XXI Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся
Старт в науке
Изучение диалекта «кокни»,как одного из самых известных типов лондонского просторечия посредством кино
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INTRODUCTION
English, like any other language in the world, is a living organism and absorbs the changes and trends of modern life. It is an international language of communication, but its inner diversity is not always available to a wide understanding of foreigners learning it. It consists of many dialects, slangs and accents.
Over the last century, the Oxford Dictionary has recorded 185,000 new words that have enriched the language with neologisms, technological terms and loanwords. But are they always usable in everyday speech?! In the age of the Internet, the language has become so simplified that its colloquial version becomes easy and words become short, and native speakers increasingly use slang and colloquial expressions, dialects and accents. They make speech more emotional, vivid and understandable for the average interlocutor. With the development of the film industry English dialects easily penetrate into the dialogues of characters to bring them closer to real people and events. They are widely used by directors and screenwriters, but they bring a lot of inconvenience to translators, because it is a difficult task for understudies to convey a real accent, dialect or slang.
The purpose of our work is to familiarize ourselves with one of London's most common dialects, Cockney, through film. To find out to what extent we, the English language learners of the common man, need to understand the different dialects and slangs of English and for what purpose. To conduct an experiment among 11th grade schoolchildren, asking them to recognize classical English speech and the speech of an ordinary resident of London, because sometimes, learning the language, we find that we do not understand what we are talking about, because the real picture of the language is very different from the book version of it and watching films brings us closer to the live language of communication.
The tasks we set for ourselves in this research paper are:
1. To study the social reasons for the emergence of cockney accent.
2. To identify the peculiarities of using cockney in speech.
3. Cockney in cinema is topical.
4. Experiment: "Does knowing the Cockney accent make understanding English speech easier or more difficult?"
CHAPTER 1. Social reasons of appearance of "cockney" accent
Cockney (English: Cockney [ˈkɒk.ni]). The term cockney translates as "cock's egg" ("cock" for "cock", "ey" for "egg"). In the Middle Ages, this was the name given to deformed and underdeveloped chicken eggs - it was believed that such eggs were laid by a rooster. This variant of the English language was used in the Middle Ages (in 1362 it first appears in William Langland's "Plowman"). Later this word came to define not only people, but also the slang they spoke. In the 18th century, two patterns of language spread in London: the so-called "gentleman's polite pronunciation" and "cockney" in the East End. A true cockney was thought to be a Londoner born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church ("Bow-bell Cockneys"), which is located in East London. Cockneys were the lower classes, working class, tradesmen, artisans, thieves and petty miscreants. Cockney's unusual pronunciation and peculiar vocabulary were deliberately made more complex to mislead the uninitiated and outsiders, thus becoming something of a code language for locals, often engaged in illegal activities.
In the 20th century, the topological boundaries of cockney expanded considerably and it began to be spoken not only in the East End and even not only in London. Especially this type of slang began to spread in the counties of Essex and Bedfordshire. And, thanks to television, Cockney spread throughout England: there were many TV programs and sitcoms using Cockney slang. Since the 1980s, Cockney was spoken by young people who wanted to stand out and emphasize their individuality, using the rich idiomatic vocabulary of Cockney. Today we can notice a weak development of Cockney, most of the rhyming substitutions, which is how Cockney differs from proper English, were created in the 19th century.
Nevertheless, researchers of this dialect have distinguished three types of Cockneys to date:
1. Classical Cockney. This is essentially the original Cockney, whose origins date back about 300 years in the East End, and it has changed little except for the phonetic influence of Standard English.
2. Modern Cockney. This is the variant of Cockney popularized in TV programmes, with fewer phonetic changes but more rhyme substitutions.
3. Mockney. It is also called fake cockney (mockney = to mock + cockney). It is an artificial accent, i.e. a deliberate imitation of the manner and speech of cockney. Only the intonation of London laborers is borrowed, but the grammatical constructions remain correct.
To proceed to the main part of this paper we must first familiarize ourselves with the lexical and phonetic peculiarities of this dialect, which we shall do in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 2. Peculiarities of cockney usage in speech
Let's understand the peculiarities of cockney usage in speech from the lexical side:
2.1. If we learn correct British English in schools and universities, don't be surprised if you don't understand a word from the speech of a typical Englishman on the street, all the fault is the already mentioned rhyming Cockney linguistic slang. In fact, the main task of the speaker is verbal reflection, which is created by creating rhythm and rhyme with the replacement of words. And the main rule of creating rhyming units is that the second word combination should sound almost identical to the meaning of the given expression, i.e. encrypted. Let's get acquainted with some of the most common ones:
1. Apples and pears = Stairs.
Example: Would you Adam and Eve it?
2. Adam and Eve = Believe.
Example: Would you Adam and Eve it?
3. Dog and bone = Phone.
Example: One sec mate, my dog's ringing, just gonna take this call!
4. Butcher's hook = Look.
Example: I had a butchers at it through the window.
5. Porky pies = Lies.
Example: He is full of porky pies!
7. Loaf of bread = Head.
A foreigner may be confused by the fact that the rhyme word is often omitted and if the phrase is spoken by a London dialect speaker, it will look like this: He rarely uses his loaf (Loaf of bread = Head).
Nowadays Cockney phrases are mostly created using celebrity names, for example:
1. Al Capone - telephone;
2. Tina Turner - earner (something that makes you money);
3. Britney Spears - beers;
4. Brad Pitt - fit;
5. Jackie Chan - plan;
6. Britney Spears - beers.
Example: Hey, haven't you seen my working Jackie Chan?
2.2. Cockneys have pronounced phonetic features. Here are examples of some sound changes:
1. The omission of the [h] sound. Example, [not 'alf] instead of 'not half', 'home' becomes: [om], and "hole" becomes [ol].
2. Pronunciation of the sounds [θ] and [ð], which in writing are rendered as letter- th, and in cockney [f] and [v]. Example, [faas'nd] instead of "thousand", [fɪk] instead of Thick and example, [bover, maver] instead of "brother, mother".
3. using a guttural bow instead of [t] between vowels or
sonants, to put it simply - this specific phenomenon can be called "eating", "swallowing" a consonant sound. Most often it concerns the sound [t], if the second of them is not accented. Water becomes "wo-e", the word better becomes "be-a".
4. The sound [au]. Let's take the word "mouth" for understanding. Cockney speakers pronounce this word a little differently. Compare: "mouth" [mæuf] (standard) and "mouth"-"mauf" [mæ:f] (cockney).
5. The sound [l] preceded by a consonant, replacing it with [w]. Thus
Thus, instead of "tall" [tɔːl] we have [tɔːw], and instead of silk we have [sɪwk].
6. The sound [eɪ] as in "rain" is replaced by [aɪ] as in "time". Thus stain [steɪn] becomes [staɪn], say [seɪ] becomes [sai], and day [deɪ] becomes [dai].
2.3. There is actually no grammar in grammar ofcockney, but stable forms that you just have to memorize.
1. the use of "ain't" instead of "isn't" or "am not".
2. The presence of double negation in a phrase (I don't know nothing).
3. The absence of the suffixal indicator of the adverb -ly.
4. The use of participles instead of past tense forms ("I saw" - literal English: I saw, "he did" - literal English: he did).
5. Replacing possessive pronouns with the object case of personal pronouns ("me bag"- lit.English: my bag), etc.).
CHAPTER 3. Cockney in cinema is topical
The Cockney language is unique and colourful - it is an important layer of the country's culture, so it is widely used in their work by singers, writers, directors and other artists. Sometimes it is not a single character, but a group of characters who represent a subculture that opposes other social strata of the population. In literature, we can meet it in the works of B. Shaw, Ch. Dickens, W. Maugham, R. Kipling, A. Christie, L. Carroll. But since "cockney" is more about the spoken genre, in our work we will turn to cinema, because the well-known and productive practice of learning a foreign language through cinema has a wide interest among young people in all countries of the world.
Since we started with literature, the musical comedy directed by George Cukor with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in the leading roles, "My Fair Lady", based on B. Shaw's play Pygmalion (1964), is a vivid example of the use of cockney in cinema.
"Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a Guy Ritchie film (1998). It should be noted that especially for the film was released in the DVD supplement kokni dictionary. In the scene at the very beginning of the film, Jason Statham's protagonist is advertising a product on the street, and we are completely immersed in the peculiarities of the accent he speaks - it is a recognizable Cockney dialect (video clip from the film).
Guy Ritchie gives the characters of his film the effect of "guys from the neighborhood", they become closer to the middle class, and the viewer is immersed in the atmosphere of London gangsters.
An amusing case came out with the British-American comedy film "Big Kush" or "Snatch" (2000) by the same Guy Ritchie. Many American critics after watching the film "Cards, Money, Two Guns" complained that the Cockney dialect is understood only by a narrow circle of people and its use in films is a bad idea. To which Guy Ritchie added the character of Mikey (Brad Pitt) in the next film. Ritchie asked Pitt to portray the worst accent he could. Thus came a gypsy with the worst Irish accent that even with subtitles he is very difficult to understand (video excerpt from the film).
But the director had problems in other films as well, realizing that the film industry is a mass project in many of his works he had to use not a cockney accent, but a mock cockney accent - an imitation of cockney close to proper English, which we mentioned above. In the films "Sherlock Holmes" (2009) the image is created not of a highbrow narcissistic genius, but of "his guy", such accent is more understandable to everyone, and the same effect is preserved (video extract from the film).
In the film of the same Guy Ricci "King Arthur's Sword", original title: "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" (2017) the king himself and his friends also speak in Mockney, as in the script King Arthur grew up in the slums of London, in contrast to him the royal couple speaks in RP (Received Pronunciation) - the correct British language. And you get a confrontation between the common people and the upper nobility (video excerpt from the film).
Young people who choose to learn English from films most often start with Harry Potter (Joanne Rowling) "Harry Potter" (J.K. Rowling) (2001-first film). At the magic school you can hear many different accents and slangs, among which is Cockney. Eight characters from "Harry Potter" speak with this accent: the Hogwarts caretaker Argus Filch, the owner of the Three Broomsticks pub Madame Rosmerta, also another bartender, a train conductor, a bus conductor, two Death Eaters, and also the crook and thief Nasemnicus Fletcher (video excerpt from the film).
Interestingly, in the films "The Lord of the Rings" (2001-2003) novel-epic by English writer J.R.R. Tolkien, the British accent of cockney was given to the orcs.
Today Cockney is presented to foreign tourists as one of the London sights, and to understand Cockney on your own you need to know English perfectly. A dictionary of British slangs will help you to get acquainted with the true meanings of cockney. And to learn them in practice you need to live in the East End, but you can also watch feature films that give us a full picture of this unusual dialect in the original language with subtitles.
CHAPTER 4. Experiment: "Does knowing a Cockney accent make understanding English speech easier or more difficult?"
English language researchers say that there are more than 160 different accents of English. But in London there are four main ones: 1. Received Pronunciation - classical British, 2. Cockney - a working class accent, 3. Estuary English - something between RP and Cockney, 4. Multicultural London English - the newest of the accents.
Having introduced the 11th graders to London accents, strangely enough, many of them were interested in the Cockney accent as it has a lot of riddles and rhymes. The pupils expressed their desire to watch the films we talked about above, and we showed them some fragments from them containing Cockney slang expressions.
After explaining to the students, the principle of rhyming cockney slang expressions, we suggested them to: 1. Guess from the rhyming cockney slang about the original word. Here are some of them:
|
Original Word: Stairs Rhyming Slang: Apples and pears Example: “Go up the apples and take a left.” |
Original Word: Money Rhyming Slang: Bees and honey Example: “I went to the bank for bees and honey.” |
Original Word: Wife Rhyming Slang: Trouble and strife Example: “Got in an argument with the trouble last night.” |
|
Original Word: Look Rhyming Slang: Butcher’s hook Example: Have a butcher! |
Original Word: Phone Rhyming Slang: Dog and bone Example: “Ring me on the dog when you get a chance.” |
Original Word: Talk Rhyming Slang: Rabbit and pork Example: “Will you have time to rabbit tomorrow?” |
|
Original Word: Beers Rhyming Slang: Britney Spears Example: “Fancy a couple Britney’s tonight?” |
Original Word: Yank (as in an American) Rhyming Slang: Septic tank. Example: “The septic across the pond have another terrible election on their hands.” |
Original Word: Feet Rhyming Slang: Plates of meat Example: “I’ve been on my plates all day.” |
And then: 2. Try to translate the given examples into these rhyming word combinations, because, as we have already noted, the whole difficulty of its perception lies in the fact that they are not always used in their full form:
In the first task the boys got with the rhyme, and they were interested in solving rhyming words, for example: "Meat plates" - Source word: Legs. There were problems with the second task when the translation of the examples did not make logical sense, for example: "I've been on my plates all day", but strangely this made students even more eager to learn this slang and more interested.
|
1 Task: 45% answered correctly, 10% found it difficult to answer, 30% made minor mistakes 15% failed in |
2 Task: 5% answered correctly, 30% found it difficult to answer, 40% made mistakes 25% failed |
I printed out the most common idiomatic forms of Cockney slang and handed them out to the students in class, after a while all the riddles were solved and it became clear to everyone what was behind the meaningless phrase: "I've been on my plates all day". The students enjoyed the wordplay and puns so much that they began to invent their own and use those that had been preserved for centuries in the rich spoken English language.
We came to the conclusion that cockney certainly does not make learning English easier, but it does make it richer, and the desire to know English dialects has only increased.
CONCLUSION
Having analyzed our study of Cockney slang, we have found that the Cockney dialect has had a huge influence on modern English. Having studied the social reasons for the emergence of this dialect in Britain, having identified the peculiarities of Cockney usage in speech, we conducted a fascinating and successful experiment with 11th grade students. Let them not quite successfully cope with the task from the first time, but they have a great desire to study dialects not only Cockney, but also other dialects, because never an official book language will not replace the live language of people's communication. And this can be done by watching films in the original language, listening to songs, watching programmes, interviews of celebrities who widely use this form of expressing their thoughts in speech.
Summarizing the work done, I would like to add that Cockney is not fully studied and it is possible that it will undergo considerable changes, and perhaps it will give way to new dialects of English, or it will acquire modern idiomatic forms and get a new life in English society. Either way, interest in Cockney is only growing, its colourfulness and florid expressions make the language richer and livelier, and the film industry has not lost interest in it to this day.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Brodovich O.I. Dialectal variation of the English language: aspects of theory. Л., 1978.
2. Brunner K. History of the English Language. М., 2009.
3. Makovsky M.M. English dialectology. М., 1980.
4. Linguo-country description of the lexicon of the English language // Collection of scientific works of MOPI. М., 2004.
Internet sources:
1. Wikipedia - free encyclopaedia. See: www.wikipedia.org
2. http://www.furfur.me/furfur/culture/culture/160369-kokni
3. https://morpekh.livejournal.com/28053.html
4. http://britainrus.co.uk/language/Rifmovannyj_sleng_Kokni/