Dr David Hornsby from the Department of English Language & Linguistics has been quoted in an article in the online version of The Telegraph entitled ‘Parlez-Vous Prole? Why the Upper Classes Use Mockney Accents’.
The article looks at how the upper classes are ‘poshing down’ their accents to try and fit in with those further down the social ladder and quotes from David’s book, Linguistics: A Complete Introduction (Hodder and Stoughton, 2014) on the physical features of this. ‘One mobile feature is the labiodental approximant – where the lower lip and upper teeth don’t quite come together – that used to be the preserve of posh types such as “Woy” Jenkins,’ explains David, ‘but since the seventies has spread down the social scale to include the likes of “Woy” Hodgson and Jonathan “Woss”.’
To read the article please visit The Telegraph website at: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-william/11638361/Parlez-vous-prole-Why-the-upper-classes-use-mockney-accents.html