MLE Flashcards
From which part does MLE originate from?
East-end
Who speaks in MLE?
The younger generation, white males or multi-ethnics
Which cockney phonological feature is absent from MLE?
H-dropping
How long has it taken for the shift from cockney to MLE to take place?
One generation
Where a cockney speaker would use diphthongs, what is an MLE speaker more likely to do?
Monophthongs, diphthong is lost
Cockney is on the move, in which county can it be most readily found now?
Kent or Essex
What is happening to the Kent accent?
It’s disappearing as the cockney accent is moving in
Name a high profile MLE speaker
Stormzy, skepta
What does Amir Khan’s blend of Bolton and Pakistani accent prove?
The multi-cultural English is not just in London
MLE is a street dialect with its own lexis. What can you say about this lexis?
They’ll have the same word but a different meaning or a word will go out of fashion
How many languages are spoken in London schools?
300
Give 3 phonological features of MLE
Don’t H-drop
Vowels sound different
Replace diphthongs with Monophthongs
List some MLE phonology
Does th-front
Doesn’t H-drop
Does l-vocalisation
Replaces diphthongs with Monophthongs /plei/ becomes /ple/
This, that, them, there use alveolar /d/ to become “dis” and “dat”
MLE is syllable timed in comparison to white RP which is stress timed which gives it a distinct staccato rhythm.
List some MLE lexis features
Extremely fast moving, excludes non-MLE speakers
A multi-ethnic blend “bare, blood, mandem and yout” are Jamaican in origin “nang and dag” are Australian and “my ends” home grown. (London)
List some MLE grammar features
Non-standard indefinite article- a hour
Noun “man” use in the place of pronoun- it’s her man’s looking at- like non-gender specific third person pronoun “one”
Quotatives- “this is me”
Present tense used to describe a completed action “we drive all the way here”
