Introduction

The musical "My Fair Lady", inspired in the play "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw, is probably the best known example of cultural production featuring Cockney speech. Not just it appears portraited in a remarkable way, but its existence is a central point of the narrative. The main character, Eliza Doolittle, a dreamy girl who sells flowers at Covent Garden, is transforme into a lady by an arrogant phoneticist , Henry Higgins, who considered her way of speaking an offense to Shakespeare's language.

The working class English, being stigmatized for so long, has recently emerged as the language of a rich culture. To illustrate the theme of this page, this next video shows a scene of this classic musical, in which actress Julie Andrews sings a beautiful and melodious song completely using Cockney phonetics, expressions and syntax.





London is one of the richest urban groupings in what respects to linguistic variations. Associated with the also great cultural diversity in the city, these different ways of speaking are in direct relation with the workings of Londoner society. Therefore, it presents a tender theme for Sociolinguistic studies. Cockney speech, in its history and characteristics, is particularly associated not just to geographic positioning, but with social issues in British\strict class society.

This page aims to explore the so-called cockney language, a way of speaking typical of British working class and associated with little prestige for a long time, as it is explored by Shaw is "Pygmalion". This study will also address briefly cockney as it is today and the process of social exclusion it protagonized.

For that purpose, studies in Sociolinguistics and Sociology of Language will be very relevant. The studies of Harald Nodtvdt specifically on this variation of Londoner's English will also be of great importance.


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Cockney in Literature

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