic account of speech variation used among adolescents since Sivertsen’s study in the 1960s. The area of Tower Hamlets experienced many social and economic transformations since around the 1950s. After the two World Wars the Tower

Hamlets had lost almost half of its population which consisted mostly of working-class Cockneys who moved further to Essex. “Cockney has become synonymous with white working-class speakers and is not generally a term applied to speakers of minority ethnic backgrounds even if they had been born within a traditional Cockney area” (Fox 2015: 212). The area that was abandoned after Cockneys were forced to move attracted great amount of Bangladeshi immigrants in search for work. Many of them brought along their families. Some areas even attracted middle class population who started to inhabit luxurious apartments. Large non-white groups (South Asian and Afro-Caribbean among others) began to live in the London area which eventually flourished into a city representing a melting pot of people. With population as diverse as in Tower Hamlets, one cannot expect language to stay intact. The language used on the streets of the traditional East End contains different features from Cockney dialect and sounds nothing like ‘Cockney’. Fox (2015) provides a detailed description of the PRICE and FACE vowels further introducing results for current London vowels. When it comes to the PRICE vowel, six variants were identified from 5000 tokens: [æ] [aɪ] [ɐɪ] [ɑ̝ ɪ] [ɑɪ] [ɑ:]. Out of the six variants at least three are not associated with the traditional Cockney dialect. The newer variants [æ] [aɪ] [ɐɪ] are found in the speech of Bangladeshi adolescents as well as high use in Anglo adolescents’ speech. This would further mean that white Anglo adolescents move away from traditional variants towards variants used by Bangladeshi adolescents. Another vowel variable is FACE which was tested in 3000 tokens that provided five variants: [e̝ ɪ] [eɪ] [ɛɪ] [æɪ] [aɪ]. Out of the five variants, two were marked as traditional Cockney [æɪ] [aɪ], and they prove to be still present among adolescents. However, results show that the [e̝ ɪ] [eɪ] [ɛɪ] (newer variants) are used more commonly among adolescents. The [ɛɪ] variant seems to be a dominant form among the white Anglo group. It is also seen as a variant that brings the groups closest together because of its frequent use, e.g. 36 percent white Anglo group, mixed race group 29 percent of the time, and Bangladeshi 26 percent (Fox 2015: 121). This small overview of vowel change in this thesis is highly simplified considering the space limitation of the thesis and the difficulty in the process of vowel analysis that requires very detailed analysis. The present thesis intends to deal with consonantal changes for the reason that consonantal changes are more apparent and easier to detect.

TH-fronting is one of the features that remains characteristic for the area of London East End. Kerswill et al. (2008) find out that adolescents in Hackney use /f/ for /θ/ as in thin, both in initial and final position. They also add that TH-fronting is a traditional feature that is now well established in the south of England.

DH-fronting is yet another feature that is well established in London and has been found in adolescents’ speech, /v/ for /ð/ in non-initial positions, e.g. mother. Word initial position has been reported in Matthews (1972) as an old feature of Cockney dialect; however, Tollfree (1999:172) reports in her studies several instances of [vis] for this.

Kerswill et al. (2008) report in adolescents’ speech in Hackney a decrease in h-dropping and a huge increase in DH-stopping, TH-fronting and K-backing. DH-stopping has been considered one of the Cockney features which has been inactive. It considers the use of word- initial /d/ for /ð/. The study shows that Anglo MLE speakers in inner London use this feature to a greater extent than Anglo speakers in outer London. Kerswill, et al. (2008: 7) suggest that “this is an innovation which has arisen in inner London and that the channels for diffusion of such innovations are mobile non-Anglo speakers”.

H-dropping has been another traditional feature of East End dialect that has been common in Cockney dialect. Nowadays, recent studies report that h-dropping is not used as much as before. Fox (2015) argues that low usage of h-dropping among Bangladeshi males has been reported. Kerswill et al. (2008) also report a low usage of h-dropping among adolescents in inner city as opposed to older people in inner city. Williams and Kerswill (1999: 147) in their study in Milton Keynes, Reading and Hull, report as well a high use of h-dropping by older speakers and less common use among young speakers.

Tollfree’s study (1999) is one of the recent studies that covers glottal stops in southeast London. Tollfree reports glottal replacement of /p/ and /k/ in pre-consonantal and pre-pausal positions as in stopcock [stɒʔpkɒʔk] and keep [kʰi:ʔpʰ]. Intervocalically, it appears in examples such as hacker [hæʔkɐ] and before a nasal as in happen [hæʔn] (Tollfree 1999; Fox 2015). However, t-glottaling is a much more common feature that has been used for a longer period of time in London. Tollfree’s results suggest that the most frequent appearance of t-glottalling is in pre-consonantal and pre-pausal positions. She also reports that in some cases t- glottalization appears in word-final pre-vocalic position and in word-internal intervocalic position (Tollfree 1999, Fox 2015).

Another innovation that has not been described earlier or used by older people is K-backing in word-initial position before non-high back vowels e.g. words such as cousin, car, caught are pronounced with something approaching [q] rather than [k]; (Cheshire et al. 2008: 6, Fox 2015: 220).

6.2. Grammar Negative concord is one of the most frequent non-standard features that can be heard in many dialects. It has been used in Cockney and recent studies report increased use among adolescents in inner London (Cheshire et al. 2008: 10). Some of the examples of negative concord are provided by Fox (2015: 223) such as: she can’t say nothing, no one else has to do nothing, you ain’t moving me nowhere. When it comes to the use of ain’t, this feature is spread all over London and it is used for present tense negative forms of be and have. It is used for every person, I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they + ain’t got any money.

Be like and go are quotatives that are used in many English varieties around the world, and they mark extremely high usage among young people in London. However, this is + speaker is a new quotative which has been found in the most multicultural inner-London area and is used only by young people, for instance:

- this is them “what area are you from. what part?” This is me “I’m from Hackney” - this is her “that was my sister”

(Cheshire et al. 2011: 172).

6.3. Pragmatic markers According to Fox (2015), innit is an established pragmatic marker that has been used among young speakers in London. “It is used as a derivation of isn’t it, as a tag that matches the subject and verb form of the preceding clause and also in non-paradigmatic contexts, […] where there is no grammatical relationship between innit and the preceding clause (Fox 2015:225). Innit developed much earlier as it was one of the most frequent forms of Jamaican Creole that was found in the speech of white adolescents in London (Hewitt 1986, Fox 2015).

Another pragmatic marker that has been found in frequent use among adolescents in Hackney is blood and its spelling variant blad (Kerswill, 2013). In adolescents’ speech in (inner city) Hackney Kerswill (2013: 16) discovered that out of the 100 occurrences of blood, however, 42 turn out to be pragmatic markers, for instance:

1. Dean: Apparently my nan had taken me toilet that’s how pissed I was blood I couldn’t even find my way to the toilet. 2. Chris: I gotta get something to eat in my stomach blad I got. I ain’t ate nothing all day.

Man as a pragmatic marker is heard among adolescents in frequent use in outer and inner city for instance:

3. Rufus: It’s cos my brain is dead innit. done too much things man huh. 4. Raymond: When you took off your hat blad I saw your scalp right man (Kerswill, 2013: 144).

Bruv is also used to high degree among adolescents in Hackney, and has a similar function to blad and man.

5. Chris: This is what she wants us to sit and do bruv. sit and chat. 6. Alex: I can’t believe yeah, my auntie’s boyfriend opened a window bruv I thought I was gonna get sucked out it was like a hoover bruv (Kerswill 2013: 144).

CHAPTER 7- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

7.1. Overview, Research Questions and Hypothesis London East End has always been considered as a traditional white working-class area populated with people speaking traditional Cockney dialect. However, growing cultural and ethnic diversity on the East End territory attracted attention of linguists in the twenty-first century. The recent studies suggest that the language spoken in East End London is not Cockney and that youth nowadays use different patois (slang) which is diffusing very quickly. The research embodies different social factors that may have been responsible for language change and its standardization. The primary factor that is discussed in this thesis is language representation in the media (television). The study relies on the hypothesis that the features of a language used in the media (in this case Cockney and MLE) may lead towards standardization of the same features in a certain community. A strong effort has been made to give as accurate as possible answers to the following research questions:

1. What is the dialect of London East End like today?

2. Do representations of Cockney and MLE in British sitcoms resemble their previous descriptions in the literature?

3. Can dialect on the media be seen as a step towards the standardization of a new variant?

As stated previously, this study is concerned with dialect representations in two British sitcoms. In order to investigate dialect features in the media we need to compare the media samples with dialect features reported in previous studies. The current research started with the hypothesis that a dialect on the media could be taken as a possible initial step towards standardization of the dialect. In order to answer this hypothesis, I have chosen to focus on television as one of

43 the widespread media tools in the world. The research was conducted on two British sitcoms: Till Death Us Do Part and Phone Shop.

The first sitcom Till Death Us Do Part has been mentioned in literature as one of the sitcoms whose characters are portrayed as real Cockneys played by actors originating from East End London (Wright 1981). The TV show depicts the life of a highly stereotyped East End resident Alf and his attitude towards political issue in England. The comedy directed by Johnny Speight was broadcast during important moments of ‘British race and immigration history’. “It was designed as a mechanism for Speight (as a working-class writer) to offer original and sharp social commentary, highlighting the class and generational tensions of British society throughout the vehicle of the Garnett family” (Booth 2002, mentioned in Schaffer 2010: 459). The show had been running between 1965 and 1968 and then again between 1972 and 1975. According to Schaffer (2010) it was the most viewed TV show during its broadcast of six years. During the years of broadcast the show was popular in a large section of the British public.

As described earlier, there is a difference between the two dialects MLE and Cockney. There is also a huge difference between the two TV shows regarding the time they have been broadcast. The first one being released in 1965 and the second one in 2010. The idea behind the choice of the second TV show (Phone Shop) is that the characters use youth patois that has been spreading remarkably quickly in the East End. The Phone Shop is also a British sitcom directed by Phil Bowker and was broadcast on Channel 4. The story is set in a mobile phone shop where its characters struggle with a highly competitive world of selling phones. The Phone Shop series introduces into the television industry colourful ethnicities whose speech is valid for this research. The centre of attention are Ashley and Jerwayne whose language contains features of youth slang which is called ‘Jafaican’ in the media.

Both TV Shows represent working-class people that are set in urban London. I will also go slightly further and suggest that the TV shows represent the difference between the past and the present population of London described on television. Till Death Us Do Part represents the old white working-class Cockney speakers such as Alf and Phone Shop depicts modern ethnically diverse working-class youth who use MLE as their everyday language. Thus, the language used in the TV shows is significant part of the analysis. The purpose of this method was to support the premise that the dialect feature that appears the media is already well

44 established in the community. Having this in mind, the media (television) may help in the process of standardization or spread of a certain feature across country.

7.2. Data Collection, Subjects and materials The data included approximately 12000 words of transcribed speech from the characters of both sitcoms. Each sitcom represented a different dialect. In Till Death Us Do Part I was looking for the features of Cockney dialect, while in The Phone Shop I observed features of MLE. After a careful listening of the video samples I was able to extract the aspects of Cockney and MLE that appeared most in the texts. I have decided to employ in my analysis only the features that appear most frequently in the texts in order to be sure of the consistency of their use. Moreover, the features that appeared less than five times in the texts were excluded from the analysis. I used Express Scribe Transcription Software for the transcription of the audio files. Further, I applied the comparative method in order to specify the contrast between representations and actual dialect in theory. I employed a categorization of the characters of the second sitcom based on their ethnicity. The chosen characters of the second sitcom themselves represent multiethnicity of London East End. One being Anglo white, two of them Afro Caribbean, one from Morocco, and another Iranian. The process of acquiring enough material for the analysis included careful listening to the audio files and transcription of chosen dialogs. Due to the bad quality of the audio samples in the case of the first series I had to make a ground decision and to focus on language features that are recognized from the first few tries. Thus, I have chosen to exclude the vowels and vowel changes from the analysis. Even though vowels of MLE and Cockney differ greatly I had to rely on other language features such as consonantal changes and lexical items that make the two dialects different from each other The analysis relies mainly on the comparative method. In order to answer the research question, my work was to define if the dialect representations resemble the actual dialects described in the research literature. With this method, I have been trying to relate the authenticity of the representations with the standardization of the dialects. Even though MLE is a fairly new dialect variation in wider East London, it is spoken on television and popular media. The analysis further tries to prove that the frequent appearance of certain lexical or grammatical aspects of a dialect on the media has further led to the transmission of the same over local communities and their integration into the mentioned communities.

CHAPTER 8 ANALYSIS AND RESULTS In this chapter I included the analysis of both TV Shows and their comparison. I decided to organize the chapter by employing data from the first TV Show including the

45 mentioned features that are subject to language change. Furthermore, the same process has been made with the second TV Show. Due to the bad quality of the audio samples in the case of the first series I had to make a basic decision and to focus on language features that are recognized from the first few tries. Thus, I have chosen to exclude the vowels and vowel changes from the analysis. Even though vowels of MLE and Cockney differ greatly I had to rely on other language features such as consonantal changes and lexical items that make the two dialects different from each other. After careful observation I have selected language features from both dialect representations that appear most frequently in the texts and compared them with the language features of the Cockney and MLE from the literature.

8.1. Till Death Us Do Part and the Cockney dialect Till Death Us Do Part was a British sitcom that was aired on BBC1 from 1965 to 1975. It is a comedy that centres round the Garnett family, who lived in Wapping in the East End of London. The story revolves around Alf Garnett a patriarch and a reactionary white working- class man who holds racist and anti-socialist views. The dialect in this series is quite genuine, with rich strong language and lots of h-dropping, glottal stops and ain’ts and so forth. Most of the sitcom is centred round Alf’s opinion about the political system in London at the time. Johnny Speight the creator of Alf Garnett put a great effort into the authenticity of the Cockney character that can be noticed by his way of speaking.

8.1.1. Vocabulary The main character Alf Garnett uses many different words that are marked in everyday speech by Cockney speakers. Even though he is a fictional character there is an undisputable resemblance between his speech and Cockney dialect as described in the literature. Till Death Us Do part is a satirical comedy which tells us that plenty of mockery occurs. As a main protagonist of this Tv Show Alf has the leading dialog that includes topics such as politics and football. However, politics is the topic where he as a working-class person expresses the unsatisfactory position he lives in as well as where we are able to catch the most colourful phrases and words that characterize Cockney dialect. Cockney dialect has been recognized by the use of slang. The slang practice of Cockney originates in the period of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and has been in use ever since (Matthews 1972: 1). Alf Garnett employs most of Cockney slang in his speech, usually with raised voice and very fast talk. His almost entire speech includes swearing out of anger or agony, followed by mocking nicknames and racial offences. During his speech of three episodes which contain together around 6300 words, swear words such as bloody, blimey,

46 bloomy and bleeding appear approximately 230 times. However, this matter of frequent use of swearing should not be unusual happening in written or verbal form since Cockneys are known for their use of strong language (Wright, 1981:51). Instances of bloody show in positions such as:

1) preceding a noun (adjective): bloody coon, bloody shoe, bloody mouth, etc.

2) preceding a verb (adverb): bloody talking about, what are you bloody doing, etc. The use of bloody serves in most of the instances as an intensifier. It is a common strong word to be found in BrE, especially in Cockney dialect. We can assume that for the purpose of authenticity, Alf Garnett decides to include the frequent use of the word bloody into his speech to build the character of a Cockney person. Next to bloody, other words such as bloomy, blimey and bleeding appear to increase the soundness of a proper East End dialect. God Blimey plus darns and drats are also examples of swearing used during the twentieth century that Peter Wright (1981) mentions in his book on Cockney dialect and slang. These forms also appear in the speech of Alf Garnett. As previously mentioned, Till Death Us Do Part is a sitcom which is set in East End of London and depicts a traditional Cockney family. Strong language and mocking are some of the features that can be heard from Alf’s speech. Namely,a traditional Cockney person would complain about politics, would comment about sport and would enjoy occasional racial offences towards minorities. Alf gives to his son in law a variety of nicknames based on the fact that his origins are from Liverpool. He showers him with words such as: Mick which is a derogatory term for a person of Irish descent). The expression Shirley Temple suggests that his son in law looks like a blond curly girl. In scouse ponce the first word refers to the accent spoken in Liverpool while second term stands for an effeminate man. Next to Shirley Temple and ponce another term that is used for men with effeminate tendencies is Nancy Boys. This term originates from the 30s and is used in some part of East End streets during the barrel- organ performance, where men dressed as girls would perform a short high-kicking dance (Wright 1981: 34). When it comes to his family, Alf very much likes to give his wife names like: silly moo, loony bin, bloody fool or just old moo. Michael Palin, British comedian and writer, writes in his diary for 16 July 1976 that Warren Mitchell (Alf Garnett) told him that "silly moo" wasn't scripted, "It came out during a rehearsal when he forgot the line "Silly old mare".2 Nevertheless,

2, Townsend, Paul (2010, August 28). “TV Shows We Used To Watch - British TV show - BBC Till Death Us Do Part”. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/4934499754

Peter Wright (1981: 47) mentions that a Cockney husband would address his wife with: De ol’ gel’ or de ol’ Dutch as a term of endearment. The insistence on mocking his wife (among other people) results in humour which is why this Tv Show was so popular at its time. Johnny Speight, the director of Till Death Us Do Part, explained that “he had originally based Alf on his father, an East End docker who was staunchly reactionary and held "unenlightened attitudes toward black people”.3 That is why in most situations Alf refers to black people as coons and Chinese people as kung-fu. Mongrel is a unique word used to name mixed-breed dogs. Alf refers to British people and himself as mongrels: English mongrels we are mate, English; As a response to a comment of his son in law of him being a mongrel. However, in return Alf calls his son in law a wog, which is used as a derogatory and offensive term against immigrant and people that are not white. Wog appears during political discussions between Alf and his son in law. Pal, mate, son occur frequently while Alf addresses his son in law during their dialog. According to Matthews (1972), Londoners adopted the term pal (friend) from gypsies at fairs and racecourses. Mate is frequently used in Australian English and British English. It does not mark just Cockney dialect. In most of the situations Alf addresses his son in law with the word son when he is correcting him, sometimes he is using the term sonny. Wright (1981) explains that the y- ending of nicknames indicates a certain friendliness. Some of the instances that Wright provides are Smithy, Stitchy, etc. Throughout the texts we witness many use of well, right and like. Cockney speakers use a great amount of space fillers such as the term well. Alf starts most of his sentences with well and continues with his thought, mixing in a couple of like and usually ends with right, as if he is asking his interlocutors to either confirm his statement or answer to the same one. Anyhow, these instances of right are written and pronounced in Cockney without the final /t/, which will be further discussed in the part dealing with pronunciation.

8.1.2. Grammar 8.1.2.1. Ain’t The occurrences of ain’t in the text are very frequent. In fact, the shortening of auxiliary verbs has been one of the main characteristics of the Cockney dialect. However, it can also occur in other English dialects as a non-standard form. Ain’t corresponds to the negative forms of the present tense of be in standard English, aren’t, isn’t, am not and it functions as the

3 Townsend, Paul (2010, August 28). “TV Shows We Used To Watch - British TV show - BBC Till Death Us Do Part”. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/4934499754

48 negative present tense of the auxiliary have, corresponding to standard English haven’t and hasn’t (Trudgill 2012: 26). There a total of 43 occurrences of ain’t in the speech of the main actor, Alf. Instances of ain’t have been found in positions such as: auxiliary (have + not), auxiliary (be + not) and auxiliary (do + not). Examples for these uses are given below:

1) be + not: I bet he ain’t sitting in front of an empty trey, and I… 2) have + not: Yeah, but he’s got home to go to ain’t he?

3) do + not: …and I bet he ain’t have to go without his dinner, … From 43 occurrences of ain’t mentioned above, 36 are in the form of (be + not), 4 (have + not), 3 (do + not). Out of the analysis of the frequency of ain’t used by the speaker of this Tv Show we are able to conclude that media Cockney has a tendency to replace auxiliary verbs be, do and have as in Cockney described in the research literature. There are some other shortenings found in the text such as innit. Innit is used most of the times in tag questions, but also in the middle of sentences where the speaker out of frustration repeats it on many occasions. Innit appears in tag questions when the verb is be. Out of 18 instances in the text innit occurs 14 times as be + not, to be more precise as isn’t it. The instances of innit are found at the end of the interrogative sentence. However, innit appears also as have + not form, also as tag question. The appearance of innit does not only mark Cockney dialect, it has also become a non-standard form of other English dialects, especially among adolescents. In the text, auxiliary verb have + not has been replaced in tag questions by innit. Examples of the following founding are listed below: 4) (be + not): It’s really funny, innit?; It’s ironical really, innit? 5) (have + not): Whatever I’ve earned has gone in this ‘ouse, innit?

8.1.2.2. Double negation Double negation is a very common occurrence in Cockney dialect. It is used to stress the negativity of the sentence. It puts an emphasis on the negative making it even more negative. This usage of double negation occurred in Chaucer, Ascham, Shakespeare and Pope (Wright 1981:122). William Matthews (1972: 189) agrees as well on the fact that the habit of placing two negatives in one sentence is typical traditional Cockneyism. Alf uses the Cockney feature of double negative constructions: 6) He don’t have to give no quad stamp, since he’s never been so popular, oh blimey, he prefers it. 7) …, you don’t know nothing about wars, you don’t.

8.1.3. Phonology 8.1.3.1. Glottal stops When it comes to phonological features, Cockney has been familiar by its appearance of glottal stops in every day speech. They represent complete breaks in the stream of sound rather like gentle coughs (Matthews 1972: 80). Glottal stops are used by Cockney speakers plentifully for /t/, quite often for /k/, and by broad-spoken Cockney even for /p/. Sivertsen (1960) in her book on Cockney Phonology gave a detailed description of Cockney’s glottal stop in which she explains possible environments where glottal stops occur in Cockney. I will only name the environments which can be found in Alf’s speech to keep the analysis more focused. As reported by Sivertsen (1960), glottal stops appear in: Interludes: as a simple interlude before nasals and sonorants, i.e. before / ǝm ǝn ǝŋ ǝl/ where consonant /t/ is placed into medial position.

1) The instances found in Alf’s speech are as follow: get them [‘geʔǝm] and little [‘liʔl];

The glottal stop as an interlude before vocoids is most common among men and children. Since I am analysing one person’s speech these factors do not influence the analysis much.

2) The occurrences of /t/ found in words in position before vowels are found in some words which are repeated often throughout the text: better [‘beʔǝ], started [‘stɑʔid], pitty [piʔi], lighter [laiʔǝ];

Alf’s speech contains plenty of glottalizing of the phoneme /t/. It is easily noticeable just by hearing it carefully without using any additional software. The analysis will cover those words that appear most frequently in the speech. One of the examples that appear most in the texts is the interrogative word what. It has a phoneme /t/ in final position and it is preceded by a vowel. After a careful check of the environment in which what appears we can with no doubt say that glottalization of the final /t/ is evident in every word position whether is preceded by a consonant or a vowel. What appears 72 times in the text and it has either initial, medial or final positions in a sentence. In every instance of what the final /t/ is glottalized, as in [wɒʔ]. However, there appear to be five instances of what + be(is) in its contracted form what’s: - in this case /t/ does not become glottalized. If not glottalized most of the realizations of /t/ are aspirated. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that the glottalized what can be seen as a matter of theatrical art to make the dialect more believable. It is important to stress that we are

50 talking about a staged dialect, and that its characteristics can be staged for the sake of authenticity. Next to what there are other words which can be discussed individually because of their frequent appearance. These are: about, that and it. As mentioned above all these words end in the phoneme /t/ whose instances appear fully or partially glottalized. In 51 instances of about some of the glottalized realisations are found in the environment of a preceding vowel and in those of preceding consonants. There are cases in which glottalizing of final /t/ in about appears when it is followed by consonants, as in: about time, about that, about people, about difference; there are instances in which about precedes a vowel: about is, about it, about all that; there are as well examples of about preceding sonorants: about you, about your mother, about me. Out of 51 examples of about we can conclude that /t/ is being glottalized no matter in which environment it occurs. When it comes to That and it, the analysis shows the same results as with about. The same procedure has been carried out with other words which ends in the phoneme /t/, such as: sit, not, ought, sat, fought, bit, put, got, expect, shut, and other which can be noticed easily in the audio files. As mentioned above, T- glottalizing is very frequent in the description of Cockney and in its representation. Nevertheless, not only the phoneme /t/ gets to be glottalized by Cockney speakers; often Cockney speakers glottalize other plosives next to /t/. Another example that is found in the speech is glottalization of final /k/. Out of some instances that end with the phoneme /k/ the word look is repeated the most. Look can be heard frequently at the beginning of a sentence. Alf Garnett uses look as a conversation starter, mostly to drag attention onto himself. Instances of look occur 34 times in the text, and is glottalized every single time, being pronounced as [luʔ].

8.1.3.2. TH-fronting

Another characteristic of Alf’s speech and a well-known characteristic of Cockney according to Wells (2000) is TH-fronting. It involves the replacement of the dental fricatives, / θ, ð/ by labiodentals /f, v/. TH-fronting appears in words that have phonemes /t/ and /h/ in their initial, medial and final positions. Fronting happens readily to the voiceless fricative in all environments, but to the voiced one only when non-initial. Thus we get three [frɪi], Arthur [‘ɑ:fə], father [‘fɑ:və], smooth [smu:v]; but for this usually not [vis], only [dis] Wells (2000). Throughout the text we meet word combinations that contain /th/. The speech that is analysed seems to follow the same voiceless-voiced rule mentioned above. There are occurrences in

51 which /th/ appear in initial position where TH-fronting is present, these words are: things [fɪŋs], three [frɪ], thank [fæŋk], and throw [frəʊ]. Another group of words from the text is the one where /th/ occurs in medial position: nothing [‘nʌfɪŋ], anything [‘enɪfɪŋ] and something [sʌmfɪŋ]. There are two examples of TH-fronting of a voiceless fricative in final position that appear frequently in the text in the words youth [ju:f] and mouth [mɑʊf].

TH- Total number /th/ TH-fronting of voiceless fronting voiceless fricative fricative /θ/ into /f/ Examples of TH-fronting position Initial 59 53 (89,83%) Three, thanks, think, thing(s), throw, thought Medial 27 25 (92,59%) Nothing, anything, something Final 6 6 (100%) Youth, mouth

Table 1: TH-fronting

Examples of voiced fricatives are presented in words such as with [wɪv]. However, in the speech there are occurrences of with that appear to be:

3) TH-fronting [wɪv], 4) glottalized usually when followed by a voiced fricative /ð/ and, 5) pronounced as in Standard form /wɪð/;

There are six occurrences of TH-fronting in the speech. Most of them appear when followed by sonorants /l, j, em, m/. Some of the examples are: with liberal [wɪv ‘lɪbərəl], with muscles [wɪv ‘mʌsəls], with your [wɪv jɔ:]; and also with them only in the case of rapid speech where initial /th/ of the second word is glottalized, with ‘em [wɪvˈəm]. If the initial /th/ is not glottalized with is not fronted. Another case of with is that the final /ð/ is not fronted but glottalized when followed by a voiced fricative /ð/ of a second word, such as in the combination with words that have in initial position /ð/: with them [wɪʔðəm], with that [wɪʔðæt], with the [wɪʔðə]. Wells (1982: 328) claims that when it comes to working class speech “for initial /ð/…, if a dental articulation is used it may well be frictionless, i.e. the approximant [v] rather than the fricative [ð]. Other possibilities are [d], [l], and [ʔ]; so this may be any of [ðɪs, ð̩ is, dɪs, lɪs, ʔɪs] “. All of these

52 variants can occur in initial position. Furthermore, when in combination with with;- this, that and the remain fully pronounced with the voiced fricative [ð]. The final /ð/ in with is replaced with the glottal stop.

8.1.3.3. H-dropping H-dropping is a very noticeable feature of Cockney. H in initial position usually disappears in most of the English dialects. When it is present it is most likely to be found in a stressed position. When it comes to Alf’s speech, h-dropping is frequent throughout the text. In initial position /h/ is always omitted. We are able to notice plenty of instances of this feature. The instances count around 250 words which contain /h/ in initial position. Some of them are: (house) ‘ouse, (her) ‘er, (his) ‘is, (home) ‘ome, (happen) ‘appen, (head) ‘ead, (hospital) ‘ospital, (had) ‘ad, (heard) ‘heard, and many others that are easy to recognize in the audio files. Alf Garnett’s speech representation of the Cockney dialect sounds completely authentic when compared to the dialect described in the research literature. However, Trudgill points out that in some situations where /h/ is stressed it is not omitted. This, however, it is not the case in Alf’s speech.

8.2. The Phone Shop and MLE Languages spoken in London have always attracted the attention of linguists and sociolinguists. Cockney has been regarded as more than just a dialect of some social group in London. Working-class people in the south-east of London have throughout their history continued to build their tradition by shaping their dialect through daily use. Nowadays, the spectrum of languages in the city centre of London has changed due to the multiple immigrations that have happened and are still happening. According to Kerswill (2013) the dialect that is spoken on the streets of London has very little in common with Cockney dialect that has always been spoken on London streets. It is called a slang, a variety spoken not only by ethnic non-white and non-Anglo groups but also by Anglo white Londoners. Kerswill’s data helps to better understand the language situation in the inner city of London. According to people from Havering and Hackney investigated for the purpose of his research, both groups do not recognize Cockney as their official dialect, or the dialect that they use in everyday conversations. People from Hackney, non-Anglo and Anglo (white and black) claim they use too much of ‘slang’. Even though they admit they lose a couple of hs and ts, they still have their unique patois with which they communicate with each other. On the other hand, people

53 from Havering prefer to call their dialect the Essex’s dialect. They, however, admit that Cockney has still been in use by their parents and older people. The dialect spoken in London mostly by young people is Multicultural London English (MLE). It is a sociolect of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken authentically by working-class, mainly young, people in London. The TV show Phone Shop contains different ethnicities which use MLE as their official language. The Phone Shop was first broadcast in 2010 on E4 (UK Channel). The series deals with everyday situations in lives of workers of the phone shop on High-street. Characters for this analysis include different ethnicities, all of them born and raised in London. Five characters will be included in the analysis: white-Anglo origin (Ashley), Afro-Caribbean origin (Jerwayne and Ian Berry), Marrocan origin (Paul Mohammed) and Iranian descent (Razz Prince). The logic behind this selection comes from the fact that MLE was born from a mixture of different ethnicities cohabitating in London East End. It is important to mention that MLE as a new variety is considered a ‘slang’ used by adolescents, however, when we go back to William Mathews’ (1972) writings where he talks about the early understandings of Cockney dialect, Cockney had the same tendency during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. It was time and acceptance that had created the traditional dialect of Cockney in London. The scope of the second part of the analysis includes transcribed texts from five characters, around 6000 words. All the characters are around the same age and are males, in order to avoid differences between male and female speakers. The following sections will discuss MLE features (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation) that are found in the texts together with examples provided for each feature.

8.2.1. Vocabulary When it comes to vocabulary, MLE contains some of the instances that appeared in Cockney. MLE is a variety that has been studied in the last fifteen years; it is considered to be new and not completely analysed. It is almost impossible not to find traces of Cockney in this new variety. In the texts, I was able to find words such as bruv, blad, blood and fam. The word blood occurs in the text as its spelling variant blad (used as a pragmatic marker). Blad appears in the text only six times and only as a pragmatic marker. The instance of blood/blad occurs in the speech of Ian Berry (three times), Ashley (two times) and Jerwayne (one time). Kerswill (2013) finds instances of around 42 percent of blood/blad used as a pragmatic marker, only from informants coming from Hackney, e.g.:

6) Dean: Apparently my nan had taken me toilet that’s how pissed I was blood I couldn’t even find my way to the toilet. 7) Chris: I gotta get something to eat in my stomach blad I got. I ain’t ate nothing all day (Kerswill 2013: 143)

One of the frequent occurrences that is noticeable in the analysis is the use of man as indefinite pronoun. 8) Ashley: Cos no man likes Jude Law. 9) Jerwayne: No man likes Jude Law. Frequent use of man as an address term and a pragmatic marker are evident thorough the texts. 10) Ian’s friend: Do it! Do it! Do what man says, man. 11) Ian Berry: Shut up, man. I'm not Ian Berry, blood. Man is a bad man, yeah? 12) Ashley: Show man your watch, innit. Bruv has a similar function to blad and man. Given that out of three users of bruv two are Afro- Caribbean, this word is unexpected. Bruv is linked with Cockney which places Afro-Caribbean cognate brada (Kerswill, 2013) as replaced by Cockney’s bruv. Out of 32 instances, Ashley (white-Anglo) is using 22 times bruv in his speech, which leaves Jerwayne with seven and Ian Berry with only three times. The frequency of Ashley’s usage of the term bruv may be an evidence that some slang terms might be adopted from Cockney by London youth. However, in Kerswill’s study (2013) none of the young London informants identifies themselves as a Cockney speaker. Ain’t and innit occur in numerous instances. The use of ain’t as the present tense negative forms of be and have is widespread in London, and is also very frequent in the speech by Jerwayne and Ashley, and in other speeches it appears mostly when Jerwayne talks. It can be said that that two of them use this ain’t form the most. 13) Ashley: This ain't the time for questions, bruv. Show man your watch, innit. 14) Jerwayne: What? Shut up, college.PhD-ickhead. This ain't no debatin' society, yeah? 15) Jerwayne: I ain't see this boy since he was in Huggies, you know! In Paul Mohammed and in Razz Prince’s speech, ain’t appears only once, and is provided below: 16) Paul Mohhamed: Why ain't I feeling the love in this house? 17) Razz Prince: Lance thinks he's your Dad but he ain't.

There are range of instances of innit throughout the texts. According to Sue Fox (2013: 225), “the use of innit is an established pragmatic marker among young speakers in London. It is used as a derivation of isn’t it, as a tag that matches the subject and verb form of the preceding clause, and also in non-pragmatic contexts, where the subject of the preceding form is not it and the verb is not is and where there is therefore no grammatical relationship between innit and the preceding clause”. In the dialog between Jerwayne and Ashley innit is used 22 times, out of which Ashley uses innit, either as a tag or as a pragmatic marker, 15 times and Jerwayne uses it 7 times. 18) Ashley: You just work here part-time to fund your studies, innit? 19) Jerwayne: Hello, Snoopy! Where's Grarfield, innit? In another text where Ian Berry has a leading dialog, innit appears only once by Berry. Having in mind that Berry belongs to the group of young Londoners this case of decreased use was not expected. Furthermore, in texts of Paul Mohammed and Razz Prince not even one instance of innit has been found.

8.2.2. Crossing It appears that Ashley and Jerwayne use some instances of Creole English during their conversation which appears to be something they do between each other. However, Paul Mohammed also uses the same expression during his short dialog, which could lead us to the conclusion that the phrase has been spread not only to speakers of Caribbean descent but also that other ethnicities and also together with white-Anglo people have accepted the phrase. We are able to notice instances of TH-stopping in a dialog between Ashley and Jerwayne, and in Paul Mohammed’s speech. TH-stopping is a common feature of West Indian English known as neutralisation of the oppositions / θ/ vs. /t/ and /ð/ vs. /d/. Alveolar stops, [t,d], are used for both dental fricatives and alveolar plosives of standard accents (Wells, 1982: 328).Thus the popular pronunciation of thin is [tɪn], thing [tɪŋ], them [dem]. 20) Ashley: Yeah man, I'm cool, I'm blessed, brother. You got the ting?

21) Jerwayne: I got the tingaling, blood. 22) Ashley: Oh, blaze that ting.

23) Jerwayne: If man say him a ting, then him a ting! You get me? Man's a ting! 24) Jerwayne: If you talk with conviction, on any topic whatsoever, people will believe you. If a man say him a ting then...

25) Jerwayne: Him a ting.

26) Ashley: Him a ting. 27) Jerwayne: Nah! You ain't a ting, man! 28) Jerwayne: Just joking. Come, come. 29) Jerwayne: Nah, you still ain't a ting! 30) Jerwayne: Come and see me when you're a ting, yeah.

In this context thing and ting do not share the same meaning. Thing is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept. Being a ting is a more abstract form of urban slang London youth adopted from Caribbean. According to urban dictionary ting is being someone who is fun or someone with whom one can have fun with. In the example below neutralisation shows in Paul Mohammed’s speech:

31) I would be running dem tings, rude boy, you get me?

32) No long ting, no gassing, no hyping. Makin' bare P fam. Bare P like Tony Montana.

8.2.3. Phonology When it comes to phonological features of MLE this analysis will focus only on consonants for the purpose of more accurate research. The features that are found in the second sitcom are /t/ glottalization, TH-fronting, /g/ dropping and /h/ reinstatement. They occur most frequently and that is why only them will be discussed in this analysis. The analysis includes four ethnicities through five characters in order to prove multiethnicity and the use of characteristics that mark MLE. The phonological analysis will explain four consonantal changes that appear in the texts providing example for each change from each character.

8.2.3.1. Glottal Stop Glottalization is present in MLE just like in the analysis of Cockney media speech. We will narrow the analysis on glottalization of phoneme /t/ in final and medial position. The final /t/ is being glottalized in words that are at the end or in the middle of a sentence or a thought. Words such as what, but, can’t, it, that, are pronounced as /wɒʔ/, /bʌʔ/, /kænʔ/, /ɪʔ/, /θæʔ/ in dialogs by Ashley and Jerwayne. In Paul Mohammed and Berry’s dialog /t/ glottalizing occurs with the same frequency as in previous texts of Ashley and Jerwayne. However, in speech text by Razz Prince /t/ glottalization in final positions appears most in the word what /wɒʔ/. When it comes to /t/ glottalization in medial position, there are plenty of examples in Jerwayne and Ashley’s speech. For instance: in starter [stɑːʔə], ultimatum [əlʔɪˈmeɪtəm] and important [impˈɔːʔnt]; in intervocalic position: notice [ˈnəʊʔɪs] and beautiful [bjʊ:ʔəfʊl].

/t/glottalization Words with Glottalization of final /t/ Examples of final final /t/ /t/glottalization Ashley 223 80 (35,87%) what, that, but, out Jerwayne 115 42 (36,52%) it, what, that, can't, fat Paul M. 34 20 (58,82%) don't, right, that, what Razz Prince 86 17 (19,86%) not, what, put Ian Berry 29 14 (48,27%) what, shut, not Ian's friend 13 7 (53,84%) ani't, innit, shut

Table 2: /t/ glottalization

Another example of glottalization that is found in Ian Berry’s speech is glottalization of the phoneme /k/ in initial position. Even though, there are few examples of /k/ glottalization during stressed speech it still tells us something about this representation of youth dialect in this sitcom. It appears most frequently when /k/ is in final position, as in the word look [lʊʔ]. The word look is present and its final /k/ is glottalized in Ashley and Jerwayne’s speech. One more case of glottaling is also reported among youth in Tower Hamlets that appears in a dialog between Ashley and Jerwayne, that is glottalization of an indefinite article an before words that start with a vowel. In an example below, we can see that they do not have a habit to include intrusive /r/ between vowels in order to avoid vowel hiatus, they however use glottal stop to avoid hiatus, e.g. a owl [ əʔaʊl]:

33. Ashley: A owl? 34. Jerwayne: A owl. 35. Ashley: A owl? 36. Jerwayne: A owl! On her back. 37. Jerwayne: Staring at me. Judging me. 38. Ashley: A owl? 39. Jerwayne: A owl.

8.2.3.2. TH-fronting TH-fronting has been one of the very recognizable features of Cockney. When it comes to MLE, TH-fronting appears almost with the same frequency in these texts as it appeared in texts from Alf Garnett. It is a common thing for young Londoners to replace /θ, ð/ with /f, v/.

The examples below, will show this linguistic feature and the causes for its occurrence. Jerwayne and Ashley front their /th/ in words such as: brother, thing, month, thirty-six, third, throw, drive-through, thought, bath, think, three, with. In Jerwayne’s part TH fronting appears less regularly than in Ashley’s speech. An example of fronting found in Jerwayne’s dialog is in the final part of bath is [bɑ:f].

TH-fronting Word Total Fronting Ashley Fronting Jerwayne Final position: month 19 5 (26,31%) 2 (10,52) bath, with initial position: thing 25 18 (72%) 2 (8%) think, third, three, through, thirty six, thank you; Medial position: 2 2 (100%) 0 (0%) brother, authority; Table 3: TH-fronting

Table 3 shows that Ashley uses much more often TH-fronting through his speech. The words that start with /th/ in Ashley’s speech are almost always entirely fronted. TH-stopping (mentioned above) occurs in special cases where crossing is involved for the purpose of the their jointly private phrases. TH-fronting in medial (intervocalic) position occurs only two times, which is why no clear conclusion can be drawn about that. However, it serves the purpose of representing in which position TH-fronting occurs in words. In the speech of Paul Mohammed, TH-fronting is less frequent but still occurs in the word brother [ˈ brʌvə]. His dialog contains around 300 words and certain features are found but not supported by enough examples or do not exist at all. Paul Mohammed is of Moroccan origin and first generation born in England, that is why he is important for this analysis. Even though TH-fronting is not present except from one example, his speech offers other evidences of MLE use in this TV show. The speech of Razz Prince appears to have few examples of TH-fronting as well. The analysis of TH-fronting showed occurrences in words such as: think [ ˈfɪŋk], truth ['trʊ:f], South [sɑʊf] and bathtub [bɑ:ftʌb]. The size of the analysed text is similar to the previous one from

Paul Mohammed. The speech is limited to only one episode where both of them appear, however, few examples that are analysed show us the use of TH-fronting in the media.

8.2.3.3. H-reinstatement One of the features that marks London English is h-reinstatement. Young Londoners very rarely omit the initial /h/ as opposed to traditional Cockney speakers. In very rare situations /h/ is omitted, either being stressed or during fast speech. In his studies on London youth speech, Paul Kerswill (2014: 433) reported that one of the extremely noticeable features of Multicultural London English is “… full reinstatement of /h/ in lexical words and stressed pronouns”. In Alf Garnett’s speech, almost all the words with initial /h/ were pronounced without it. This means initial /h/ was regularly dropped. In the language of London youth, on the other hand, phoneme /h/ is usually pronounced. Clearly Cockney dialect has been moving away from London city or has become overpowered by linguistic innovation among its young speakers. The features of current youth dialect in the area of London city prove that.

CHAPTER 9- FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION While, the methodology chapter covered and described the data collection and the analysis, this chapter deals with the findings obtained in the current research. Previous chapters offered thorough information on the sample and material used for research development. Having in mind the literature and the analysis of the collected data, I have tried to evaluate the previously constructed hypotheses. Namely, I have argued through analysis of the dialect representations that the media (television) may have some influence on language. Furthermore, through time this influence may lead towards standardization of a dialect. However, the research on MLE in the East End is still new, and there has been a couple of studies that are investigating the new variety (Kerswill 2013, Cheshire et al. 2011). In addition, there are no traces of any research on Cockney that has been conducted in the last twenty years. That is why it is significant to explore the dialects of London East End and to discover their representations on television.

In order to prove my hypotheses and to answer my research question, I have decided to do a research on Cockney and MLE representation in British sitcoms. Dialect representations in the media may tell us more about language adoption than we might think. Adolescents are the most exposed to the media and they are the focus group in which traces of dialect innovation may occur. It was necessary to collect the important literature on Cockney dialect and its features as well as the recent studies on MLE which provided theory for this new variety that

60 has been spoken among young people in London. After careful observation I was able to extract the features of Cockney and MLE in the media and compare them with features of the dialects in literature. For the purpose of narrower and more accurate analysis, I included only the features that appeared more than five times in the samples. Providing that I needed to be confident in claiming that results are reliable and valid, I have chosen to focus on vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar of the dialects and their representations. I also must emphasize that in the section on pronunciation, even though I mention vowels I only focus my research on consonantal changes as I said for the purpose of reliability and authenticity of the findings.

The analysis included careful selection of episodes and their transcription. The corpus of the study consists of transcribed speeches of 6000 words for each Tv Show. In the first series I have examined the speech of one character, Alf Garnett, since he was a perfect example of a Cockney speaker in the media (Wright 1981:23). In his (rich with Cockney features) speech I have first carefully listened to the episodes and focused on the way he speaks. One should have in mind that even though we come across English language every day, listening to and analysing London Cockney requires much more effort than one might expect. After careful listening and familiarization with the sound of Garnett’s voice and the features he uses, I have started to search for the Cockney dialect features and to divide and analyse them. As already mentioned I have decided to rely on Cockney features that are used most frequently in the speech representation of Alf Garnett. After selecting features found in the speech representation I employed the comparative method and compared them with the Cockney features in the literature.

“The Guardian” writes that the characters of the Phone Shop talk with a new variety that we call Multicultural London English (Braier 2013). In the sitcom I focused on multiple characters with different ethnicities. In order to analyse Multicultural London English, it is important to include as much ethnicities as possible in the analysis. I have chosen to include five characters from the series and to analyse their speech. Most of the analysed speech contains conversations between Jerwayne (Afro-Caribbean origin) and Ashley (white-Anglo origin) since they are most dominant speakers in the series. The rest of the dialog is split between another three other characters Ian Berry (Afro-Caribbean origin), Paul Mohammed (Marrocan origin) and Razz Prince (Iranian descent). After carefully listening to the dialogs, I have managed to transcribe the speech and to focus on the features of MLE found in the texts. As mentioned before, I chose to include features that appeared more than five times in the text for the analysis. After thorough selection of features found in dialect representation, I employed

61 the comparative method and compared the represented features of MLE with the MLE in theory. The features that were extracted from the representations were, for Cockney:

1) Phonology, consonantal changes (/t/ glottalization, TH-fronting, H- dropping) 2) Vocabulary (strong language, nicknaming) 3) Grammar (ain’t, double negation); for MLE:

1) Phonology, consonantal changes (/t/ glottalization, TH-fronting, H-reinstatement) 2) Vocabulary (pragmatic markers) 3) Crossing (TH-stopping adopted from Creole English).

9.1. Interpretation of the results Since this research deals with the two dialects and their representations in the media, to avoid confusion I will provide the findings for each dialect and its representation. In the next few pages I will firstly discuss the results on Cockney and then I will give results on MLE. Furthermore, it is important to employ the comparative method and discuss the results of the analysis in order to understand the aim of the analysis. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate if the traditional Cockney dialect is still used in East End or it has been replaced with another variety, in this case MLE. The main reason I have chosen to analyse dialect representation on television is because there is a growing assumption among sociolinguists (Stuart-Smith, Timmins, Pryce and Gunter, 2013) whether media may in some way or another lead towards standardization or influence the language change. Since research on media influence on language is still new and vague area I will focus only on some aspects found in the dialect representations found in Tv Shows. It is out of importance to state that the present research may be a small step in the process of language change under the influence of other factors such as the media.

This research has covered many linguistic aspects of Cockney and MLE found in the literature in order to be able to look for the same features in their dialect representation. In this way I am able to compare the original features with their representation and make a conclusion on the account of their results. I started this research from the premise that the features found in dialect representations resemble in total Cockney. For MLE few features might resemble the dialect in literature. One of the reasons for this occurrence is the fact that Cockney is a well- established dialect in London East End and it enrooted itself into the area. Furthermore, MLE is still a new variety and its appearance on media will take time, however some studies (Stuart-

Smith 2013, Wells 1982) report that its spreading (diffusion) is fast and consequently it will take not long until we hear it in everyday media.

When it comes to Cockney vocabulary, there is an enormous amount of words and phrases that have been in use by Cockney speakers. In the analysis, in Alf’s speech we come across different words usually recognized as ‘strong language’, words such as bloody, blimey, bleeding. If we take into account the frequency (230 times) of the use of such words in the text we can conclude that strong language in Alf’s speech corresponds the strong language of Cockney in literature. Alf’s character had a role to create an authentic Cockney working-class speaker and according to Wright (1981: 51) “any consideration of the crudely vulgar side of Cockney must take into account the swear and sexual words that punctuate the speech of a good many individuals”. Another characteristic that can be extracted from Alf’s speech is its humorous use of nicknames for his son in law or for some other ethnicities such as bloody coons, wogs that can be heard on many occasions during this speech sample. Pal and mate can be heard in other dialects but are extremely common among Cockney speakers. Matthews (1972) and Wright (1981) go into deep analysis of Cockney vocabulary and its other characteristics that will be mention further in the text.

When it comes to grammar, Cockney uses many different non-standard forms which can also be also found in the dialect representations. Throughout his dialog there are many ain’ts and innits reported in Alf’s speech. Ain’t occurs in frequent use (43 occurrences) as a replacement for auxiliary verbs be and have. Innit occurs most of the time in the form of a tag question, and it is less frequent in Alf’s speech than ain’t. Another form of a negation expressed in the speech is double negation which is also heard in Cockney and other British dialects. The evidence of the negative concord has been noticed in the earlier centuries and it is in use in modern times.

Phonological features that are found in Alf’s speech correspond to the phonological features found in Cockney literature. In order to execute an accurate analysis, I had to make a decision and to remove vowels (vowel changes) from the speech analysis and only include consonants. The reason for this decision was threefold. First the vowel analysis would require much larger scope and a sound software (e.g. PRAAT) in order to recognize the vowels, determine their position and mark the changes that appear in the dialect. Second, the audio files of the speech are of a bad quality and analysing them would lead towards unreliable results. Third, consonantal changes are possible to notice without the help of a computer software and

63 the results are much more reliable. Having this in mind, this study was able to recognize the selected features of both dialect representations and provide proof for their authenticity from literature. As mentioned in the previous chapter I included glottal stops, TH-fronting and H- dropping in the analysis. These phonological aspects of Cockney are pretty frequent among Cockney speakers, and they are found in the text as well. It is noticeable in the analysis that glottalling of /t/ is almost continuously present as opposed to glottalling of /k/ and /p/ which appear on occasion e.g. look and paper. Glottalling of /t/ in final position appears in words where a vowel precedes /t/ e.g. what, that, about. Out of the many examples of /t/ glottalling in final position what is the most frequent which appears 73 times. According to results in Table 1 occurrences of TH-fronting are most of the time of voiceless fricative in initial, medial and final positions such as three, thanks, nothing, youth; Fronting of a voiced fricative is also present in situations such as: before sonorants (with liberal, with your). There are some examples of /ð/ which are not fronted but glottalized when followed by voiced fricative /ð/ of a second word, e.g. with them. The last feature that has been found in Alf’s speech is the H- omission. It is one of the features that characterize the Cockney dialect and it can be heard in other British dialects. What is remarkable in Alf’s speech is that out of 250 instances of /h/ in initial position all of them are omitted, e.g. (house) ‘ouse, (her) ‘er, (home) ‘ome.

The second part of the analysis included speech analysis of the characters who spoke Multicultural London English. MLE is a new variety spoken by adolescents that can be heard in multiethnic area of inner-London. Recent research showed that the new feature has spread rapidly and continuous to spread. Furthermore, adolescents from different boroughs of East End of London (Hackney) have accepted the variety strong enough to identify themselves as MLE (slang) speakers (Kerswill, 2013). Most of the mentioned research throughout the paper include social factors as main actors in language (dialect) change. However, this paper deals with another variable that may have influence on standardization or what may have led toward dialect diffusion, that is the media. Since the media is a pretty wide term, the focus of the research is on television, sitcoms in precise. This is the main reason I have chosen to analyse the speech from another British sitcom “The Phone Shop”. The characters of this British sitcom belong to the same social class, same gender, and approximately same age but are ethnically diverse. Moreover, the actors were all born in London which was an advantage for this research. I consider the origin of the actors to be of great importance because the language features that we find should be authentic to be considered in the research. The analysis consists of different dialogs among five characters. One white-Anglo (Ashley), two Afro-Caribbean (Ian and

Jerwayne), Moroccan (Paul Mohammed) and Iranian characters (Razz Prince), whose speeches have been selected and transcribed into texts. The sample included around 6000 words with uneven dialog length (i.e. the longest dialog is between Ashley and Jerwayne, and the shortest one by Paul Mohammed). I followed the same procedure as with the Cockney dialect. I have listened to the dialogs carefully and have noted the features that correspond to the features explored in literature. I have focused again only on consonantal changes, when it comes to phonology. The features of MLE that I have managed to extract from the texts included three categories: vocabulary, grammar and phonology.

As far as vocabulary of MLE is concerned, I have been able to recognise words that were used most frequently, e.g. bruv, blood, blad and fam. Blood appears in the text as its spelling variant blad and is used as pragmatic marker in the text. Another pragmatic marker is man which occurs in a dialog between Ashley and Jerwayne. Frequent use of bruv among characters is detected in the sitcom and by informants from Hackney (2013) this suggests that the feature has been well-established in the language that has found its place on television. However, it must be said that the feature was adopted from Afro-Caribbean by Cockneys and continued to diffuse further through other generations. The analysis suggests that the use of ain’t and innit are continual in the speech from characters of the Phone Shop. Ashley and Jerwayne use most of the time innit as a tag question and as a pragmatic marker. The two of them play the characters that grow up together and have their own way of talking and sense of humour. The majority of the features are extracted from the dialog between the two of them. Ashley’s way of speaking is very noticeable. Namely his common use of slang and some pronunciations that are adopted from Creole English occur throughout the text. Providing that he is a white-Anglo speaker, Ashley’s speech is an example of youth speech style which is labelled ‘Jafaican’ in the media and MLE in literature (Kerswill 2014). There are also traces of language crossing (use of Creole by Anglos and Panjabis) found in the texts, in the dialogs from Ashley, Jerwayne and Paul Mohammed. TH-stopping (West Indian English) has been selected from the speech in instances, such as: thing [tɪn]. Hewitt (1986) and Rampton (1995) state that the language crossing happens in inner city usually in multiethnic society, they also add that white Anglo adolescents use Creole extensively within private circles. In the studies on adolescents discussed in chapter 4 I have not been able to trace TH-stopping extracted from the analysis of the representations. We can assume that the influence of Creole English is not as strong as Bangladeshi at least in the area of Hackney, since the research of Hewitt (1986) was conducted in south London. What can also be deducted is that the feature spread out in the

65 media and that it found its use on television. Since the sitcom depicts the everyday life of working-class people it may also represent the language that is used among the characters of the social group. If we take into account that the actors of the sitcom are born Londoners we may assume that their original dialect sounds similar to their dialect in the series.

In the phonology part I have been able to elicit consonantal features from the texts. The procedure was the same as in the Cockney representation. I included /t/ and /k/ glottalization, TH-fronting, /g/ dropping, and /h/ reinstatement. I have focused on the features that appeared most frequent in the text for the purpose of validity of the analysis. /t/-glottalling in final position occurs frequently in the texts. Table 2 shows that /t/-glottaling when preceded by a vowel occurs by every character in less than 50 percent of the case. There are also instances of /t/- glottalling in medial position, most of them were detected in the texts from Ashley and Jerwayne, e.g. starter, ultimatum. /k/-glottalling appears in less situations but there are some examples of /k/- glottalling in final position as in look. The same look sample appeared in Cockney case where glottalization of /k/ was executed. In the case of TH-fronting Table 3 convinced us that samples of TH-fronting in final, medial, and initial position are present in the texts. The table demonstrated the results from Ashley and Jerwayne’s speech, other three characters fronted the /th/ but the lack of bigger number of samples eliminated them from the table but included in overall analysis. As opposed to Cockney speakers, MLE speakers pronounce the initial /h/ in their words. In the studies of MLE London, young speakers did not omit the /h/ which is considered as one of the noticeable features of Multicultural London English.

Cockney and MLE representations provided an insight into media language and its use on television. From the video files and their transcribed versions, I was able to attentively select the features that occurred most frequently. In the effort to construe and interpret the results properly I had to include the comparison of the two dialect representations and their features. It is clear from the results that we are dealing with two different varieties. On the one hand, we have Cockney, a white working-class dialect, that has been well-implanted as a non-standard variety into British English. On the other hand, we are dealing a new variety that represents multi-ethnicities that has been spoken among adolescents but which is diffusing rapidly all over great inner city. I will not focus the research on the comparison of the two varieties since there has been growing field of research on the topic (Kerswill 2013, 2014, Fox 2015). Moreover, the aim of this analysis is to demonstrate the features of Cockney and MLE found in the representations and compare them with features explored in literature. Furthermore, I decided

66 to include a comparison of the dialect features from the sitcoms so we could observe the differences that are presented in the media.

During the analysis of the dialects I was able to notice the difference while listening to their representations in the sitcoms. Cockney dialect has indeed created through centuries a unique vocabulary and has stayed consistent to its recognizable features such as /h/- dropping, glottal stops, TH-fronting, ain’ts and innits. Regarding Cockney vocabulary in the works of Wright (1981), Matthews (1972) and Franklyn (1953) we manage to witness the evolution and the establishment of Cockney words and phrases. Even though Alf’s speech did not include rhyming slang it still depicted a language that a white working-class Cockney would speak with. The features selected from Alf’s speech almost entirely correspond to the features in Cockney literature. In the case of MLE many linguistic aspects of the dialect appeared in the texts, most of the features that appeared in the sitcom are found in MLE studies. Before I start discussing the differences between the two representations I will discuss their similar features. Frequent language features that appeared in MLE (as in Cockney) are TH-fronting and glottal stops. TH-fronting is present at all five characters, and is fronted most frequently in initial position, though there are also samples of fronting of medial /th/. /t/- glottalling happens in both dialects whether in initial, medial or final position. Glottalization of /k/ appears in the same sample of the word look in Alf’s speech and in Berry’s speech as well. Both dialect use non-standard grammar of English with lots of ain’ts, innits and double negation. The difference that stands out between Cockney and MLE in the sitcoms is the initial /h/. Since Cockney is familiar by its /h/ dropping, MLE speakers mirror the standard (RP) form and pronounce the /h/. Differences between Cockney and MLE in the sitcoms are include vocabulary, grammar, and the use of Creole English. Vocabulary of media MLE includes many slang words such as fam, blad, bruv which are not heard in media Cockney. In case of intrusive /r/ we can hear glottal stop used to avoid vowel hiatus in MLE, as opposed to Cockney.

The difference that is significant to mention between the first and second sitcom is the time frame. The first sitcom was aired in 1965 and the second one in 2011. If we look back at the studies listed to support Cockney characteristics in literature, all of them were published in the period from 1960 till 1987. Based on this we can say that Cockney dialect became well- established through time in the East End London. On the other hand, recent studies on adolescent speech that represent foundation for the present research are conducted in 2004- 2007 and 2007-2009. Their aim has been to investigate the new variety that has been spoken among youth of London East End. Thanks to the salience of the features and its diffusion

Multicultural London English can be heard today not only on the streets of London but also in the media. This fact may be useful for this research, because both dialects appear in media even before they have been accepted as standard dialects of working-class people. we could argue here that the frequent use of certain dialect, rapid spread through contact, appearance on media and its establishment in a social group may lead towards standardization of the new dialect.

9.2. Applications Recent studies on the dialect of London East End have shown the occurrence of a new variety among the London youth. The Cockney dialect that had once dominated on the area of London East End has moved somewhere out of London due to the social and economic changes that had happened in the 1950s. Even though the research on the London East End dialect is pretty new experts agree that further attention should be devoted to this field. Sociolinguists have based their research on the new variety that appeared in London East End due to the changes caused by social factors and live social interaction. However, a new wave of research show that the media may also have an influence on language change or its standardization. We take into account the agreement of a certain language feature used on media and the same used in literature in order to consider it as a standard. The main reason this research carried out the analysis on dialect representations in Tv shows has been to prove that the frequent use of language features on television may have caused their establishment in the community.

It has been discussed that certain changes in the way adolescents speak happened due to the contact among different ethnicities that live in the East End. However, recent sociolinguistic research show that we should not neglect the adolescents’ exposure to the media. Stuart-Smith’s research (2013) opened up more questions on how far should media be counted in the process of language change. She suggests in her research on adolescent speech in Glasgow that the broadcast media may play a role in sound change, however it is not sufficient cause of the changes. Moreover, adolescent language is daily under the influence of the media and popular culture. In the case of media influence, I suggested one type of media that is daily present in our lives that is television. Even though, sociolinguists do not agree on the impact of the media on language change, this research has tried to prove that the appearance of certain dialect features on television provides a proof for the dialect existence and its diffusion through other types of media. We also may go a step further and say that its occurrence on television has helped towards its standardization. The present research serves its purpose as another view at the language change in a certain community. This research is still a small part of a huge unexplored area of a relationship between language and the media.

9.3. Limitations

In order to define and interpret the results properly, I had to be aware of certain restrictions. Namely, nature of the research indicates that the results cannot be interpreted in a general way. Since I was analysing two dialects I had to make a decision regarding the lengths of the paper and its content. In the interest of accurate analysis, I have chosen to elicit vowel features from the analysis regarding the low quality of audio samples from the first sitcom. When it comes to phonology, I have relied my research on consonantal features and changes that appeared in the both dialects. Another point I had to be aware of is that the Multicultural London English is a variety that is still new and not completely explored. The studies conducted provide the features used among adolescents of different parts of London East End. Since it has been a youth language we do not know if it is used by older generations. Furthermore, if yes than there is a possibility that the features might have changed. Correlation between language change and the media is still a controversial topic. Remarkable sociolinguists such as Trudgill (1986:40) himself deny a possibility of media impact on language change. He further states that the language innovation is spread through geographical diffusion. Thus, diffusion transmits the language features that occurred during face-to-face contact with speakers. Moreover, interaction with characters on television is not possible, because we can talk to the characters, but the characters cannot interact with us, there is no linguistic accommodation. One of the main problems for the future of the research on language change and the media is that experts ignore and/or dismiss the media (television) as a set of social factors. Providing another perspective on this topic will contribute to the future research on the aforementioned controversial topic.

CHAPTER 10- CONCLUSION The aim of the current Master’s Thesis is to discover the nature of today’s dialect of London East End and to include the media as one of the possible factors in the process of language change and its standardization. The idea came to life after reading about possible fading of the Cockney dialect and a birth of a new hybrid variety spoken by London youth. After extensive reading and assembling the literature I was able to familiarise myself with recent studies on dialect of London East End. Namely, during the last thirty years there have been studies conducted regarding the issue of a new youth variety that has been mostly spoken in inner city around multiethnic communities. However, research on the media influence on language change remains an unsolved issue whereby researchers could not come to a common agreement. Growing research on adolescent speech in London (Kerswill 2013, 2014, Fox 2015, Tollfree 1999, Cheshire et al. 2013) claim that the dialect of London East End has changed from its traditional form, and has moved outside of London. What we hear nowadays on London streets is not Cockney but another variety which is associated with multicultural language spoken within multiethnic community of London East End. The recent research show that the new variety grew from the face-to-face contact in the multiethnic community and diffused through contact with other communities in London. The studies take into consideration social factors such as age, social class, gender and ethnicity. Their main focus was on adolescents belonging to the working-class community that lived in the boroughs of the East End of London, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Tower Hamlets (Wapping). The studies deducted linguistic features of a new variety which showed clear distinction from traditional Cockney dialect. Fox (2015) takes into account rapid social and economic transformations that happened in the London East End responsible for a birth of a new variety. Namely in the case of Tower Hamlets, where the research was conducted the explored features showed less correspondence with the Cockney features. Some research claim that the spread of the new variety may have been enabled by the media (Stuart-Smith et al. 2013, Kerswill 2014). The case of the Glasgow adolescent speakers showed that the adolescents spoke the Cockney accent even though they did not have any contact with London or Cockney speakers. Furthermore, it is stated that the accent might have come from then popular EastEnders TV show which viewers became highly emotionally and psychologically engaged with the characters. This further meant that psychological

70 engagement with the TV show, alongside linguistic and social factors, can also help accelerate the propagation of quickly diffusion linguistic change (Stuart-Smith et al. 2013: 531). This research is one of few found on linguistic change under the media influence, and it mostly provided proof of media, in this case TV, might play a role in sound change, but it is not responsible solely for the change. The present research followed closely the process of the aforementioned study in order to clarify the language situation of East End London. In order to discuss the potential of media representations in spreading the dialect and “standardizing” it, I have chosen two sitcoms that represent two different dialects, one as Cockney and the other one as the new variety, MLE. To be able to make any claims I have chosen to employ comparative method so I could analyse the compatibility of linguistic features found in representations and the ones listed in theory. The altogether data included around 12000 words which were carefully listened to and analysed. Due to the limitations mentioned in chapter 9 the research did not include vowels into the analysis. Nonetheless, in desire to determine whether the features found in representation correspond with the features found in literature I have included only the most frequent features that appeared throughout the texts. When it comes to Cockney features it is noticeable straight from the Table 1 that chosen media features resemble the features in literature. Especially, when it comes to most recognizable Cockney features such as TH-fronting, Glottal stops and H-dropping. We were able to see that the character of the first sitcom used fluent Cockney accent in the analysed episodes. We can with certainty say that this Cockney representation contained traditional Cockney features. We can also take a step further and say that since Alf Garnett represented a typical working-class Cockney, he used many features (vocabulary) which through time have become a stereotype. However, one cannot be ignored, Cockney dialect has been used for so many years that its features became well-established in literature, the media and spoken among working-class Londoners recognized as Cockney speakers. When it comes to the analysis of a new variety, Multicultural London English, I followed the same process as with Cockney. I had to leave out the vowels from the analysis, and focus on consonantal changes. From the analysis we are able to notice that the TH-fronting and Glottal stops have also found its place among characters of the second sitcom. However, the habit of h-reinstatement is frequently used in the dialogs. Furthermore, when it comes to other features found in the texts we can mention frequent use of pragmatic marker innit, blad, man. Even though not all changes that are reported in the studies occurred in the text, we may certainly conclude say that the language used in the second sitcom is not traditional Cockney and regarding the specific features found in the texts we can with certainty say that we are

71 dealing with MLE. It is important to have in mind that MLE is a dialect that is still developing, and the studies on the new variety are very recent. We should take into consideration that the development of Cockney dialect through years has been followed by a constant change and innovation. Thus, we can expect that MLE will during its process towards standardization also encounter change and innovation.

The results presented in this research provided a small insight into the process of Language change in London East End. It becomes clear that the traditional Cockney dialect is not any more the dominant dialect of London East End. We had a chance to follow the processes which may have caused the fading of Cockney and opened up a territory for a new variety. Thus, discussion on social factors influence on the language variation and change has been an inevitable part of the research. Moreover, the research attempted to emphasize the role of the media, in this case television and to include its influence toward potential standardization of the variety. Additionally, we may also say that television may serve as a tool that accelerates the language change that appeared due to other social factors. The future research on language change should include engagement with the media alongside other social factors in order to answer the questions regarding speech and language acquisition from audio-visual media without the possibility for interaction.

APPENDICES Appendix 1- Transcript: Alf’s dialog, Till Death Us Do Part

S05 E01-Tv License

0:00:42.8 ‘Cos I happen to like it, that's why.

0:00:46.7 Well it's my bloody Telly and I do.

0:00:51.2 I don't wanna watch the other side. I wanna watch this side.

0:01:02.6 Sometimes wonder if football ain't fixed when I see some of them results of the Saturday.

0:01:09.1 There's West ‘am, West ‘am the most attractive side in the country, everyone admits that.

0:01:15.7 No one lets them win ever.

0:01:27.6 Well if it is like a play mate it's a Bloomy side bare some of them play you wonna watch on them at least you gonna understand it.

0:01:35.8 What is?

0:01:45.8 I did not sit up to watch that. I did not. I did not. I did not sit up to watch that. I sat up to complain about it. It's why I sit up for.

0:02:31.1 What are you bloody talking about Mary Whitehouse things, she don't know nothing to do with them. She bangs them, she does or tries to do it.

0:03:21.6 Well I wouldn't be surprised mate. Where is my bloody part two? I mean you long for these one year socialists innit it's just dollar an hour made him a bloody lord, ain't it.

0:03:40.5 Grey, hairy, filthy starkest. Listen that woman, that Marry Whitehouse is concerned for the moral fibbers and wellbeing of this beloved country. What (babbling) never mind about this been rotted away by your corrupt films and your telly and your bloody BBC is the worst.... and that middle-aged peroxide albino clunk-click ponce is gonna charge me there.

0:04:11.5 Yeah you bloody would, wouldn’t you. And a..., and a..., and their seductive music they are singing about men's things and, and driving the youth of the country to crime and mugging .... Where's my bloody pipe roll? And bestialities of rights, living like bloody

73 gypsies and refusing to go to work, and, and, bloody living of the darn and never owe respect mocking their elders, calling me bloody skinny.

0:04:45.7 I tell you something. If everybody was at time in this tedious bloody country when we needed a war at this town, a war to get rid of most of them, yes, a bloody war mate. It's the only thing that can save this country now, a war, a bloody…

***

0:05:05.1 In the last two wars we lost some good youth with a promise, decent, law abiding respectable youth. Youth that done what was told and respected their elders and bearers. If we're at war now all we lose would be rubbish.

0:05:34.8 Shut up you. Shut up all of you, I wanna watch the bloody telly.

0:05:42.4 I stuck to your, keep your bloody stamps out of the way. Look what you are doing, you're putting in order tens with the ones, that you're no supposed to and you got you've got colours here and your bloody pinkies, you're bloody colour blind, she is. Oh, yes very funny innit, bloody funny.

0:06:23.8 Let me ask you a question, where are you sitting tonight, where are you bloody sitting, there's one big difference Sherley Temple, I happen to be sitting in my own bloody slump, my own payed for bloody slump, my own bought and payed for bloody slump, trying to watch me bloody telly, she's also both and payed for.

0:06:54.0 I told you I am not paying their bloody license money.

0:06:59.5 Don't watch the bloody BBC, do I? I only watch the commercial, wouldn't watch that BBC filled with liberal party propaganda. Your BBC my dear is just one long liberal party political bloody broadcast. That' the only reason all your liberals are getting in it to buy elections.

0:07:20.3 What about war? What about your Russian bloody Mick they got on the editing. Your Ludovich bleeding Kennedy.

0:07:53.4 Why don't you use bloody words you can understand, I tell you something about us Tories at least if our leaders go balmy, we ain't frying to admit it.

0:08:12.3 That's it, go on bring the bloody wogs into it. No, you look. You bloody look for a change. Listen Enoch pal that man is only gonna mention you bloody immigrants and your labour all start yelling wolves, wolves.

0:08:58.2 Look, Enoch Powell pal on your point of information was a first one who brought the wogs over, he was the first one to extend the end of friendship to you coons he brought them over expectedly to run our railways for us, sweep our roads, look after our public conveniences. Then I was at being content to do that until your bloody labour lock started banging our ideas their ideas, their darth bloody ideas and unsettling them all.

0:09:24.5 Ideas about their bloody station, look you start giving them a little bit of quality the next thing you know the bloody will demand it. Cause you’re a labour you can’t leave them alone now stuffing their heads full of dearth ideas about being doctors or surgent. And that a bloody transport has gone apart and it ain't safe to go to hospital anymore not with them bloody lot in there. And what about you, what you go to hospital now, for some little thing like a broken thumb, before you know way they are to saw your

bloody arm off. And you what are you bloody laughing. It's a fact, there's people around you my dear, there's people aro’... Stop doing that, pay attention, there is people around you who are frightened to go to hospital now , for some little thing like a broken thumb, before you know way they are to saw your bloody arm off. And you what are you bloody laughing. It's a fact, there's people around you my dear, there's people aro’... Stop doing that, pay attention, there is people around you who are frightened to go into hospital now, they fear about finishing in a bloody stool pot. Now they put a price on that petrol up and that's the thanks you get for trying to show back kindness to them.

0:10:23.8 Of course it was, but you can't talk to them. Can't tell them nothing.

0:10:32.6 I never said that all I said was your Whitechapel mob started the bloody war.

0:10:36.3 All right, this time they started. All I'm saying if them Jews wanna have a war mate I say wait until they bloody can afford it, and not expect us to pay for it.

0:11:01.0 I am not bloody Jewish, how many more times, once and for all, I'm not bloody Jewish.

0:11:12.9 No,...

0:11:16.2 Look my...

0:11:26.5 My mother...

0:11:43.9 My mother's father, see, my mother's father, look he was lost at the Crimea at Sevastopol.

0:11:54.8 Shut up you.

0:12:14.7 Yeah, what about your mother and father, aint they?

0:12:42.5 Oh we know what comes out sonny, ...

0:12:49.7 What do you name Kung Fu, oi? What they are bloody Liverpudlian oi? .... bloody mix up.

0:13:05.2 You talk a lot of goblish. We might be mongrels here, but we are pure blooded mongrels ain't we. English mongrels we are mate, English. When we start a war mate, we don't start a war that we could afford it, we start a war we bloody will pay for it. We're paying all for it. Paying off weekly.

0:13:34.8 I mean, not like your wogs. They start wars they can't afford it.

0:13:38.5 And then they expect us to pay for it.

0:13:40.9 Shut up, you silly moo.

0:13:44.5 Bloody wogs set it up there in the desert they all would act two flies to wrap together and declare a war to people and act it like there was war passed and expet us to pay for it, put the bloody price of oil up.

0:13:58.9 It was a Jews fault, wasn’t it?

0:13:59.7 Yes of course it was! instead of won that bloody war, they could have won that war, could have gone in there and got the oil wells.

0:14:11.2 If they had they’d probably charge a small for the petrol than the bloody Arabs are.

0:14:16.7 What we ought to do see, we ought to go in there and grab the bloody oil for ourselves.

0:14:21.8 Trouble is youth of today can't fight better than bloody Arabs, they can't. Look at them. Army! They've been in army for years now fighting end for the village...mix.

0:14:34.3 I mean in the up good old days when I was a young man,, finished the bloody loaf in the full night. Arabs, mixed Jew boys and all, don't talk to me about bloody wars, you don't know nothing about wars, you don't. All you know about is top up the things and ponce in a bar.

0:14:52.0 You're gonna make us a cup of tea?

0:14:55.5 Bloody marvellous nobody wants to do nothing for anybody these days.

0:15:02.5 Bloody women, there's much use as bloody Arabs they are. Lazy bloody moo you are.

0:15:17.5 What are you bloody talking about?

0:15:26.6 What are you on about?

0:15:43.8 Shut up you? You don't like it, go upstairs in your own room, an' read your bloody Irish comic.

0:16:02.7 They ain't bloody Nancy boys, look at them they are men, you don't get Nancy boys with muscles like that on them.

0:16:21.2 Bloody lies. You've gone off some bloody lies. I've been in his company many times never said or heard one word not at place.

0:16:35.4 Well, what can you expect the way you carry on is wonder we don't have a queue of men outside of front door then.

0:16:42.9 Like a blooming girl you are stuck in front of a mirror,… little Goldie looks .... bloody eyebrows and what about that pong you pour all over yourself. Smelling a model if you can.

0:17:11.5 Well I'm going out ain't I.

0:17:18.0 Well it's my bloody license innit.

0:17:22.1 Well that's the point I'm trying to make, I mean, I could be up in a pub there, having a peaceful drink, and I could get fine for watching a bloody telly and I ain't even in.

0:17:34.9 Alright, alright don't sulk little one, turn it on but don't trust the BBC.

0:17:42.8 Well you can't watch Bruce Forsyth can you, you put him on you turn him on, and the bloody BBC vans will be around.

0:17:57.9The BBC I'm worried about wasting money mate, cause it aint their money it's ours 0:18:05.3 The point is the BBC they put them programs on this you see like your Bruce Forsyth, programs like that that gets you laughing, see. Gets you enjoying yourself, then, your BBC vans come creeping down the road without you knowing this, see.

0:18:22.9 No it aint, they can't touch you if you are watching your ITV. Commercial television is free innit? These pay for to have your advertisements, as long as you buy the food there and all the other things they try to sell they can't touch it.

0:18:37.1 It's only the BBC what charges you a license lease.

0:18:45.5 But I don't that's why I don't turn them on.

0:19:00.4 Turn that over.

0:19:03.6 Here it's not my fault, I mean I don't ask them to send it do I?

0:19:33.6 You'll have us all in the bloody loony bin you are. BBC, where’s the BBC. It’s not there, is it.

0:20:32.6 Look I've told you (if) you get caught watching that BBC they'll lock you up, because you’ll be "accessing around the fed"(not understandable).

0:20:39.9 I don't know that bloody Bruce Forsyth been demeaning self-appearing on air, BBC.

0:20:44.7 What are you talking about, shut up. You and your bloody stamps. Aint fair them stamps. Unfair they are. Unfair to us drinkers mate, I mean in a garage they give out them stamps don't they, well what about us who ain't got cars, will get them in pubs.

0:21:02.0 tell that kid of yours to tide his toys up before he goes to bed.

0:21:35.4 Look, I'm stood here for the two minutes silence out of respect for them British lads who fail to return you ignorant scarskitt.

0:22:01.2 War has been over for 25 years now innit, it's about time some of them went out and got a bloody job. I mean they do one thing don't they, fighting one war expecting to be kept for the rest of their lives, some of them of your age.

I mean, they’d save up a bit see, if they've put a bit of side for rainy day they wouldn't be bloody starving, wouldn't they?

Shut up. Trouble the country innit. everybody is on a bloody year on. Students, lying a bank colleges all over the country, being kept, studying for subjects aint never gonna get jobs for. Never even fired guns today, wouldn't know there was a two minutes silence on it, if we didn't have the telly on.

0:22:55.2 You greedy bloody pig.

0:23:08.9That woman, that woman I may see the queen, shut up, she's turned out, with her own family in the freezing cold to honour the dead... sit still!

0:23:29.4 In the old days when they fired the guns, the all of London stood still, the all of England stood still, busses stoped, trains stopped, shut up!

0:23:41.4 And if you moved you got a punch in your bloody mouth. Two wars we fought it, two world wars, to make this country a better place to live in.

0:24:35.4 You bloody swine, shut up.

0:24:39.2 Them lads, that that woman stood in silence for. And that I have bought this poppy for.

0:24:53.9 And I have got this black band to mourning them all.

0:25:03.3 Shut up, shut up all of you. To think of the idea in me own flesh and blood laughing, mocking English heroes the boys who faced the enemy guns. So, the loads of you could live in freedom.

0:25:23.2 God who’s that now, innit marvellous, you can't even have two minutes silence in peace, can't even on your bloody dead in peace, where are you going, yes I can bloody hear the knocking.

0:25:37.8 Innit bloody marvellous, I mean the only people staying still and respecting the silence is me and him.

0:25:54.5 No can’t you see what’s on there, can't you have a bit respect coming around here disturbing people knocking during the moment of reverence.

0:26:09.3 Bloody marvellous, I mean they talk about Nixon and bloody war and BBC has us all bumped innit, I mean it's ironical we’re stood here in silence honouring the dead at two wars who died to give us freedom and a bloody BBC is bugging every home in the country. Yes, mate bugging.

0:26:36.9 How'd you know we have our set on ai? How'd you know we even got a set? If you aren't being sitting out there listening to every word we've been saying.

Well I'll tell you something mate, I aint got a license and I aint gonna get a bloody license. See, I watch the commercials, I don't watch your bloody rubbish.

0:27:01.6 You can stuff your 50 pounds’ mate.

0:27:33.9 Yeah, it’s his actually, yeah.

0:27:41.1 Where are you going with that?

0:27:54.3 What are we supposed to do then?

0:28:08.1 All right sunny, all right Mr Garnett, you put that bloody set back, and you can stuff your bloody radio. Where's my bloody breakfast?

S05 E03 Strikes and Blackouts

0:00:55.1 Well? What are you gonna do? Do you wanna another house or don't ya? Well?

0:01:16.3 You make up your bloody mind!

0:01:22.8 You're gonna make your own decision no good asking her all the time, why don't we play poker?

0:01:30.4 She can't play this neither!

0:01:39.9 Mind about all that, what are you gonna do?

0:01:46.6 It was about time, well come on you silly moo, hurry up, put you two hundred pounds in a bank.... no not one at time for crying out loud.

0:01:59.6 I mean look, two hundred there it is. Don’t nagging on me. She slows the game up, didn’t she? While she plays, we’ll be here till bloody night, we will.

0:02:12.0 Well don't sit there who's go, is it?

0:02:20.8 Well it wasn't the last time we play?

0:02:47.2 Let me tell you something else about that night, about that New Year’s Eve, about that all bloody year. Things was just as bad then as they are now. I mean there was one big difference oi, it wasn't Mr Evan who was in power, no it was Darling Harold wasn't it? Darling bloody Harold the workers' friend. And it was still pay your cuts and still travel the coal mind as injured bloody train drivers

0:03:16.0 Well you don't have to, just throw the dice and we'll explain it.

0:03:20.2 Oh God, don't start that it's hard enough to teach you to play this.

0:03:47.2What are you talking about, that's it, that's it you got it. She ain't got nothing. She, look! The reason your power workers, coal miners, people like this are unhappy and unsettled is because of bulgy bastards like him, that's why.

Whether are marxy, chusky, mick bloody comic cast newspapers like this bloody one here, look at it militant, yeah, I'll give them bloody militant. yeah. They wonna be militants, they, I'll call them up, put them in the army, yeah then bunk down the coal minds get them driving the trains on a soldier's wages, see if they like that. You wonna see the grave face of socialism my dear, you wonna go to east Russia see plenty of grave face of socialism there all right nothing in the shops, no cars on the roads, and austerity, everywhere austerity, staring you in the bloody face.

0:04:44.2 There are shops that aint empty mate.

0:04:49.8 Look, never mind about it, let’s just throw the bloody dice.

0:04:56.6 Bloody cheating I saw that.

0:05:07.0 What are you talking about, all right another go. You throw them properly this time.

0:05:22.5 You're gonna throw them properly for crying out loud, it’s not the plane area, there. Let's see, eight, move her eight.

0:05:39.6 I'll tell you, I'll tell you what's wrong with this country see, you know what's wrong with it?

0:05:44.2 You know what's wrong with this country?

0:05:47.7 What?

0:05:55.0 What are you talking about?

0:08:09.4 You bloody silly moo, they have stuffed your head full of many old rubbish, aren't they? How are you gonna get them to sting your rheumatism.

0:08:22.1 They don't know where your rheumatism is, do they?

0:08:29.2 Don't you let them out! Don't you let them out in this room while I'm there. That's all. Bloody bees.

0:08:40.8 I lose me thread now, lose me bloody thread.

0:08:51.0 What he's doing see, for the first time he's gonna put the economy in the country right, that's what he's doing.

0:08:59.0A Marking time, marching on the spot in order, they can create some unemployment.

0:09:09.9 Well he should have done it years ago it's the only way to get prosperity, innit.

0:09:14.3 Well it's surely sensible thing he can do.

0:09:20.0 No well of course he wouldn't to you, not you and your bloody bees. Would you shut that box. Look,... Would you pay attention?

0:09:28.3 Look the only way, we can have proper and lasting prosperity see, is by having millions of unemployed. See they. When you got thousands queuing out, begging for work, going down on their hands and knees for it, then, you pile them into your stride... Few months are going with that, few months with no food in their (?), few months of that, few months of nobody allowed on a doll at all, yeah, and when there's ten men for every job you see, that might bring a bloody sense to their heads, right, and they won't be reading no bloody militants day mate, no because they'll all be crying out for work and then and only then we might get a bit of bloody prosperity.

0:10:15.9 Listen that's how they used to do it in the good old days, mate.

0:10:39.2 We're not talking about wars.

0:11:21.9 Don't you dare, don't you bloody dare....to talk about me and money, cause you 'aven't even payed the money you owe for bloody telephone.

0:11:37.0 And I'll tell you something else Shirley Temple, when a rich person, when a rich man owes the grocer money he ain't worried because he knows he's gonna get it eventually but if a bloody grocer give credit mate he might as well kiss his bloody shop goodbye.

0:12:22.4 Yeah you can't answer that.

0:12:28.0 All right, what was you going on before then, what was all that bloody diet, what was all about fat people then ai, they can't help being fat can they. Some of that greatest leaders are fat.

0:12:42.3 She ain't rich, bloody balmy she is. Will you leave,... stop tormenting them, they'll go for you in a minute, you fool.

0:13:03.4 Marver street, I wanted that, I should buy that.

0:13:07.3 No, as unlucky you can't have it.

0:13:12.6 AAA not my dear, daddy's got it ain't he.

0:13:22.1 I don't wanna that rubbish at Houston road, thank you very much. I want some a bit of class like Marver street here.

0:13:39.9 You're a bit informed, aren't you?

0:13:44.3 Yeah, the trouble the bloody telly aint it? Too many people getting to well bloody informed if you ask me. Too much of that going on that's what. Bloody BBC.

0:14:20.6 Just as I was winning, that's why. It's typical. I swear as I'm sitting here I'm never bloody play this game with you again. Bloody little swine you are.

0:14:39.6 You, you bloody scouse ponce.

***

0:14:56.5 If you was in the army sun and you refuse an order, you, that would be treason, wonder you could be shot at a bloody good job at all.

0:15:15.6 it's a pity, it's a pity the old Inoc ain't in charge mate. He'd have the solution don't worry about it.

0:15:24.9 He'd put the coons down the pits that's what he'd do. Trouble is they would be bashing into each other in the dark. Well it's a fact innit. There's a point why they wear all that war paint innit? So they can see each other in the dark see. Suppose, if he did put the coons down the pits, he can always (?) wash they faces first.

0:16:51.5 Do you wanna cup of tea?

0:17:00.1 Three pounds? You've done nothing there? You shut your face!

0:17:48.7 Many of them, I'll give him happy new year, bloody coon. They should work this for ye, they ain't ye bloody working class he's selling for nothing all the time. I bet you, I bet you, he's done a bloody nothing ey, so he is can come back again next week.

0:18:04.5 You shut up and listen, as a bloody coon there mate, he gets three quid for less than minute work and then it's this people down the coal mind digging coal and keep him worm. That's why I'm against, I mean I bet he ain't working on the free is he.

0:18:20.0 What are you bloody doing?

0:18:28.4 Bloody black fool, now look what he's done. He's gone diffused all the bloody light there, ain't it marvellous, oi innit? That's the trouble see.

0:18:50.2 It ain't bloody fair, ain't bloody fair. Where's the candles?

0:18:59.3Look you bought candles, didn't you? You bought candles for the power cut.

0:19:06.6 Well I said, put them somewhere safe, put them somewhere we can find them, put them somewhere you can go straight to them.

0:19:14.2 Well where are they then?

0:19:21.6 Bloody women!

0:19:25.8 Have you got a torch?

0:19:28.3 Well where is it then?

0:20:10.3 Wait a minute, there's some matches here somewhere. There they are.

0:20:26.5 You bloody silly moo, you and your bloody bees!!!!

0:20:41.8 I'm in agony with it here.

0:20:48.8 Come on hurry up with that bleeding fire I'm freezing up.

0:21:19.1 My face is swelling up more, I can't feel it here. It's getting worse. What a dangerous thing this bees things you know, they can stop your adrenaline in in.

0:21:50.2 Look at that, I can't make a fist with that hand anymore. I've lost a power in that now.

0:22:14.4 I didn't let them loose you bloody silly moo. My tongue is swelling.

0:22:43.4 What is it?

0:22:51.3 I'm going back to bed I am.

0:23:56.8 What time is it?

0:24:04.3 What have you got for tea dear?

0:24:10.8 Oh good, I like a nice kipper.

0:24:17.9 Well get on and cook them then.

0:24:23.5 Why not?

0:24:27.1 it ain't fair, it ain't bloody fair.

0:24:54.9 Dear, couldn't you like cook it in front of the fire like you know on a fork.

0:25:31.1 He ain't talking about that sort of credit not tick credit he don't mean on a slight credit, he means our purchase is no more our purchase.

0:25:50.2 It's gonna wait them out across the road. Them bloody mix, them Moonies, they make a living out of it don't they.

0:26:31.4 Bloody people like that drag this country down.

0:26:43.9 Poor woman blimey. When her husband died she copied his insurance she struck over to booze she didn't come out till she spent the bloody lot.

0:26:54.5 he'd still be lying out for counselling put him down.

0:27:36.0 You bloody silly moo, it was the bulb. We've been sitting in the dark no bloody TV, it was the bulb all the time. What are you laughing at, you can't bloody see now you are go get a tea now, go on you silly , quick. You bloody fool.

S05 E04 Three day Week

0:00:52.6 I was this night at the Gary's, bloody pleased with this petrol panic as he calls it.

0:01:01.3 Well he was home so I went there to get me a lighter filled up.

0:01:07.9 Yeah well, he always tops me up in there. I'll get them little tubes in the morning see.

0:01:19.3 I don’t see them making them no more. Well mostly like as they go out of gas suppose that's the reason.

0:01:25.3 He prefers this petrol panic. He reckons he's better off. I mean he's selling just as much petrol in less time.

0:01:33.1 Before he says, before he used to have to open up at 8 o'clock in the morning. work all old day half past nine, half past ten at night. Where my bloody slippers go?

0:01:46.3 You've been tiding up every, get out of it, come on. Now he says it please himself when he opens up. And as soon as he does he's got himself a queue of a mile or long, cause he has to rush about to beat it you know. After couple of hours he can shut the shop and sit down for the rest of the day. Don't have to clean no windscreens, pump up no toys, nothing like that. None of that thank you very much sir. Oh blimey, they'll thank him there, thank him, they'll bloody will beg him.

0:02:13.8 He don't have to give no quad stamp, since he's never been so popular, oh blimey, he prefers it. I hope it keeps on he does. I'll be. It's ironical really innit?

0:02:32.8 Oh where is he then?

0:02:37.2 My dinner!!!

0:02:48.4 What are you bloody talking about?

0:02:59.4 What are you... He aint talking about you, you silly moo. I mean he's talking about people who work.

0:03:07.7 Yeah all right you work, I mean Mr Evan ain't talking about that sort of work,house work. What Mr.Evan is talking about is industry.

0:03:16.7 What industry?

0:03:24.3 Yeah, but he aint talking about that, he means important industry.

0:03:31.3 It aint him important.

0:03:49.0 Look, what's all that larking about? I don't mind all that. I'm hungry. I've done all days work and I'm bloody hungry.

0:04:00.3 I don't won't bread and cheese I wonna have dinner!

0:04:09.0 What are you bloody laughing at? Suppose you've had your dinner don't ya?

0:04:34.1 Look, are you gonna cook my dinner?

0:04:38.6 Blimey look, that three-day week ain't reward you know? Mr Evan give us that to punish them minors. Me I don't want it I aint enjoying it.

0:05:09.4 New coat, and I want dinner.

0:05:14.7 Few weeks!!! Listen! You don't cook my dinner you won’t getting no bloody housekeeping don't you worry about that.

0:05:20.4 Yeah we will soon see about that. Before you think I'm going out to work all day when you sit on your bloody back side?

0:05:39.5 You shut up you!

0:05:45.4 I'm warning you! I'm warning you woman! Are you gonna cook my dinner or not?

0:06:13.2 Bloody hell, you bloody are dumb by you aren't you? You bloody grey poodl!

0:06:27.8 I'm gonna cook me own dinner!

0:07:23.1There's nothing out there, there's nothing in that bloody cupboard at all!

0:07:29.3 I don't wonna bacon sandwich!

0:07:34.7 Don't push me!

0:07:46.0 Nooo, I do not want a bloody sweet!

0:07:53.7 There's gonna be some changes made around this house. Oh yes, there's gonna be some changes made here alright.

0:08:02.9 Shut up you.

0:08:12.0 Oh thank you very much.

0:08:16.9 Yeah but he's got home to go to aint he?

0:08:20.5 Shut up. It aint fair, it aint bloody fair! You work out all day, sweat your bloody guts out. When you go home you got no bloody dinner. All you got is a bloody bacon sandwich. I mean I know people who can't have for the breakfast break, but not me I've got anything for me bloody dinner I aint.

0:08:47.1 I suppose the bloody bakery was shut when you got there

0:08:53.6 You thought.

0:09:09.4 Was, was I suppose there's no bloody bacon left out there now is there?

0:09:16.2 It ain't fair, it ain't bloody fair.

0:09:38.4 Oh my heart bleeds for you. And I have got nothing at all, have I?

0:10:15.9 No I would not fancy that. Boiled potatos, I don't go out to work and come home and sit down to eat bloody boiled potatos.

0:10:24.2 Go without? Go without?

0:10:27.9 There's nothing in this house that bloody will go without, nothing in the bloody kitchen at all, there's not even bread out there.

0:10:38.9 I give you money. I’ve given you money all the time, every week. I've given you bloody housekeeping money, don't I? Where's that, in your bloody purse I suppose cause you're too bloody idle to go down the shops.

0:10:52.2 Look it's about time you learn to manage all that innit. You got no money but you can sit there talking about new coats, can't you?

0:11:06.9 Tally man, that bloody tally man. it be the ruination of you it will. When you hardly can finish paying for one fees, he's got you for soething else.

0:11:15.8 You don't know how to manage if it wasn't for him? I don't know how he'd manage if it wasn't for you. I mean he used to ride a bicycle when he first come knocking on this door now he's driving around bloody ....

0:11:42.0 Don't wonna eat a bloody muck.

0:11:46.4 English? English food Chinese style, lovely that will be.

0:11:57.1 I don't go to work to come home and have to sit down at bloody Chinatown red and chips, all because of that silly moo sat there.

0:12:06.7 Whose fault is it then?

0:12:15.0 Oh yeah, what sucking it little tit bit would that turn out to be. Oh, dear Lord, bacon and cheese and potatoes, boiled.

0:12:51.7 Will you shut up, I'm telling you. I don't care whose bloody cheese is, I don't want cheese, I aint a bloody mouse.

0:13:04.6 When a man goes to work he wants to come home to meet and vegetables, and puddings and pie crust.

0:13:14.3 Very funny, how would you like that, never the mind laughing, how would you bloody like if had to come home and find nothing abso-bloody nothing. And you lot set there arguing about what you had there, what you aint have, and her sitting out there stuffing herself with bloody sweets.

0:13:35.7 I didn't got a proper fire to sit in front of.

0:13:41.3 We've got electric power don't

0:13:46.8 My bloody business my bloody house innit?

0:13:50.7 You could bloody plug this in could you, no, not you.

0:14:06.3 I bet his kitchen staff aint working a three-day week.

0:14:13.9 Yeah? And what about your Darling Harold? I bet he aint sitting in front of an empty grey, and I bet you he aint have to go without his dinner, I bet he aint got stand up at Ching shop for egg and chips. Not Darling Harold.

0:14:30.1 And open up the flood gates and everybody will ask him for a wage increase. we know.

0:14:38.2 There aint enough money to go around as there is you silly poodle.

0:15:18.0 No I aint bloody lost me thread, shut up. All I'm saying is It's your balance of payment with your fiscal putting ins and your take outs, look never mind laughing we buy more than we are selling and therefore we can't make ends meet.

0:15:39.2 Oh well I'm not surprised I wouldn’t’ expect you to be able to. I bet if I was Charlie Claw with all his millions you still wouldn't be out of making both ends meet.

0:16:01.8 Look you wonna talk about boats Shirley Temple, I'll tell you something about boats, If you're.... yes boats. If you are on a boat my dear, a boat and the bloody boat is sinking you don't start arguing with a captain and having rouse about who's fault is and who’s gonna steer the bloody thing, what you do if you got any bloody sense, no you do not, what you do if you all get together, no you so not. You bail the bloody thing up man the pumps men the pumps that's what you do. Yes. You do. Oh blimey, that the trouble with this country today it has been on a boat with no captain or crew.

0:17:28.5 What are you bloody talking about unemployment, I work don’t I, I've worked hard whole my life I've hardly ever been out of work, are you that.

0:17:40.1 Oh thank you. It’s nice that is.

0:17:50.4 What are you talking about that set here that aint forty years old.

0:18:01.1 Look I bought that of of her.

0:18:30.6 You darn bloody exaggerate you're a bloody liar you are. She is, she's always set in my bloody chair. Of course, you bloody, oh look it's your bloody cushion it's not mine, is it?

What are you bloody laughing at? I always say I have to get a bloody shoe on to get you of this bloody chair.

0:18:59.5 If you want easy chair I buy you easy chair. You wanna go ask.

0:19:08.4 If you ask my dear, if you ask me, and ask properly I might.

0:19:42.9 You keep your bloody scars’ nose out of it.

0:19:50.1 And proud of it, don't you worry about it.

0:19:57.3 I'll tell you something Sherley bloody Temple.

0:20:21.7 That’s it isn’t it. It's nice to know your thought of it. I mean, you do your best, don't you. You provide what you can. You work all the hours God give you, look I brought you up didn't I, I brought you up the best way I knew, the only way I knew, I couldn't done no better. I didn't know how. I've done what I could the best way I could.

0:20:57.4 Look I've worked, you shut up. I've worked didn't I, I was slave he is my witness, I was slave to provide a roof over you oi. and food and what comforts I can. I've been honest I never turned my back on work not like some. Whatever I earned has gone in this house innit.

0:21:23.5 You've got little boy.

0:21:27.7 I pity you. You've got little boy and you're fine you'll have to bring him up the same, the best way you know. it's the only way, cause you're his parents. And your way is the only way you know see you make mistakes. I suppose I have, No, I mean some of my ideas they might be wrong I admit that but are his ideas right eh, can his like prove they way is the right way? Can his, can they prove that they are better than the rest of us.

0:22:33.5 I have you know I have.

0:22:41.0 Been a good husband to you. Well I am, with all what happened tonight I mean I come my home and found I got no dinner, I didn't go about it like some men. I mean I let it pass. Well alright i remarked upon it, wouldn't you?

I mean god blimey I know some men that come home and find that got no bloody dinner they go on bloody mad mate.

0:23:06.5 But I didn't I mean I have only turned the other cheek, I offered to by her a new coat.

0:23:17.2 Well that's the thanks I get new coat and I get no bloody dinner. I come home find she is working three-day week.

0:23:27.7 Well you've made a bloody good start.

0:23:31.7 joke, I tell you that ain't funny on an empty stomach.

0:23:41.5 Well yeah, but I mean it's a wage freeze. How much?

0:23:54.9 Look what I've got mate in post office is what I've saved.

0:23:59.7 But I saved it for our old age.

0:24:08.7 Yeah, long time old. Look never mind for all the coats, what about my dinner.

0:24:17.0 You had it all the time, didn't you?

0:24:26.8 It's funny really, innit. You knew it all the time.

0:24:37.8 All that kidding me on, kidding me on there's no bloody dinner just to get me to promise to go out and buy her a new coat.

0:24:43.8 You know we aint supposed to spend, I mean the government is exhorted as us trying to make due.

Appendix 2- Transcripts: The PhoneShop

Season 1 Episode : Jerwayne and Ashley

00:00:17,280 Jerwayne: He sold one phone, to a mate, yeah?

00:00:23,920 Ashley: What are we doing this for, Lance? This is pointless, blood. We know who it is. It's Newman.

00:00:57,440 Jerwayne: I like you fat, baby.

00:01:21,000 Ashley: Did you show him the trick?

00:03:30,160 Ashley: Ruined what?

00:03:31,400 Jerwayne: Was that meant to be a ting?

00:03:32,640 Ashley: Apparently.

00:03:33,800 Jerwayne: OK.

00:03:37,560 Jerwayne: Hey, Newman.

00:03:39,360 Jerwayne: What kind of timepiece you rocking?

00:03:42,280 Ashley: This ain't the time for questions, bruv. Show man your watch, innit.

00:03:45,600 Jerwayne: Oh, my lord. It's a Timex Junior.

00:03:49,280 Ashley: Stop!

00:03:50,400 Ashley: Snoopy time!

00:03:51,880 Ashley: The man's got a Snoopy watch, bruv.

00:03:54,080 Jerwayne: Hello, Snoopy! Where's Grarfield, innit?

00:03:57,720 Ashley: Grarfield man! I loved that cat bruv, like,

00:04:00,240 Ashley: "I'm just a big, fat cat. What?"

00:04:02,640 Jerwayne: And then Snoopy would say, "What's going on, Grarfield, are you blessed?"

00:04:06,080 Ashley: Yeah man, I'm cool, I'm blessed, brother. You got the ting?

00:04:08,320 Jerwayne: I got the tingaling, blood.

00:04:09,360 Ashley: Oh, blaze that ting.

00:04:11,480 Jerwayne: They be like two cats just straight chilling, man.

00:04:20,480 Jerwayne: What? Shut up, college.PhD-ickhead. This ain't no debatin' society, yeah?

00:04:26,760 Ashley: Oh, was you? You was on the debating team? OK, OK,

00:04:28,960 Ashley: Well bruv, let me just fucking propose this to the house, that you never test man on cartoon, yeah, cos that's my thing, you know?

00:04:34,840 Ashley: Put your childish nostalgia to one side, concentrate on your future self, yeah?

00:04:39,120 Jerwayne: Focus on this, the man you hope to be.

00:04:44,000 Ashley: Right, tools of the trade.

00:04:46,640 Jerwayne: Standard issue. Elite Salesman Timepiece.

00:05:01,400 Jerwayne: As well as being a beautiful and stylish watch, it's also a conversational starter. Oh, hello sir, welcome to Phone Shop Sutton. How's your day today please?

00:05:10,360 Ashley: I'll be taking the role of dickhead in this production, yeah.

00:05:13,200 Ashley: My day's going fine, but...

00:05:15,200 Jerwayne: Oh, my gosh, I can't help but notice your beautiful and stylish watch.

00:05:19,560 Jerwaine: Oh, this? Take off the watch, Newman.

00:05:21,560 Jerwaine: Please, feel free to try it on.

00:05:24,840 Ashley: I'd like very much to try that on. Thank you.

00:05:28,360 Ashley: That's very trusting of you, yeah. It's a trust exercise, Newman.

00:05:32,560 Jerwaine: Show the prospect you trust him.

00:05:34,200 Ashley: And that he in turn can trust you.

00:05:35,960 Jerwaine: And you in turn can rinse the fuck out of this mug.

00:05:38,160 Ashley: To be fair, I do deserve it because I am some sort of cun...

00:05:41,240 Jerwaine: So that's going to be a 24-month contract, sir.

00:05:44,480 Ashley: 24-month contract, that's absolutely fine. Please may I use your pen?

00:05:48,400 Jerwaine: You can have the pen, sir.

00:05:50,680 Ashley: Produce the pen with some elan. Right.

00:05:56,520 Ashley: Do you know what? 24-month contract?

00:05:59,440 Ashley: I think I'm changing my mind.

00:06:01,520 Jerwayne: Oh, my God, he's changing his mind.

00:06:03,320 Ashley: I want to go 36 months because that's how much I like and trust you, yeah.

00:06:07,960 Ashley: Shhansh, bam. Done! OK? He's got his phone. Got the contract.

00:06:13,360 Ashley: Your commission's safe. Wham. Happy Christmas.

00:06:16,840 Ashley: Happy Hanukkah. Happy Ramadan. Like, come out my shop, innit.

00:06:20,080 Jerwayne: Bye! Thank you for the commission. You're dead to me.

00:07:29,360 Ashley: Listen, maybe we'll move on to garms, hair, life styling next week.

00:07:34,080 Ashley: We're doing sales repertoire at the moment.

00:07:35,200 Jerwayne: Blam! Organ donor card.

00:07:38,680 Ashley: Yeah, bruv. Shows you're caring, but more importantly, sharing.

00:07:41,720 Jerwayne: Boom! Medical student ID.

00:07:44,280 Ashley: You're training to be a doctor.

00:07:45,720 Ashley: You just work here part-time to fund your studies, innit?

00:07:49,840 Ashley: Listen, people love doctors. Shipman, Pepper, Fox aside, yeah.

00:07:53,360 Ashley: People trust doctors. They can do what the fuck they like, innit.

00:07:56,320 Ashley: Like, "Hello, I'm a doctor, I'm going to be fingering you today."

00:08:00,000 Jerwayne: Oh, thank you, doctor. Panties on or off?

00:08:02,040 Ashley: Just to the side is fine.

00:08:06,960 Jerwayne: You go tell Dr Dre that. Man will fuck you up, innit.

00:08:11,160 Ashley: On his credibility as a doctor of medicine? Don't think so.

00:08:15,040 Jerwayne: How you know man ain't a doctor? Have you seen papers stating that man ain't a doctor?

00:08:21,520 Ashley: Then if man says he's a doctor, shut your mouth, he's a doctor.

00:08:25,440 Jerwayne: If man say him a ting, then him a ting! You get me? Man's a ting!

00:08:29,800 Ashley: You are what you say you are.

00:08:33,080 Ashley: Standard, friend.

00:08:36,120 Ashley: Listen, I just want to give something back to the children, you know.

00:08:44,960 Jerwayne: Why do people insist on hurting animals?

00:08:49,120 Ashley: Third year of a five-year course.

00:08:50,880 Jerwayne: Britain's first black vet. What?

00:08:53,120 Ashley: Selling is an act, Newms. Yeah.

00:08:55,240 Ashley: It's about convincing people using your assumed authority that you got the answers they want to hear.

00:09:01,240 Jerwayne: If you talk with conviction, on any topic whatsoever, people will believe you. If a man say him a ting then...

00:09:07,720 Jerwayne: Him a ting.

00:09:07,720 Ashley: Him a ting.

00:09:11,400 Jerwayne: Nah! You ain't a ting, man!

00:09:13,560 Jerwayne: Just joking. Come, come.

00:09:15,560 Jerwayne: Nah, you still ain't a ting!

00:09:26,600 Jerwayne: Come and see me when you're a ting, yeah.

00:10:46,560 Ashley: Depression is a terrible blight that affects people of all ages.

00:10:50,200 Ashley: And as we all know, laughter is the best medicine.

00:10:52,800 Ashley: So, based on what you've told me,

00:10:54,920 Ashley: I'm going to recommend the Jester once-in-a-laugh time

00:10:57,440 Ashley: unlimited free text package.

00:10:58,800 Ashley: The cheapest way to send unlimited jokes, funnies and puns.

00:11:02,200 Ashley: I'll throw in a free self-harm alarm application, so Mum's happy too.

00:11:08,080 Ashley: Right, fill that out, young man, yeah?

00:11:10,120 Ashley: Watch out for them paper cuts, boy.

00:12:23,116 Ashley: How's it going over at Croydon, Paul?

00:12:25,516 Ashley: You still got that drive-through storefront?

Season 1 Episode 6

00:01:47,000 Jerwayne: 'So let me get this straight, yeah? You're dating a solder?'

00:01:50,960 Ashley: Woman soldier.

00:01:52,520 Jerwayne: OK. That opens up a whole new territory, innit?

00:01:55,520 Ashley: Listen, blud. Girls returning home from the theatre of war come home hungry for a bit of the Blighty man, innit? They want to get busy in a bivvy with a civvy.

00:02:03,880 Jerwayne: The man's diversifying his portfolio.

00:02:05,960 Ashley: Yes, bruv. In these economically reduced times, you've got to seek out new opportunities on all fronts.

00:02:11,160 Jerwayne: True dat. I hear that.

00:02:13,160 Ashley: Tonight I'm going to introduce her to my very own improvised explosive device. Kaboom!

00:02:18,480 Ashley: Ashley's in your room.

00:02:22,480 Ashley: It was this thing I saw in the Daily Star, yeah? What, bruv, you know I ain't proud.

00:02:29,760 Ashley: So, text our troops, yeah? Man read it as "sext our troops", thought they was on a little like "hump for heroes" kind of ting. I'll be straight with you, yeah? The first four months, I'm getting replies from just like, man. Some of them was fairly erotic and engagingly structured, actually. But then, this.

00:02:50,320 Jerwayne: Shit! I didn't think you were allowed to have your ears pierced in the army.

00:02:54,360 Ashley: Cameron's Britain. Damn.

00:03:01,280 Jerwayne: Janine, you're manager for the day, yeah?

00:03:03,120 Jerwayne: So why are you acting like Sir Lord Alan Sugar man, innit?

00:03:05,680 Ashley: Yeah, Jardine. Lance is only gone for like three days.

00:03:08,240 Ashley: Why are you going on like a chief, innit?

00:03:16,920 Ashley: Store manager for the day.

00:03:19,480 Ashley: Store manager for the day.

00:03:28,800 Ashley: Store manager for the day, Janine. Don't get it twisted. This is like Wife Swap, yeah?

00:03:33,600 Ashley: OK, so you make up your own fuckin' mung bean, brown bread, bullshit Birkenstock rules today, safe, enjoy yourself.

00:03:40,840 Ashley: Cos tomorrow, it's my day.

00:03:42,600 Ashley: These kids are getting Haribo and Red Bull for breakfast, you get me?

00:03:46,240 Ashley: That's right, Daddy's got weekend custody, innit?

00:03:49,560 Jerwayne: I ain't getting up until like, quarter to nine, and I'll still bust target. What? Say something.

00:04:02,520 Ashley: Covered over by a Domino's menu, innit?

00:04:17,760 Ashley: What are you talking about?

00:04:45,280 Ashley: Are you serious?

00:04:46,600 Ashley: Who you got coming in? Is it Kamal Kameel Jr out of Phones4u?

00:04:50,240 Jerwayne: Nah, man, it's Joel Heggessey Higgs from Carphone Warehouse.

00:04:53,240 Jerwayne: Guy's like Nigel Havers. I heard the man wears a cravat in the bath.

00:05:05,600 Ashley: Rain Man Ryan?

00:05:19,840 Ashley: When you reach manhood, I swear down, bruv, I will find you and fight you. Do you understand?

00:05:26,760 Jerwayne: I tell you what we'll do for you.

00:05:28,800 Jerwayne: I'm going to come round your house and I'm going to show you how to use that camera phone properly, innit?

00:05:34,840 Ashley: Yes, of course in low-light conditions. Yeah.

00:05:39,600 Ashley: Yeah, you know it's splash-proof. Nah, that's not a problem.

00:05:45,000 Ashley: I'm only too pleased to go the extra mile for my customers.

00:05:49,320 Ashley: I'm all about the personal service.

00:05:53,080 Ashley: OK. OK, Mrs Acorci. I'll see you then.

00:07:42,120 Yes, bruv, she's home on leave, so I is linking her tonight, innit? You've got to think, yeah, this girl has been on like basic rations for six months, innit? Tonight we're going strictly three courses and coffee. And then we might get something to eat.

Season 1 Episode 2

00:00:00,718 Jerwayne: This girl is beautiful. I mean proper beauty.

00:00:04,400 Jerwayne: My girl can work... scratch that, supervise...any make-up counter.

Clinique, Clarins...

00:00:11,560 Jerwayne: She can go up West End and do Mac, Bobbi Brown… Fuck it... Space NK. There, I said it, what?

00:00:18,920 Ashley: And you're getting rid of that, bruv? That's insane.

00:00:21,080 Jerwayne: Bruv, she's insane. The girl's mental, she's driving me mad.

00:00:25,080 Ashley: Come on now, fam. We've all been in that place, yeah?

00:00:28,000 Ashley: Mad in the head equals bad in the bed, yeah?

00:00:30,760 Ashley: I linked this girl Becky, yeah, French Connecky Becky.

00:00:34,440 Ashley: I linked her for about three months, yeah?

00:00:37,160 Ashley: And boy, she was like, 'nother level.

00:00:39,640 Ashley: But she was proper loops.

00:00:41,280 Jerwayne: Why, what did she do?

00:00:42,160 Ashley: Shat in the window display. Got sectioned, innit?

00:00:44,560 Jerwayne: What?

00:00:45,600 Ashley: Yeah, bruv, the Christmas shitter, parked her little one in the crib, they had to do a overnight re-dress.

00:00:51,080 Ashley: All I'm saying is, the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice.

00:00:54,240 Ashley: You can put up with all manner of madnesses if you're getting your tings, innit?

00:00:57,480 Jerwayne: Bruv, I ain't even getting that.

00:01:00,920 Ashley: What? You ain't getting your tings?

00:01:03,280 Jerwayne: OK...

00:01:04,920 Jerwayne: Sunday night, we're in her bedroom, I'm about to introduce her to Jerwayne Jnr Esquire. She's like, "I really want to, but you have to ask permission first."

00:01:19,360 Ashley: OK, so, you've got to ask permission first, that's like a legal thing, innit?

00:01:22,920 Ashley: You've got to do that nowadays, like a sexual pre-nup.

00:01:25,840 Jerwayne: Nah-nah-nah. Not her permission.

00:01:27,760 Ashley: OK, who have you got to ask?

00:01:31,120 Jerwayne: Mr Wise. I have to ask Mr Wise.

00:01:35,320 Ashley: Who the fuck's Mr Wise?

00:01:36,680 Ashley: Tell me it ain't her dad with a camcorder in the wardrobe.

00:01:39,760 Jerwayne: Bruv, Mr Wise is a nasty, evil fuckin' owl tattooed large on the girl's back.

00:01:50,120 Ashley: A owl?

00:01:51,080 Jerwayne: A owl.

00:01:51,960 Ashley: A owl?

00:01:54,240 Jerwayne: A owl! On her back.

00:01:55,320 Jerwayne: Staring at me. Judging me.

00:02:00,640 Ashley: A owl?

00:02:01,760 Jerwayne: A owl.

00:02:08,040 Ashley: What are you doing?

00:02:09,920 Ashley: News... never run, bruv, never run.

00:02:12,040 Jerwayne: We don't run on this high street. We run this high street, yeah?

00:02:15,680 Ashley: What?

00:02:17,040 Ashley: Yeah, man, only run on track, d'you get me?

00:02:18,880 Jerwayne: Yeah, or from Babylon, innit?

00:02:22,080 Jerwayne: One, why are you running from Babylon, what have you got to hide?

00:02:24,520 Ashley: Yeah, we're on a legal money ting round here, yeah?

00:02:27,000 Jerwayne: Two, never run from Babylon.

00:02:29,880 Jerwayne: Three, never, ever use the word Babylon.

100

00:02:31,960 Ashley: And four, what's that fuckin' smell, bruv?

00:02:33,800 Jerwayne: Yeah, what is that? Smells like sour milk.

00:02:36,840 Jerwayne: Oh, bruv, put that away!

00:02:45,920 Ashley: You've got a date, New Man? Safe!

00:02:49,400 Ashley: Well done, Newms.

00:02:50,040 Jerwayne: Is she high street?

00:03:15,280 Ashley: OK, we'll masterclass that skill, yeah.

00:03:17,440 Ashley: Listen, couple of matters of protocol we'd better go through

00:03:20,280 Ashley: with you before we let you represent, innit?

00:08:02,680 Ashley: Listen, bruv, you've got to fix up right for your

00:08:05,400 Ashley: elegant lady Amanda, yeah?

00:08:09,200 Ashley: See me, yeah?

00:08:11,200 Ashley: I ain't going to take her to no McDonald's, no Burger King,

00:08:13,880 Ashley: no like shitty kebab shop, yeah?

00:08:16,280 Ashley: I'm going to show her she's with a guy who's got a bit of style.

00:08:19,360 Ashley: Call me Panache-ly, yeah?

00:08:22,400 Ashley: Where am I going to take her?

00:08:25,000 Jerwayne: What? How old are you, bruv? Come on.

00:08:27,800 Ashley: Zizzi.

00:08:29,400 Ashley: Surprise her, flip the script, yeah?

00:08:31,160 Ashley: She ain't never going to expect that, not a Tuesday lunchtime!

00:08:34,040 Jerwayne: Fix up a nice table for two with a view of the wood-burning oven.

00:08:37,480 Ashley: How rustic, how delightful. Maybe I'll have a glass of house red.

00:08:42,000 Jerwayne: Pollo con pesto for the lady? Spicy sausage for the man. If she wants a dessert, she's going to have to pay for that herself cos you ain't no mug.

101

00:08:53,080 Jerwayne: Sshh! Don't speak. All you got to do circa one hour is ecouter.

00:08:58,880 Ashley: So, what's she talking about? Matt Damon, yeah? "Oh, love Matt Damon,

00:09:03,320 Ashley: I saw that Bourne Ultimatum on Sky the other day, it's really good.

00:09:06,400 Ashley: Not as good as Talented Mr Ripley, and I really like Jude Law, too."

00:09:09,040 Ashley: Occasionally you're going to throw in something like this: "D'you know what?

00:09:14,320 Ashley: I like Jude Law."

00:09:17,400 Ashley: Game's yours, New Man... why?

00:09:20,840 Ashley: Cos no man likes Jude Law.

00:09:22,240 Jerwayne: No man likes Jude Law.

00:09:26,520 Ashley: Metrosexuality, liking Jude Law, that's all it is, bruv.

00:09:30,120 Ashley: So she's talking away, talking away.

00:09:32,360 Ashley: Occasionally throw in a couple of these...

00:09:35,360 Ashley: Sad little look down there, brave a little smile, pop it back up, yeah? So...

00:09:44,480 Jerwayne: Yeah? You try it. Think about something sad. Yeah? Go...

00:09:48,640 Ashley: I'll be the girl, yeah?

00:09:49,720 Ashley: "So I watched that Bourne Ultimatum on Sky the other day and..."

00:09:53,960 Ashley: Bruv, that's too sad. You look like your dog's just died.

00:09:57,040 Jerwayne: OK, let me frame this up for you... your dog is sick. Like, he's old, he's shat up the carpet again. That's the level... go.

00:10:03,600 Ashley: "So, I saw that Bourne Ultimatum on Sky the other night..."

00:10:06,640 Jerwayne: Now you look like you've shit yourself.

00:10:10,280 Ashley: Listen, you're doing too much, yeah? Like, you be the girl, yeah?

102

00:10:24,400 Jerwayne: You see how you was just drawn in, there?

00:10:26,680 Ashley: You see what I capped the sad look off with, yeah?

00:10:29,520 Ashley: A brave little smile, yeah?

00:10:31,160 Jerwayne: What were you thinking when you saw that brave little smile

00:10:40,800 Ashley: Exactly, and that's what she's thinking, bruv.

00:10:43,280 Ashley: Why is this brave man so sad? Like, there's something going on there, but he's dealing with it like a man. She's intrigued.

00:10:50,480 Jerwayne: But lunchtime is over, New Man. She's got to go back to her shift.

She's never met such a brave, sensitive man like you before. And she wants to see you again.

Tonight.

00:11:02,640 Ashley: She's going to lean in for a goodbye kiss at this point, yeah? Go on, lean in for the kiss."D'you know what?"

00:11:10,360 Ashley: "I can't do this right now."

00:11:12,080 Ashley: Maybe do that, yeah, with your hands?

00:11:14,520 Ashley: Like, spirituality, yeah? "Sorry, but I can't do this right now."

00:11:18,480 Ashley: Maybe follow up with some of that? Strength and power, yeah?

00:11:22,040 Ashley: "D'you know what, I can't do this right now. I've got a few things going on in my life." "Can I like attend to them and then,like, get back to you? "And we could see about tonight... "How would that be for you?"

00:11:42,760 Ashley: I ain't free tonight!

00:11:47,800 Ashley: Bruv, that is just standard, trust me.

00:11:50,040 Ashley: You do all that stuff correctly, and when you link her that evening, next thing you know...

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

00:15:38,560 Ashley: Fucking wine-taster.

00:15:40,200 Jerwayne: I've done it, bruv. Finished it.

103

00:15:43,640 Ashley: Oh, you got rid of Owl Girl? Nice!

00:15:46,240 Jerwayne: I can't tell you how much better I feel. It's like I got rid of Beauty and the Beast in one go.

00:15:50,760 Ashley: How she take it?

00:15:51,840 Jerwayne: Better than Lisa Blaze

00:15:53,160 Ashley: Who's Lisa Blaze?

00:15:54,280 Jerwayne: Come on, man. You know Lisa Blaze. Girl who set fire to my cousin's weave on her wedding day.

00:15:58,560 Ashley: OK. Anyway, what's Owl Girl saying?

00:16:01,680 Jerwayne: She was like...I was like, "Yeah?" She was like... I was like, "Yo!"

She was like, "OK." Done is done. She's cool.

00:16:13,000 Ashley: Hey, what go on, bruva?

00:16:15,160 Ashley: Yeah.

00:16:22,080 Ashley: All right, bruv, bless.

00:16:24,560 Ashley: It was Rahim from Zizzi.

00:16:26,440 Ashley: New Man's wasting it.

00:16:54,320 Jerwayne: Can't be High Street! There's no way this girl can be High Street!

00:17:00,240 Jerwayne: Whoa, back the fuck up! You never said she was Waterstones!

00:17:05,280 Jerwayne: You said she was Costa!

00:17:08,160 Jerwayne: This will never work with a Waterstones girl. Fuck!

00:17:11,200 Ashley: Your shit just got real, son.

00:17:13,720 Ashley: Listen, for future reference, Newbs, this methodology will not work with any girls out of Waterstones, Citizens Advice Bureau, none of the biblical bookshops, Millets, for some reason I still can't figure out, and you only got 50-50 with girls out of Habitat... it's a complex aspirational demographic, sometimes they just see straight through it.

104

00:17:32,280 Ashley: This is some off-road shit, bruv. You just crashed into a cow, air bag deployed, boom! You effed up! But I'm going to fix this up for you cos I like you. What she look like? I'm going to sort this out for you.

00:17:57,520 Ashley: Sometimes it's going to roll like this, yeah

00:18:00,480 Ashley: Look at me, look at me.

00:18:03,200 Ashley: Look in my eyes. My eyes. This is the life of a player.

00:18:08,560 Jerwayne: I got some dry-cleaning that needs picking up. I'll buy you a McFlurry on the way.

00:18:14,120 Jerwayne: OK. Diddy Donuts. Not Diddy Donuts!

00:20:20,760 So, like I said, I don't want to be playing you or nothing, cos even though we just met, yeah, I can see that you're a very special lady, you know.

00:20:30,800 And unfortunately, my situation is quite complex right now.

00:20:45,800 Thank you. Thank you so much. That's very kind of you. You know what?

00:20:50,640 It's good to know that in this, like, dark world that we're in, still some people walking around who got the light in them, you know? Do you know what I call them? The special people.

00:21:02,960 I'll call you later and we'll see how you're fixed

00:21:05,640 for Crazy Tuesday up at the Orchard Rooms.

00:21:07,960 Half-price admissions for ladies wearing bikini.

00:21:10,680 Just so you know.

00:21:12,600 So wax your legs, innit?

00:21:15,920 And don't forget your upgraded handset plus companion Bluetooth headset.

Season 1, episode 1: Paul Mohammed

00:11:51,440 Phone Shop Familam, what's popping?

00:11:56,320 Why ain't I feeling the love in this house?

00:12:01,608 Listen, I come in peace, all right?

105

00:12:03,596 I beg you peace, brother.

00:12:05,316 I come bearing good will and gifts for all of you.

00:12:08,676 Well, I don't bring no gifts, yeah, but I do bring our newest sales weapon, Rochelle Crosby Briers. The R to the C to the B.

00:12:30,836 I'll choose to ignore that and politely remind you that you are

00:12:34,196 talking to a store manager. Store. Manager. I got stripes yeah fam?

00:12:37,956 I don't see you in no stripes, apart from the two stripes on your Sadidas tracksuit. High five!

00:12:46,636 My five. What?

00:12:49,876 You all know what I am.

00:12:53,076 Life on Mars here, he knows what I am.

00:12:57,076 She knows what I am. Oi, my size, what am I?

00:13:01,636 That's right, da store manager, baby.

00:13:03,836 Yeah. Yeah, I manage that store from the floor to the door.

00:13:06,316 And even out the back where we smoke a little draw.

00:13:08,316 But I don't, so don't be tryin' to get me written up for that business cos if we did do that, which we don't...

00:13:15,116 I would be running dem tings, rude boy, you get me?

00:13:17,956 No long ting, no gassing, no hyping. Makin' bare P fam. Bare P like Tony Montana.

00:13:24,276 Don't make me go disciplinary on you!

00:13:27,076 Because I will set in motion a range of measures resulting in the termination of your working contract, albeit within the formalised framework as set out in your employee handbook, like a motherfucker.

00:13:36,596 You get me?

Season 1, Episode 4: Ian Berry

106

00:03:15,699 Ian Berry: Blood, in and out, yeah?

00:03:20,259 Ian Berry: Yo, open the till!

00:03:21,699 Ian Berry: I said open the fucking till if I have to light you up, man!

00:03:24,539 Ian’s friend: Do it! Do it! Do what man says, man!

00:03:26,219 Ian Berry: That's right, blood.

00:03:27,219 Ian’s friend: You looks confused, cuz.

00:03:28,499 Ian’s friend: This ain't a fucking quiz show...Deal Or No Deal?

00:03:30,819 Ian’s friend: Deal! No Deal!

00:03:32,059 Ashley: I swear that's my man, innit?

00:03:33,979 Jerweyne: Course it is, the eyes are a dead give away.

00:03:36,779 Ashley: Allow this.

00:03:38,139 Ashley: Ian, innit? It's Little Ian Berry. Look at him all grown up.

00:03:42,499 Jerwayne: I ain't see this boy since he was in Huggies, you know!

00:03:45,179 Ian’s friend: How they know your details?

00:03:46,619 Ian Berry: Shut up, man. I'm not Ian Berry, blood. Man is a badman, yeah?

00:03:50,219 Jerwayne: Ian, you ain't no bad man, yeah, you still live with your nan.

00:03:53,219 Ian Berry: That's not my nan, bruv, that's my mum, yeah.

00:03:56,939 Jerwayne: What, your mum's 75?

00:03:58,179 Ian Berry: My mum's not 75, she's a mature-looking 50, yeah.

00:04:00,819 Ian Berry: And she's still my mum, you bitch.

00:04:02,499 Ian’s friend: You have to admit, she is more like a nan than mum, innit?

00:04:27,659 Ian’s friend: Fuck his eyes, man, just shut up and give us the money.

00:04:30,219 Jerwayne: Is your hand cold, bruv?

00:04:31,459 Ian’s friend: Ooh, where's it gone?

107

00:04:32,619 Jerwayne: There ain't no gatt in the hat, fam.

00:04:35,179 Ashley: Right, Little Britain, here's a pound, fuck off to Greggs.

00:04:38,299 Jerwayne: And you, Berry Boy, come with me. We're going to have a chat.

00:04:41,299 Ian Berry: Hey man, what you slap me for?

00:04:42,619 Ian’s friend: Hey, stay strong, fam! I'm sorry about all that nonsense and foolishness. I was just wondering whether you could maybe give me one more pound, you know, because steak bake gets stuck in your teeth and you need a drink to wash it down or something, so...

00:04:53,939 Ashley: Right, and get me a black grape, yeah?

00:04:56,099 Ian’s friend: Oh, you'd like something as well? Because I'm going to need an extra pound or something, you know, prices...

00:05:01,059 Ashley: Blah blah blah... Just fuck off, bruv.

00:05:03,059 Ian’s friend: All right, then I'll pick up a Snickers Duo or something.

00:05:05,659 Ashley: Do one!

00:06:10,619 Jerwayne: Fam, what the eff you doin'?

00:06:13,059 Jerwayne: You going to get yourself in trouble, you know.

00:06:15,579 Ian Berry: You can't contain this. Look, I'm a force of nature.

00:06:18,179 Jerwayne: You ain't a force of nature, you're a fuckin' idiot.

00:06:20,939 Jerwayne: Look, I'm trying to help you. I don't hear you listening to me.

00:06:23,819 Ian Berry: Why should I listen to Shopman, huh?

00:06:26,699 Ian Berry: I mean what, Mr Ten Grand A Year?

00:06:28,859 Ian Berry: Look, I'll be celebrating with champs and weed, while you're on Birds Eye and Tango, wanking to the Five O'clock Show.

00:06:34,419 Ian Berry: Yeah, that's right! I said it! What? It was me. Huh?

00:06:39,019 Jerwayne: Get in the cage.

00:06:41,539 Ian Berry: What?

108

00:06:42,819 Jerwayne: Get in the fucking cage.

00:06:59,699 Ian Berry: I'm still a badman, y'know.

00:07:02,219 Ian Berry: And you don't tell nobody that you seen me like this, right?

00:07:05,219 Jerwayne: Yeah, yeah, Nan don't need to know, yeah?

00:07:08,019 Ian Berry: I told you, yeah, that's not my nan, bruv that's my mum! Boss, hey boss, don't turn out the light, yeah? I got asthma, innit?

00:07:16,779 Ian Berry: Look man, you can't contain me, bruv.

00:07:19,379 Ian Berry: And you know I'm going to break out of here anyway, man, you dickhead!

00:07:22,579 Ian Berry: Bear Man coming down here for you, you pussy. Yeah, that's right, what?

00:07:26,139 Ian Berry: Huh? Huh?

00:07:32,859 Ashley: What have you done with the youth then?

00:07:34,739 Jerwayne: I had to think like Little Gary.

00:07:36,299 Jerwayne: I caged him.

00:07:37,819 Ashley: Oh, cage! Cage is back.

00:07:40,459 Jerwayne: I had no option. I had to manage the youth.

Season 1 Episode 3: Razz Prince

00:06:57,302 Freeze, motherfuckers!

00:07:02,582 Not you, darlin', sorry. You take your time, yeah.

00:07:07,062 What, is she Pay As You Go?

00:07:09,262 Fuck off, Nan. Go on, do one!

00:07:14,062 Yes, really!

00:07:18,022 Nice. Polka dots.

109

00:07:21,502 Boys.

00:07:23,702 Boys! Give me some loving.

00:07:26,622 Yes, yes...

00:07:28,542 That's what I'm saying. No hats, no trainers.

00:07:32,782 Come here. Yes... who the man, hey?

00:07:37,582 Yes, yes, that's right. Razz-berry's up in the face.

00:07:40,182 When are you guys going to come spar with me? Every Monday night.

00:07:43,942 My garage. Me and a couple of the lads from Bromley store. We get together, mix it up.

00:07:47,942 Mixed martial arts -put your hands up.

00:07:49,782 Go for me. Blocking. You're dead.

00:07:52,422 Go for me. Blocking. Kill. You know what I'm saying, yeah?

00:07:55,622 Both of you at the same time, yeah.

00:07:57,982 Blocking and you're dead! Nose bone up in your brain and shit.

00:07:59,622 Yeah, man.

00:08:01,662 See, you're rusty.

00:08:02,062 Yeah.

00:08:03,822 But it's OK. It's OK to be afraid.

00:08:05,622 I want you to use that fear.

00:08:08,662 Use it as a sales energy, yeah?

00:08:13,302 Actually fuck that. Use that fear, yeah, as a cleaning energy.

00:08:19,302 Yes, yes, get on the exfoliation tip. Get on it now.

00:08:22,982 No, no, no, now! Right now. Go on.

00:08:25,662 ASAP, ASAP.

00:08:27,582 ASAP, ASAP, ASAP!

110

00:08:31,742 Christopher! Yes?

00:08:32,942 Yes?

00:08:35,662 Razz Prince. Area Manager. Pleased to make your acquaintance.

00:08:39,662 How are you? You all right?

00:08:42,462 You passed your one-day trial, yeah?

00:08:43,942 Pleasure to have you.

00:08:46,422 Let me give you a little piece of advice, yeah? A little tip.

00:08:49,582 Don't copy this idiot. He was mates with the guy who started the company back in the late eighties?

00:08:54,702 He could have been a millionaire.

00:08:56,342 He could have been the chairman of Crystal Palace.

00:09:00,382 But he decided, mobile phones would never take off.

00:09:03,182 They were huge. It took two hands to hold one.

00:09:07,782 So what did you get into then? Tell Christopher.

00:09:29,062 Think of this place like a family.

00:09:31,622 Lance is the dad, Janine is the daughter, Ash and Jerwayne are the older brothers...

00:09:37,062 I am your dad, yeah?

00:09:47,022 I'm your real dad.

00:09:48,062 Lance thinks he's your Dad but he ain't.

00:09:53,102 I'm your uncle who's really your Dad.

00:09:56,422 Yeah? Now Lance is going to bring you up as his own because he don't know the truth.

00:10:02,102 I'm your uncle who comes around when your dad there.

00:10:04,702 Puts a shelf up. Makes your mum feel all right...

111

00:10:09,262 You know what I'm saying?

00:10:12,822 Sweet.

00:10:16,342 You know who you remind me of?

00:10:18,862 A young me.

00:10:22,342 No. Yung Me. Chinese lad.

00:10:25,342 Manages Bromley South. Drives a Subaru Impreza, took home 65k last year and a part share in a golf course in Dubai.

00:10:35,382 Now tell me you like the sound of that?

00:10:38,702 Sweet.

00:10:39,902 That's what I'm talking about. Nine points. Bang!

00:11:24,062 You've got the power to know you're in destructible

00:11:28,062 ♪ Always believe in, you are gold! Dun, dun, dun da dun ♪

00:11:32,942 ♪ Dun, dun, dun da dun Dun, dun, dun da dun ♪

00:11:35,542 ♪ Dun, dun, dun da dun Dun, dun, dun da dun ♪

00:11:37,982 ♪ Dun, dun, dun da dun Dun, dun, dun da dun... ♪

00:11:40,462 Reach for that gold! Don't touch that gold!

00:11:43,222 Just reach for gold! Can you smell gold? Do you love that gold?

00:11:46,462 Now taste the gold. You're going to eat that gold.

00:11:49,422 Do you want the fucking gold?

00:11:51,102 Well, take that gold.

00:11:52,022 Yes! Well, take that gold. I'm taking the gold. It's not your fucking gold.

00:11:53,302 It's not your gold. Just leave it, it's not your gold.

00:11:58,342 I know you got debts, Christopher.

00:12:01,342 I know what it's like at university.

112

00:12:03,702 It's all happy days when you're sat in a bathtub full of baked beans for the Pudsey kids, but them beans gotta be paid for.

00:12:11,902 That's why I'm going to help you out.

00:12:13,582 I've raised your basic to 14k and I've upped your commission

00:12:21,182 You got potential, Christopher.

00:12:24,422 I see you managing this store in six months.

00:12:36,142 We want Lance out, but we can't make him redundant because that costs too much money, so we need a reason to sack him.

00:12:57,142 You do this right, Christopher, and one day. One day...

00:13:05,022 You'll be me.

00:13:12,302 Welcome to Club Cheddar.

00:17:54,862 Yeah, as for our other problem, I've got that firmly under control.

00:17:58,222 I've got my new operative sat in front of me right now. If it all goes according to plan, by tomorrow our Lance-shaped problem is set to disappear.

00:18:08,622 Yes, yes, that's a plan.

00:18:17,142 My apologies. At this level, business never stops.

00:18:21,342 What kind of phone you rocking there, Christopher?

00:18:24,782 Nice. I had one of those.

00:18:29,462 When I was eight!

00:18:31,102 We can't have the...

00:18:33,382 Sutton Branch Manager Elect rocking a phone like that now, can we?

00:18:37,262 Champagne?

00:18:41,022 That's right. It's French for Champagne.

00:18:45,142 So, how was your day today?

00:18:53,262 Very good.

113

00:18:54,382 I'm pleased for you.

00:18:56,662 And I take it you've got something for me?

00:19:58,622 I can't begin to stress how important information is in here.

00:20:01,982 We do this right and Lance is gone tomorrow, or earlier.

00:20:16,742 What's that supposed to mean?

00:20:28,622 Did you mean to do that?

00:20:32,222 Reading between the lines...

00:20:36,702 I think you did.

00:20:41,462 Well, I hope you enjoyed your time working for the Phone Shop Group, Christo- fuck!

00:20:47,142 And, please, don't even think about trying to apply for another job in the retail sector because I, Razz Prince, personally guarantee that you will never find work on the High Street ever again.

00:21:02,702 Now fuck off.

00:21:11,382 What you looking at?

00:21:13,302 Don't make me open up on you in here.

00:21:15,782 I'm going to take you to Chinatown, going to drop a dim sum in your arse!

00:23:33,062 I'm taking you home tonight, baby, let me see that arse. Yes, indeed!

00:24:01,302 Show yourself!

00:24:03,622 SHOW YOURSELF!

00:24:06,422 You fucking with my wheels?

00:24:08,742 You fucking with my life!

00:24:10,942 You fucking with the wrong man! I'm the Razz Prince, yeah?

00:24:15,742 I know who you are.

00:24:17,782 Who are you? Got a minicab number?

114

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