British accents and dialects: The case of Cockney

Abstract

Currently, each country has one or two official languages albeit with many accents and dialects. In some cases, the distinction between accent and dialect can be as complex as that between language and dialect. The fact that languages are living entities which constantly change and that non-standard forms often overlap in their geographical distribution may be some of the possible reasons that explain this confusion. A language not only changes from town to town but also from person to person (idiolect). Thus, it is often difficult for linguists to establish the linguistic features of each language variety as well as to distinguish each language variety as language, accent or dialect. Regarding this, a great debate has risen since there is no unanimity with respect to Cockney, which is defined as both, accent and dialect. In the research I carried out, justification for classifying Cockney as accent or dialect has not been found. As a result, in order to label Cockney as accent or dialect, a deep analysis of this variety should be done taking both perspectives (accent and dialect) into consideration. The purpose of the present paper is, thus, to give a brief account on Cockney history and origin as well as to explain its linguistic features in order to illustrate that Cockney is mainly an accent.