Dialectologia 9 (2012), 69-94. ISSN: 2013-2247 Received 7 September 2011. Accepted 17 October 2011. TRADITIONAL COCKNEY AND POPULAR LONDON SPEECH Brian MOTT Universitat de Barcelona
[email protected] Abstract This paper gives a full description of the phonetics and phonology of Traditional Cockney and Popular London speech, treating these varieties as constituting a continuum rather than two separate dialects. Exemplification of the vowels, diphthongs and consonants is provided, both in isolate words and in connected speech, along with their range of variation. The frequencies of the vowels have been charted on the basis of the pronunciation of three elderly male speakers. Regarding the consonants, there are detailed observations on the features typically associated with the linguistic varieties examined: strong aspiration of unvoiced plosives, glottalization, H-dropping, L-vocalization and TH-fronting. A section on prosody provides coverage of lexical stress, rhythm and intonation. The paper takes into account up-to- date research on these phenomena, but does not deal with the most recent vowel shifts, some of which form part of Multi-cultural London English. Keywords English dialectology, English sociolinguistics, Cockney, Popular London speech EL “COCKNEY” TRADICIONAL Y EL HABLA POPULAR LONDINENSE Resumen El presente artículo proporciona una descripción detallada del “Cockney” tradicional (TC) y del habla popular londinense (PLS), que, para nuestro propósito, se consideran constituyentes de un continuo lingüístico, diferenciado al máximo de la así llamada “Received Pronunciation” (RP), antes que dos 69 ©Universitat de Barcelona Brian Mott variedades distintas. Se ofrece abundante ejemplificación de la articulación de las vocales, los diptongos y las consonantes, tanto en palabras aisladas como en la cadena hablada, junto con explicaciones sobre la gama de variación que estos segmentos presentan.