Chapter 2. British English as a standard of pronunciation in Great Britain
British English or UK English or English English (BrE, BE), is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere. There is confusion whether the term refers to English as spoken in the British Isles or to English as spoken in Great Britain, though in the case of Ireland, there are further distinctions peculiar to Hiberno-English. There are slight regional variations in formal written English in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described as "British English". According to Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English (p. 45), "for many people...especially in England [the phrase British English] is tautologous," and it shares "all the ambiguities and tensions in the word British, and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity" [11]. English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to England by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to dominate. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary. Professor Sally Johnson admits that dialects and accents vary between the four countries of the United Kingdom, and also within the countries themselves. There are also differences in the English spoken by different socio-economic groups in any particular region. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England, which comprises Southern English dialects, Midlands English dialects and Northern English dialects), Welsh English, Scottish English and the closely related dialects of the Scots language. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. The Scottish and Northern English dialects include many words originally borrowed from Old Norse and a few borrowed from Gaelic. There is no singular British accent, just as there is no singular American accent; in fact, the United Kingdom is home to a wide variety of regional accents and dialects, to a greater extent than the United States. Stuart Jeffries claims that the form of English most commonly associated with educated speakers in the southern counties of England is called the "Received Standard", and its accent is called Received Pronunciation (RP). It derives from a mixture of the Midland and Southern dialects which were spoken in London during the Middle Ages and is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. Although educated speakers from elsewhere within the UK may not speak with an RP accent it is now a class-dialect more than a local dialect. The best speakers of Standard English are those whose pronunciation, and language generally, least betray their locality. It may also be referred to as "the Queen's (or King's) English", "Public School English", or "BBC English" as this was originally the form of English used on radio and television, although a wider variety of accents can be heard these days. Only approximately two percent of Britons speak RP, and it has evolved quite markedly over the last 40 years [11]. Even in the South East there are significantly different accents; the London Cockney accent is strikingly different from RP and its rhyming slang can be difficult for outsiders to understand. Since the mass immigration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and its close accent borders, it has become a source of various accent developments. There, nowadays, one finds an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a mixture of many different local accents, including East Midlands, East Anglian, Scottish, and Cockney. In addition, in the town of Corby, five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite, which unlike the Kettering accent, is largely based on Scottish. This is due to the influx of Scottish steelworkers. As with English around the world, the English language as used in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland is governed by convention rather than formal code: there is no equivalent body to the Acadйmie franзaise or the Real Academia Espaсola, and the authoritative dictionaries (for example, Oxford English Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Chambers Dictionary, Collins Dictionary) record usage rather than prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other strains of English, and neologisms are frequent [11].
Chapter 3. Cockney as an example of a broad accent of British English
According to V. Parashchuk, an example of an accent representing much-localized, non-standard English is Cockney, the broadest London working-class speech. Historically, Cockney has been the major influence in the phonetic development of RP, and many of its current changes can be related to Cockney pronunciation. Let us summarize the most essential information on the origin of Cockney, the revealing features of its grammar, vocabulary, and major phonetic distinctions. Cockney is distinguished by its special usage of vocabulary - rhyming slang. Many of its expressions have passed into common language. It developed as a way of obscuring the meaning of sentences to those who did not understand the slang. It remains a matter of speculation whether this was a linguistic accident, or whether it was developed intentionally to assist criminals or to maintain a particular community [http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/cockneyrhyming slang]. Rhyming slang works by replacing the word to be obscured with the first word of a phrase that rhymes with that word. For instance, "face" would be replaced by "boat", because face rhymes with "boat race" [http//www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/cockneyrhymingslang].
Similarly "feel" becomes "plates" ("plates of meat"), and "money" is "bread" (a very common usage, from "bread and honey"). Sometimes the full phrase is used, for example "Currant Bun" to mean The Sun (often referring to the British tabloid newspaper of that name). Some substitutions have become relatively widespread in England, for example, to "have a butcher's" means to have a look, from the rhyming slang "butcher's hook".[Parashchuk: 2005]
J. Gimson states that there are no differences in the inventory of vowel and consonant phonemes between RP and Cockney [Gimson: 2001:87] and there are relatively few differences of phoneme lexical distribution. There are, however, a large number of differences in realization of phonemes. Most striking realizational differences can be summarized as follows [Gimson: 2001:86-87].
In consonants:
1. H dropping. /h/ is not pronounced in initial positions in words which have this phoneme in RP, e.g. have, hat, horse = /av/, /жt/, /ho:s/. /h/ is used, however, in initial positions in words which in RP begin with a vowel. Thus the words air, atmosphere, honesty are pronounced in Cockney as /he?/, /hжtmжsfi?/, /Чhon?sti/.
The following examples are taken from film “My fair lady”
e.g. You ain't heard what I come for yet. /e.g. I'm come to have lessons, I am. /e.g. I won't stay here if I don't like. / e.g. He ain't above giving lessons, not him: I heard him say so. /
2. TH fronting/stopping. The contrast between /и/ and /f/ is completely lost and between / р / and /v/ is occasionally lost, e.g. think, father - /fink/, /Чfa: v? /. When / р/ occurs initially, it is either dropped or replaced by /d/, e.g. this and that = /'disn'dжt/. e.g. I ain't got no mother.(FL) /
3. L vocalization. Dark [і] (i.e. in positions not immediately before vowels) becomes vocalic [х], e.g. milk, table = /miхk/, /teibх/. When the preceding vowel is /o:/, /l/ may disappear completely, e.g. called = /kho:d/.
4. T glottalling is widely spread in Cockney accent. /t/ is realized as a glottal stop following vowels, laterals, and nasals, e.g. butterfly = /'bЛ?t?flai/. /t/ between vowels is not aspirated, and is often replaced by /d/ or /r/ or the glottal stop /?/ ,e.g. get away, better = /'ged ?'wei/, /Чger?'wei/, /'ge??'wei/; /'bed?/, /'ber?/, /'be??/.
There may be similar replacement of /p/. /k/ before a following consonant, e.g. soapbox /'sжх?boks/, technical /'te?ni?u/ [Gimson 2001:88].
e.g. What that you say? /
5. yod-coalescence. There is coalescence of /t/, /d/ before /j/ into / t? /, and / d?/ , e.g. tube [t?u:b], during [' d?х?ri?], but elision of /j/ following by/n/, e.g. news [nu:z].
e.g. I won't let you wallop me!
/
Main distinctions in the realization of cockney vowels include [Gimson: 2001:87-88]:
1. The short front vowels /e/, /ж/ tend to be closer than in RP so much, that Cockney sat may sound as set and set like sit to the speakers of other accents.
2. Among the long vowels, most noticeable is the diphthongization of /i:/>/?i/, /u:/>/?u/, thus bead =/b?id/, boot =/b?ut/. When /o:/ is final, it is pronounced as /ow?/, sore, saw = /sow?/; when it is not final, its realization is closer/oх/.
3. Diphthong shift. Cockney uses distinctive pronunciation of RP diphthongs:
/ei/ is realized as /ai/ e.g. lady = /'laidi/;
/ai/ sounds as /oi/~/ai/, e.g. price= /prois/;
/?х/ sounds as /жх/ e.g. load /lжхd/;
/aх/ sounds as /a:/, e g loud /la:d/;
4. /i/ lengthening, /i/ in word final positions sound', as /i:/.e .g. city /'siti:/
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