Estuary English

A VARIETY of British English supposedly originating in the counties adjacent to the estuary of the River Thames, and thus displaying the influence of London regional speech, especially in pronunciation; also called simply Estuary. The name is somewhat misleading (though that has not stopped it being widely used in the media), in that the defining linguistic features (such as the increased use of GLOTTAL stops and the VOCALIZATION of final /-l/) extend well beyond the river throughout much of south-east England, among lower-middle-class speakers, and have been around much longer than the arrival of a new name suggests. It is to be distinguished from working-class Cockney, lacking some of the salient characteristics of that ACCENT, such as the FRONTING of th to /f/. During the late decades of the twentieth century, observers began to notice the presence of Estuary-like features of accent beyond the south-east, interacting with other regional varieties. The parallel spread of non-Estuary features (such as fronted th) indicates that broader issues of language change are involved. The DIFFUSION has been attributed to a variety of factors, such as the greater use of the variety in the media and the increased social contact with it brought about through commuter mobility. The accent achieved considerable public attention during the 1990s, when it was reported that several commercial organizations were finding it a more attractive (‘customer-friendly’) accent than RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION (RP). However, although gaining in prestige, it currently remains a regionally marked accent, and is unlikely to replace RP as the high-prestige variety in regions and cities which already have a strong local linguistic identity. RP, meanwhile, is undergoing its own process of change.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم صناعة الشبابيك يشرع بإدامة شباكين قديمين لمرقد الإمامين العسكريين (عليهما السلام)

فرقة العباس (عليه السلام) تختتم خدماتها المقدمة للزائرين في سامراء

موكب العتبتين المقدستين يحيي ذكرى استشهاد الإمام الهادي (عليه السلام) في سامراء

العتبة العسكرية المقدسة تكرّم وفد العتبة العباسية المقدسة لمشاركته في تقديم الخدمات للزائرين

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

كنز غذائي على طبقك.. ماذا تفعل السبانخ بجسمك؟

ما لا يتوقعه أحد.. "سر غذائي" في الجبن الدسم

لتحسين الهضم والنوم.. هذا أفضل وقت لتناول العشاء

10 طرق بسيطة وغير مألوفة لحرق المزيد من السعرات يوميا

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

سابقة بعالم الطيران.. طائرة تقرر الهبوط بنفسها بعد ظرف طارئ

"الإنفلونزا الخارقة" تكتسح دول العالم.. وتثير قلقا كبيرا

مرحلة ما قبل الأعراض.. دواء جديد يستهدف "شرارة" الزهايمر

إزالة ثاني أكسيد الكربون من الغلاف الجوي.. ما دور المحيطات والبحار؟

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Constituent structure

A typology of word structure

Analyzing position classes

Representing word structure

Different kinds of morphemes

Morphemes Definition of “morpheme”

Analyzing word structure

Mirror in nominal morphology

Appendix 2: Hapax legomena from the Cobuild corpus

Appendix 1: 20th century neologisms from the OED

Morphological Productivity Structural Constraints in English Derivation Conclusion

Verbal derivation and the separation hypothesis