Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library Podcast

Episode 4

What happens when lots of languages and dialects come into contact with each other? This week, Andrew and Rowan discuss contact effects in super-diverse cities like London, and what happens to English as more and more people speak it around the world. We also answer a question from Twitter about the noises we make in conversation to show that we’re listening.

Tweet us: @VoicesofEnglish

This week’s ‘What’s the feature?’ used a clip from:
Millennium Memory Bank Recording in Birmingham. BBC, UK, rec. 1999 [digital audio file]. British Library, C900/18580. Available: https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Millenium-memory-bank/021M-C0900X18580X-1600V1

Links:
Multicultural London English databank: http://linguistics.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/linguistics/english-language-teaching/databank-of-spoken-london-english/

Donahue, R. T. (1998). Japanese culture and communication: Critical cultural analysis. University Press of America.

Cheshire, Jenny, Kerswill, Paul orcid.org/0000-0002-6540-9312, Fox, Susan et al. (1 more author) (2011) Contact, the feature pool and the speech community : The emergence of Multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics. 151–196. ISSN 1360-6441 http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/75321/1/Emergence_paper_for_JS_23_2_11_singlespacel.pdf

Oxford Dictionaries – 10 ways speakers of World English are changing the language https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/09/25/10-ways-speakers-of-world-english-are-changing-the-language/

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library - Episode 4

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest libraries. We hold over 13 million books, 920,000 journal and newspaper titles, 57 million patents and 6 million sound recordings. Open to everyone, the Library offers events, temporary exhibitions and a Treasures Gallery that displays over 200 items, including Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible and lyrics by The Beatles.