Mockney

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In British English, the term mockney (a Portmanteau of "mock" and "Cockney") has come to be used, predominantly in the media, to describe those who present themselves as Cockneys (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. Mockneys, however, do not always use all features of Estuary English, especially if they come from another dialect area. For example, some Mockneys use glottal stops and render the "a" in "face" as [ʌɪ], but they do not pronounce "I" as [ɑɪ].

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).

It is an affectation sometimes adopted for aesthetic purposes, other times just to sound "cool" or in an attempt to generate street credibility. 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.

The term has also been used to describe Dick Van Dyke's execrable cockney accent in the film Mary Poppins. Thieves, criminals, prostitutes (Jack the Ripper films), and English pirates 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'.

In times gone by, people across the UK would often go to great lengths to disguise or eradicate their regional accents, and would play up their position in the social hierarchy, to boost their image. Dialectal choice is a matter of identity. One might adopt the dialect of a group in order to gain acceptance within the group, so that adopting the dialects of the upper social classes has been an aid to social advancement. There has been within working class cultures, and some regional groups, a resistance to speech considered too refined or too City.

The use of mockney is an interesting phenomenon in that it appears that modern day celebrities are doing the exact opposite of what has been traditionally the case, that is, playing down their status in the social hierarchy to gain popularity. Perhaps this signifies a very significant change in attitudes towards one's position in Britain in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It follows the same patterns found in other cultures where urban culture has gained prestige, although to be a "cockney" is still perceived to be a negative attribute by many in the UK, for example in the West Country and in Northern England— a London accent, especially a pretended London accent, is not accepted nationwide as boosting "street cred", even within urban youth cultures.

The concept of conversational divergence, 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 inotation 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. Accommodation Theory refers to a person altering their perceived accent and covers the concept of "mockneying".

It is similar to the American phenomenon of educated, middle and upper class African-Americans sometimes using African-American Vernacular English in an attempt to sound more socially adept.

Some mockney words are old cockney, no longer used by modern cockneys in London. Some common exaggerated cockney/mockney words and phrases used in films are: