World Famous Sociolinguist Paul Kerswill Gives a Lecture at XTU

Professor Kerswill briefed on the British “dialect landscape” from the historical origins of English, traditional dialects, modern dialect “levelling”, and multicultural London English. He focused on the “levelling” phenomenon in modern British dialects; which is, the difference between the dialects is gradually narrowing. He also found that changes in new dialects were produced in the multicultural and multilingual city center, particularly in London. By comparing the different pronunciations of vowels and consonants in traditional and modern dialects, he gave examples on a series of new language and grammatical features. He also analyzed the influence of immigration and relocation of the population around London on dialect changes. He believed that there is a “Multicultural Youth English” in the UK, which is also the influence of the “levelling” phenomenon in the modern British dialect on the English language of the UK.