R. ANTONY LODGE

WAS THERE EVER A PARISIAN COCKNEY ?

Introduction

The starting-point for this discussion is a subjective impression. A foreign visitor to London, possessing only a limited acquaintance with English, will, 1 believe, be quickly struck by the gulf which separates the pronunciation of standard English (Received Pronunciation, or RP) from the speech of indigenous lower-class Londoners. Non-standard lexis and syntax will no doubt compound the foreigner's difficulties, but here we will be concerned exclusively with questions of pronunciation or «accent ». Pronunciation variables characteristic of London English, such as [9J/M, 1 0 J/(f] vocalisation of preconsonantal [1], and glottalization of intervocalic [t], are used by large numbers of speakers in the capital. They are commonly grouped together under the label «Cockney », and are readily parodied by other British speakers of English. In Labovian terms, they have achieved the status of sociolinguistic «stereotypes » (Labov 1970, 188). Qualification is essentiel, of course, for we are dealing as ever with social, spatial and stylistic continua : Cockney prononciation, like RP, exists nowhere in a pure state (not even within the sound of Bow Bells), and does not suddenly stop at the city boundary. Even so, in London English, divergences between the local vernacular and high-status speech norms are often very considerable.

Can as much be said of the prononciation of Parisian French ? It would be absurd to deny the existence of social and stylistic variation in

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