Cockney & Australian Confusion

I was contacted by someone who is struggling to nail the Cockney accent, and he keeps slipping into what sounds more like an Australian accent. This isn't uncommon at all! The two share many sound changes - the diphthongs are especially similar.

This is also an issue that I've run into a great deal with students and performers, so here are some tips on things that may help you to keep from going down under with your London accent.

One former student even seemed to slip a bit into some American Southern elements when working on this accent, while also drifting between Australian and Cockney, or, as she liked to call it, South Cockstralian. This seems on the verge of NSFW...

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Hey there, Jim Johnson for Accent Help here and I have somebody who's having some trouble with - they've been working on Cockney. This is an American person working on Cockney, that London working class accent and having trouble because it's slipping towards Australian.

Drifting from Cockney to Australian Accents

This is not an uncommon issue at all. In fact, a lot of the sound changes are very similar. I'll talk about those in one second. One of the big keys with holding on to the Cockney as opposed to slipping towards the Australian lies in what I call Hell's Corner here in the vowel quadrilateral. So this is the ah, the awh, and the aw. T

hese three symbols, these are what Arthur Lessac numbers as the five, the four, and the three. And the four is one that doesn't tend to happen as much in American speech. It'll happen a little bit up in New England especially and some other parts of the US and some individuals will do it, but it's primarily sort of a British sound. You could think of it in that way.

And one of the things that's important even in the way that Arthur Lessac teaches this he numbers it based on how big the mouth opening is. So we have the ah sound and it's sort of a circle that he uses to demonstrate it. This is the awh sound. This is the one that we uh want to work on right now. And this one he draws as sort of the same height, but he rounds in the sides of it. A

nd then with the aw sound, the three, it's really just sort of a smaller circle than what the five is. So, and then there's also the ash, which is the six, which he draws as sort of a broad version of the five. Okay? So, this is a really quick overview of that.

What we're focused on right now is this guy, the four. And what's important here, especially for Cockney, is that you actually make that rounding at the back instead of it all being at the front. And this would be words that contain an O for the vowel. So words like not, god, lot. And a lot of people want to do that at the front and go not, god, lot. And it's really not so much about the lips as it is about the space in the back. Not. Awh awh not lot god, and finding this rounded space at the back. This open space at the back and keeping it open as you go into Cockney, right?

So this sort of feeling of the openness here at the back is going to help you there because when you go into the Australian it tends to sort of flatten out and narrow more. This is when I'm saying Australian, it tends to be that broad Australian, the sort of thickest Australian accent.

Just as when I'm working on Cockney, we're working on this broadest but understandable Cockney. So, right, so this here space being open. Right. So, this here space not being so open tends to sound more Australian, yes? So, that's one of the big elements: working on the structure at the back.

And Arthur Lessac, I like it. He talks about this as an inverted megaphone. So you're sort of taking this megaphone that you would speak through and you turn it around the other way and it's as though you swallow it and the big open part of it is at the back and that's what you need to be focused on for this. That will help you with your Cockney, eh?

As opposed to what you might do for more Australian there more flat sort of sound. All right. Another element that will contribute to this flatness is the fact that many of our vowels are what are called, they're called tense vowels because there's tension in the tongue to make them happen. And in fact, these are all tense vowels here. Now, it's really common for Americans to make this one a lax vowel. So that instead of saying lax, it's very common for a lot of Americans to say lax, lax, man, can't. I can't stand it. That's that flattening of that sound flattening, flattening, flattening, flattening.

And there's a lot of that sort of flattening that you'll hear is a stereotype especially of the Bronx sort of accent in New York, and that's also the sort of thing that you'll hear in Australian is that there's a lot of things that become sort of lax versions of the vowels less distinct versions of the vowels so keeping the vowels more distinct, more different, that's going to help you more with the Cockney.

So if you take that Cockney and sort of mellow it out, then it will tend to go a little bit more towards Australian.

One of the other things that I'm tending to do when I do Australian as well is that the intonation can be a little bit different. Australian can feel a little bit more connected, sort of slippery, whereas Cockney can feel a little bit more broken up. It's more American in some ways. That may be another way to think about it.

As an American, we like to punch a lot of words and break up the flow. Whereas, if you work on RP, there tends to be much more flow through things. And Cockney seems to be a bit more about doing this sort of American sort of broken up.

In fact, with the glottal stops with things like got lot, not, little, it almost needs to feel like you're driving forward and you suddenly shift into reverse. Got, not, little, that sort of pulling back. That's one of the things that tends to help with Cockney. And so that breaking up as opposed to letting it sort of rot.

So now I'm going to do a Cockney accent and I'm going to connect it more like that sort of flowing stuff going on. And notice that there it starts to become now I'm letting it slip a little bit more towards a broad Australian accent. And now I'm going to take that Australian accent and break it up a little bit more. So it still sounds a bit Australian, but now it's a bit more Cockney, eh? And if you open up that space, there you go.

That was a lot of information. So it was about that extra space, especially when we're looking at this sound that you get this, this rounded a sound ah awh to hold on to that feeling at the back tends to help with Cockney.

When it flattens out, it tends to go towards Australian.

When you focus on the vowels being more tense and precise, then that tends to be more Cockney.

When you let them become a little bit more relaxed or lax vowels, that tends to become more of that broad Australian.

And then also when you focus on making it more of a broken up intonation, it tends to help people get towards Cockney as well.

There you go. Quick intro. For more info, check out AccentHelp.com.