Mockney
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In British English, Mockney (a portmanteau of "mock" and "Cockney") is an attempt to present oneself as Cockney (or, by extension, other working-class groups) with the intention of gaining popular credibility. A stereotypical Mockney comes from a middle or upper-middle class background in England's Home Counties.
Mockney is distinct from Estuary English by being the deliberate affectation of the working-class London (Cockney) accent.
As another example, a Mockney might adopt Cockney pronunciation, but retain standard grammatical forms where the Cockney would use non-standard forms (e.g. negative concord or don't-leveling). However, Mockney speakers will sometimes overplay grammatical inaccuracies that commonly exist in traditional Cockney, e.g. June Brown's use of triple negatives when playing Dot Branning, a character from Eastenders e.g. "I ain't never 'eard of no licence". In reality, June Brown's pronunciation is closer to that of standard English when out of character, as is the case with Pam St. Clement, who plays Pat Evans. However, Barbara Windsor once stated in a BBC special programme about her character Peggy Mitchell that she has sometimes been asked to use grammatical inaccuracies, but refuses every time.
It is an affectation sometimes adopted for aesthetic or theatric purposes, other times just to sound "cool", generate street credibility or give the false impression that the speaker rose from humble beginnings through some innate talent rather than the education, contacts and other advantages a privileged background tends to bring. The phenomenon was first named in the mid-1990s and was made famous in describing Britpop bands such as Blur. Mick Jagger is often accused of having been the first celebrity in modern times to overplay his regional accent in order to boost his street credibility.
Similar criticisms were also made of All Saints' members Natalie and Nicole Appleton for their attempts at the Cockney accent in the 2000 film Honest.
Thieves, criminals and prostitutes (e.g. in Jack the Ripper films) in films often use an exaggerated version of Cockney to emphasize the atmosphere of lower class old London, no matter where in England the character is from.
One explanation of dialect adoption given by social linguistics is prestige. A person is likely to adopt speech patterns (including accent, vocabulary, dialect or even language) which they perceive as 'prestigious'.
The concept of communication accommodation, either upwards or downwards in idiolect, can be seen in many social interactions, for example to put someone at ease by speaking in a familiar tone or intonation or to intimidate someone or alienate them by speaking in a more formal way than they are used to, for example in a court room where a more formal register will be used with technical legal jargon to intimidate a defendant. This refers to a person altering their perceived accent and covers the concept of "mockneying".
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[edit] Notable Mockneys
- Damon Albarn[1]
- Lily Allen[2]
- Nigel Kennedy[3][4]
- Tim Lovejoy[citation needed]
- James Marsters
- Kate Nash[5]
- Jamie Oliver[citation needed]
- Guy Ritchie[citation needed]
- Mike Skinner[6]
