Dialect Levelling

Dialect Levelling

1. What is it?

   • a form of standardisation
   • regional speech forms becoming less prominent
   • speech forms becoming more similar

2. Factors that may cause it

   • geographical mobility
   • social mobility
   • more interaction with varieties of patterns
   • peer pressure in adolescents
   • economic change

3. The Investigation

   • studied changes in different areas
     • Reading
     • Milton Keynes
     • Hull
   • Studied Children and One Caregiver
     • Children aged 4, 8 and 12
     • prominent caregiver, usually the mother
   • Method
     • used interviews to look at pronunciation differences

4. Findings

   • Dialect Levelling was more prominent in Milton Keynes
   • It was least prevalent in Hull
     • adolescents were still influenced by popular culture, but retained the dialect
   • In Reading the change was more gradual

5. Conclusion

   • economics play a large part in dialect levelling
     • Hull has higher levels of unemployment, less focus on education
   • Adolescents play a huge part, including popular culture