New report calls for Cockney culture to be celebrated to tackle social prejudice
A Cockney Blueprint for Tower Hamlets’ is a ground-breaking new university report calling for Cockney culture to be celebrated as a community language in London, while harnessing it as a powerful tool to combat social prejudice and foster community unity.
Produced by the University of Warwick in collaboration with the community partnership between Grow Social Capital and the Bengali East End Heritage Society (called Cockney Cultures) – the study aims to empower communities, challenge stereotypes, and address social division across London.
Produced in response to Tower Hamlets Council recognising Cockney as a community language earlier this year the Blueprint provides a guide for its implementation. The study reveals experiences of language discrimination, but also the positive benefits of values of resilience and support that come from a Cockney identity.
By incorporating a curriculum informed by linguistic science, the programme can become an innovative platform for social justice and socioeconomic mobility, and a model for community language programmes everywhere.
Contrary to misconceptions the study reports how Cockney was initially considered posh, serving as a label to distinguish London town dwellers from their rural neighbours. Only with the emergence of middle-class aspirations in the 18th and 19th century did elocutionists start prescribing Cockney as a lesser, non-standard, working-class way of speaking English.
The study also debunks myths around Cockney rhyming slang being born out of criminal activity, emphasising its example as a creative and playful use of language emerging from working class communities. It also highlights how Cockney has historically thrived on multicultural influences, adapting with each wave of newcomers.
Using linguistics – the science of human language – the sociolinguist experts at the University of Warwick shed light on the impact of language ideologies, revealing how evaluations of language varieties as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are subjective social judgments, not grounded in linguistic science.
The ‘Cockney Formula’, a tool developed by Cockney Cultures, reveals how Cockney’s complex character is explained and understood through 26 different variables, although the report includes a simpler, yet insightful definition of Cockney provided by comedian Arthur Smith, as being the ‘non-posh Londoner’.
Cockney Cultures reports how Cockney now manifests itself in three different ways:
- Through a well-established stereotype, associated with a traditional geographical area of London, typecasted in popular culture by a fossilised family of tropes.
- A Cockney Diaspora, extending the Cockney cultural social identity through geography to a wider Cockneydom, and across generations drawing inspiration from your ancestors.
- The latest incarnations of Cockney, the products of the emergent space where rich and non-rich collide in London and the wider Cockneydom, the equivalent of a cultural engine, generating a constantly evolving culture, language, and heritage.
In an era where social identities are more complex, these are now more often defined beyond a single label such as ‘Cockney’ but through incarnations of ‘Cockney Bengali’, ‘Cockney Black’, ‘Cockney British’, ‘Cockney European’, ‘Cockney Indian’, ‘Cockney Jamaican’, ‘Cockney Polish’, ‘Cockney Sylheti’, and many more iterations.
Commenting on the launch of the report Andy Green of Grow Social Capital said: “This is a profound study building upon our work in securing the first-ever formal recognition of Cockney as a cultural identity. It forms of part of our work in how shared social identities are a vital asset for working class communities, providing a resource for shared values and encourage greater togetherness. We now aim to build upon this landmark to connect with other public bodies and organizations to create a tidal wave of change for celebrating the Cockney identity – and inspire other identities across the UK to follow.”
The report was funded by an Economic and Social Sciences Research Council Impact Accelerator Award Rapid Response grant. It is a call to action, urging society to protect and nurture non-standard Englishes in the face of growing homogeneity, envisioning a future where linguistic diversity is a source of strength rather than division.
Copies of the report are available here
Cockney Cultures is now also busy planning for next year’s Modern Cockney Festival.
