Dialect Levelling: Comparative Analysis Of Case Studies

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Dialects are different varieties of language that differ from other varieties lexically, grammatically and geographically. The phenomenon of dialect levelling can be defined as the reduction in the number of dialects. Over the past 200 years English dialects have rapidly changed due to factors such as urbanisation and increased geographical and social movements. People’s original networks around family and friends broaden when they move for work or social reasons and as a result, they are socialising with a wider variety of people with different accents so gradually the way they talk changes.

In today’s society different dialects mainly fall into one of two categories; traditional dialects or modern dialects. Traditional dialects are notably less common as phrases have been replaced from ‘Standard English form’ (Kersmill 2001 page 2). ‘Standard English’ is used through writing and speaking in formal situations, it is regarded as the ‘correct’ form and as a result it is how children are taught to write and speak in education. It is considered to be a ‘posh’ way of speaking, in fact only fifteen percent of the population use it as many people change the way they speak and their pronunciation as they do not wish to appear in a certain way. Several reasons for this could be because ‘Standard English Form’ reduces solidarity among people and many also think they will lose connections with loved ones and with that lose their sense of belonging. A prime example of this would be how some politicians have participated in voice training to sound less prestigious, this is because they speak in Posh English (RP) this is even less common with only three percent of the population using it. Therefore, by politician’s moving away from RP they will appear more relatable to the public, they believe that this will help their voting numbers rise as voters will see them more as peers than a posh party leader. Features in modern dialects include how grammar is used (Kersmill, 2001) certain words have connotations with positive or negative, for example, ‘was’ is used as ‘he was’ and ‘weren’t’ would be used as ‘he weren’t’. These regional dialects are classed as ‘non-standard’ and while regional varieties are not wrong or incorrect in anyway, people often have very strong opinions about them. As a result of this, linguistic insecurity occurs among people from certain geographical areas as they feel judged on the way they speak.

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To gain a deeper understanding of dialect levelling it is imperative to grasp different linguistic changes that can arise, as is it is not only grammar that differs in different dialects. There are many other changes such as ‘T-glottalization’ (Eddington, D. and Taylor, M T-Glottalization In American English) where the letter ‘T’ acts as a glottal stop in words like ‘water’ or ‘TH- fronting’ where the ‘TH’ sound is replaced by ‘F’ or ‘V’ in words like ‘think’. In addition to these, ‘L- vocalisation’ takes place where ‘L’ is pronounced as ‘W’ on words such as ‘old’. Finally, ‘H- dropping’ takes place, this is when the letter ‘H’ is no longer pronounced in words like ‘house’. All these features don’t appear in every accent but there is always at least one linguistic change in each that makes it unique from others.

An accent is the result of different pronunciations, this means that the same dialects can be spoken in different accents. Accent levelling occurs when different accents come together and where certain features become obsolete. This is due to mutual accommodation where people tone down their accents so they are better understood by those who aren’t from the same area. This is a common feature found among many levelled dialects because as peoples accents change so does their dialect, for example around London in Thames Estuary, Estuary English was created. This is an intermediate levelled variety that came about from ‘a mixture of non-regional and southeastern English pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary,’( Richard Nordquist). This highlights how new dialects are created when people come together and adapt their accents to create new ones unique to their new homes. In addition to this, another interesting example of a levelled dialect would be Geordie (Neim). These two pronunciations have merged together to create (ne;m) in order to strike a balance between sounding too posh or too common. This may have occurred similarly to Estuary English as urbanisation and increased geographical and social movements have made regional identity more important than local identity. This means that people would rather have their accents fit in with a wider network than just their local area to avoid linguistic insecurity, meaning instead of a typical Geordie accent people would rather have one that is simply classed as Northern (Watt. D. “I don’t speak with a Geordie accent, I speak, like, the Northern accent: Contact-induced levelling in the Tyneside vowel system.”).

In 1996 in Milton Keynes, Paul Kersmill, a professor of sociolinguistics carried out a study to see the effects of dialect levelling (Dialect Levelling In Milton Keynes – AAL2013). Kersmill looked at forty-eight children, investigated ten different linguistic variables such as ‘TH- fronting’ and focused on how age and gender impacted how they spoke. He carried out three distinct studies. The first study saw the children undertake different quizzes and speak aloud to enable Kersmill to identify their pronunciation and the different linguistic forms that they used. Next, he recorded short interviews with each child where they would talk about topics such as school or family so the way they spoke was relaxed and casual. This was extremely beneficial to the study because in order to obtain an accurate set of results it was imperative that the children spoke and interacted in the same manner that they would have in their everyday lives, if this was not achieved the study would not be as reliable as a true representation of the children’s language would have not been portrayed. Thirdly, he interviewed the children’s guardians to see if how they spoke was mirrored by their child in any way. The results of his study exposed that while the variation in the adult’s language was vast, this was not the case with the children as they were significantly less varied. He found that the children did not speak like their parents or residents originally from Milton Keynes exhibiting how children have a large role in forming new dialects. Key things that were identified through Kersmill’s study were that children in and around the age bracket of twelve were the most crucial in developing new dialects as among them was where the most linguistic change could be seen. In addition to this, the study also conveyed how the pronunciation of words were different. For example, ‘vowel fronting’ was present, this is where the vowel is pronounced at the front of the mouth and as a result a word like ‘both’ actually sounded much like ‘bath’. A final key feature found out was that the Milton Keynes accent in itself has been shaped by varieties such as Estuary English as children from Milton Keynes displayed phonological features found in accents typical of the North East i.e. London.

A second case study of interest is one carried out in New York in 1962 by William Labov. Labov’s study differs from Kersmills in that his aim was to differentiate how different social classes used features of language in their speech and to see if there was a pattern present among them. Labov carried out his study in three different department stores across the city, each one was associated with a different class of people; S. Klein which was associated with people of a lower class, Macy’s which represented the middle class and finally Saks Fifth Avenue for the upper class, (Sociolinguistics/Exemplarystudylabov). To gather his results he focused solely on one feature; how different social classes pronounce and use R’s (rhotic pronunciation) while they talk. To do this Labov would ask people in the stores targeted questions to get the participants to say the words ‘fourth floor’. The results showed in the more formal settings rhoticity was greater used by all social classes which demonstrate from a sociolinguistic viewpoint, in New York rhoticity is a way to expose social class as typically people from a higher class use it more often as a way to project their social status. This epitomises how dialect levelling can occur for social reasons as people change their accent or pronunciation to appear in a certain way or because they want to fit in with others so they speak differently from how they would perhaps speak at home or around people they have a strong rapport with.

The phenomenon of dialect levelling is ever-changing, the majority of dialects present today would have been obsolete a hundred years ago, as Kersmills study showed with each new generation of children new dialects are formed, this makes it unclear to see what new dialects will be present in the future but it makes it reasonable to assume that there will be many.

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