Cockney

Physics Education
PAPER
Cockney acoustics: from how far away can you hear the sound of Bow bells?
T C Lipscombe3,1 and Ian M Robinson2

Published 5 October 2021 • ©2021 IOP Publishing Ltd
Physics Education, Volume 56, Number 6
Citation T C Lipscombe and Ian M Robinson 2021 Phys. Educ. 56 065028
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Abstract
The most important question for anyone born in London is 'Are you a Cockney?' Only those born within the sound of Bow bells can truthfully answer the question with a resounding 'yes.' 'Cockney' is a term of pride in the heart of the East End, an area recently made internationally famous to a new audience due to the global success of the TV series 'Call the Midwife,' set in Poplar. Here we use simple physics to determine the greatest distance that you can be born and still hear the peal of the bells. As such, it should appeal to all those teaching the physics of waves, or sound, in the Greater London area—and beyond.

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-todate research on these phenomena, but does not deal with the most recent vowel shifts, some of which form part of Multi-cultural London English.

This project studies the translation of two Cockney features into Spanish in the dubbing of the films Pygmalion (1938) and My Fair Lady (1964). The source excerpts in Cockney that have been chosen in this study are those which, in their pronunciation in the English versions of the films show two phonetic features of Cockney: diphthong alteration (in particular /eɪ/ and /əʊ/) and /h/ alteration (this includes /h/-dropping and /h/-insertion). A descriptive approach has been chosen, and a quantitative methodology has been used. Using the sample taken from the original films and the dubbed versions into Spanish, a contrastive analysis has been carried out in order to find out the aspects that may have determined the strategies used by each of the translations. These have been compared in order to find out whether they show any relevant differences.

This contribution focuses on the London accent, in its traditional Cockney realisation and in its more recent developments. The function of this accent in the original texts and its translation into Italian dubbing are both considered. After a description of the iconic features of the London variety, significant examples are presented, which showcase this accent in contrast with other accents and sociolects, especially the received pronunciation, according to a typical narrative topos. Rather than concentrating on the frequent realistic portrayals authored by socially oriented writers and directors, the examples chosen here to illustrate some typical telecinematic renditions of this popular variety are more stereotypical realisations of the London accent, whose aim is to portray an emblematic character with a distinctive idiolect. In the last section, dialogue excerpts will be analysed through the lens of two functions in particular, those defined by Kozloff (2000) as ‘opportunities for star turns’ and ‘exploitation of the resources of language’, two of the least quoted, but most interesting categories of her seminal taxonomy. Emphasis on these functions will arguably give the opportunity to approach the much-discussed topic of dialect translation from a fresher perspective.

There are many languages that are spoken by different peoples in the world. These languages have some similarities and differences. Owning distinct dialects and accents is one of the similarities. French, Spanish, German have both dialects and accents. As these languages, the English language owns dialects and accents as well. These dialects and accents vary in some ways. The dialects vary in terms of phonological, morphological, syntactic/grammatical, and semantic/lexical aspects, while age, gender, pronunciation, social situation affect the variation of accents.

This project studies the translation of two Cockney features into Spanish in the dubbing of the films Pygmalion (1938) and My Fair Lady (1964). The source excerpts in Cockney that have been chosen in this study are those which, in their pronunciation in the English versions of the films show two phonetic features of Cockney: diphthong alteration (in particular /eɪ/ and /əʊ/) and /h/ alteration (this includes /h/-dropping and /h/-insertion). A descriptive approach has been chosen, and a quantitative methodology has been used. Using the sample taken from the original films and the dubbed versions into Spanish, a contrastive analysis has been carried out in order to find out the aspects that may have determined the strategies used by each of the translations. These have been compared in order to find out whether they show any relevant differences.

The most important question for anyone born in London is ‘Are you a Cockney?’ Only those born within the sound of Bow bells can truthfully answer the question with a resounding ‘yes.’ ‘Cockney’ is a term of pride in the heart of the East End, an area recently made internationally famous to a new audience due to the global success of the TV series ‘Call the Midwife,’ set in Poplar. Here we use simple physics to determine the greatest distance that you can be born and still hear the peal of the bells. As such, it should appeal to all those teaching the physics of waves, or sound, in the Greater London area—and beyond.

The social question of the Victorian age centered on poverty: the who; the what; and most importantly, the why of poverty. By the end of the nineteenth century, the why had been obscured by a search for the causes of overcrowding, epidemics, starvation, sanitation, and unemployment, all seen as symptoms of poverty but often confused as causes of poverty. Bethnal Green was emblematic of all of these conditions, and many social experiments were conducted to alleviate these symptoms. With the evacuation of London during World War II, as well as the mass destruction of buildings in Bethnal Green, overcrowding was finally alleviated. Bethnal Green fell into worse conditions, however, as war-torn buildings were left to rot, and movement into the area was tightly controlled. The massive social movements which had been enacted in Bethnal Green prior to the war lost steam as national attention was directed elsewhere. The model dwellings, tenements, and philanthropic institutions carried on, but at a considerably reduced volume. This work explores the social, cultural, institutional, and civic efforts made to alleviate overcrowding and sanitation issues in Bethnal Green from 1881 to 1950. Local and national perspectives of these efforts are offered, with the idea of putting a human face to the epidemic of poverty. Many of the civic and philanthropic efforts were misguided, as they destroyed kinship networks, limited movement of the people, and involuntarily displaced residents to locations far from their employment. Local identity, at times a boon and a curse, was destroyed as well. Bethnal Green held a place in history as the epitome of the slums, slum clearance, and the efforts to alleviate poverty. Many aspects of poverty and the efforts to alleviate it have been explored, but in broad terms. This is a study of local effects of these efforts on a designated area of London, with a specific and definable people, with cultural and social aspects which were unique to the area.

Biologist, author, journalist, H. G. Wells was born in Bromley (Kent, U.K.) in 1866, the youngest son of a professional cricketer and a domestic servant. I’d half expected to hear an example of Estuary English partially modified towards RP, but it turned out he fitted perfectly into his contemporaries among the seven rural Kentish informants of the Survey of English Dialects. Like theirs, his speech was a mixture of newer Estuary features and earlier Kentish features.