Estuary English - A Controversial Issue?
London speech spreading at various rates socially into middle-class speech
and geographically into other accents of south-eastern England.[3][4]
Rosewarne (1984) states that "the heartland of this variety lies by the banks of the
Thames and its estuary". However, in the name itself the Thames is not mentioned.
This seems to have irritated some of the academics, who willingly displayed their
reluctance to the term. In his posting to the Linguist List, for instance, Battarbee
(1996) talks of "... regional arrogance of the SouthEast within the UK: it takes for
granted that 'Estuary' means the Thames Estuary. There are many estuaries in Great
Britain, and several of the emerging regional mega-accents are estuarially based".
Other linguists have criticised the term because it suggests that the variety is restricted
to the area of the Thames estuary. Trudgill (2001) severely criticises both the concept
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