Editing Cockney (section)

===Perception===
The Cockney accent has long been regarded as an indicator of low status. For example, in 1909 the Conference on the Teaching of English in London Elementary Schools issued by the [[London County Council]], stating that "the Cockney mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy of being the speech of any person in the capital city of the [[British Empire|Empire]]".<ref name="Attitudes towards Cockney">{{Cite web |url=http://www.humnet.unipi.it/slifo/articolosantipolo.pdf |title=5 |access-date=1 October 2010 |archive-date=6 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110206055350/http://www.humnet.unipi.it/slifo/articolosantipolo.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Others defended the language variety: "The London dialect is really, especially on the South side of the Thames, a perfectly legitimate and responsible child of the old Kentish tongue [...] the dialect of London North of the Thames has been shown to be one of the many varieties of the Midland or Mercian dialect, flavoured by the East Anglian variety of the same speech".<ref name="Attitudes towards Cockney" /> Since then, the Cockney accent has been more accepted as an alternative form of the English language rather than a lesser one, though the low status mark remains.

In the 1950s, the only accent to be heard on the [[BBC]] (except in entertainment programs such as ''[[The Sooty Show]]'') was the [[Received Pronunciation|RP]] of Standard English, whereas nowadays many different accents, including Cockney or accents heavily influenced by it, can be heard on the BBC.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/yourvoice/rpandbbc3.shtml#A |title=BBC English |publisher=BBC English |access-date=1 October 2010 |archive-date=17 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110117184420/http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/yourvoice/rpandbbc3.shtml#A |url-status=live }}</ref> The Cockney accent often featured in films produced by [[Ealing Studios]] and was frequently portrayed as the typical British accent of the lower classes in movies by [[Walt Disney]], though this was only so in London.