Abstract
The term Estuary English was coined by David Rosewarne in 1984, and has been a topic for discussion ever since, both among linguists and the average Briton. The term refers to a way of speaking that Rosewarne had observed in and around London, which he called a middle ground between RP and Cockney. Several linguists have since then tried to determine what EE is, how it came about and what its features are. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to this field, and particularly investigate further what the nature is of five consonant variables in the language of EE speakers. I have chosen to transcribe two talk show interviews found on YouTube, containing data from David Beckham, Jamie Oliver and Jonathan Ross, who are all acknowledged as EE speakers. I chose to focus on L Vocalisation, final T Glottalling, intervocalic T Glottalling, TH Fronting and H Dropping, as these are features which help separate EE speakers from both RP speakers and Cockney speakers, and thus provide valuable information. The aim was thus to investigate the status of these five variables in the language of these speakers, to try to uncover similarities or differences between the speakers. The most important findings in this study were that there were large differences between the speakers with regard to how they pronounced these features, which further strengthens the claims by previous studies which suggested that EE might not be a unitary accent, and that intervocalic T Glottalling was a part of all speakers language, even though it should not be. Furthermore, there were also differences between the age groups, and the differences were largest for the variables which have traditionally not been part of EE, which suggest that they might be on their way into the variety, and that the change is led by younger speakers.