Elementary Composition – Night

This site is a group effort by the students in Gord's Elementary Composition evening course at Catholic University!

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The Languages in London

  Centering around the Oxford and Cambridge in London, People use very standard like English. The upper class people live around this area like in Seoul, so the language of this area is regarded as the standard language. It is called as BBC English, Oxford English, and Queen’s English, but the official title is Received Pronunciation. Namely, the labor class use their own accent called ‘Cockney’ from the Received Pronunciation and the middle class people use ‘Estuary English’ influenced by Received Pronunciation. The ‘Estuary English’ is used by the upper class people when they don’t want to give upper class image or by the labor class people when they show upper class image. In conclusion, the standard English is used by the Nobleman, professors, and journalists and they usually live in London. In England, the social classes exist clearly and there are big differences in the intonation and pronunciation according to the social class and eucation level. So when we have a talk with English, we can recognize their origin of area, social class and education level. But there is no standard language for them. It is a little different according to the noble family and area, even the Queen’s English.