Copy of Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library

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What are the emotional realities of being an immigrant? Not just what happened, when and why, but what it felt like to leave your life behind, to be between two worlds, not to know what lies ahead for you and your family, to feel sad and happy at the same time. 

Through this series of audio clips we are speaking to you from inside the immigrant experience. We are taking you deep into the inner world of immigrants as they leave, journey, arrive, wait for their fate to be decided, feel ambushed by memories and reflect on the shape of their lives.

This project is a collaboration between Museums Victoria’s Immigration Museum through Senior Curator Dr Moya McFadzean, writer and cultural historian Maria Tumarkin, and sound artist Thembi Soddell. It is supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.

Journeys (5:30)

Leaving Home (1:36)

What is Home? (0:24)

Suitcases (1:57)

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library Podcast

Episode 1
The first episode of Linguistics at the Library introduces the British Library’s Evolving English Collection, which is a sound archive capturing the diversity of English accents and dialects. Podcast hosts Andrew Booth and Rowan Campbell are working with this archive as part of a PhD placement, and every few weeks will be bringing you a fresh discussion about linguistics and how to identify different accents. 

This week’s ‘What’s the feature?’ used a clip from:

BBC Voices Recording in Newcastle. BBC, UK, rec. 2005 [digital audio file]. British Library, C1190/32/01. Available: http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/BBC-Voices/021M-C1190X0023XX-0101V0

Interesting links: 
The glottal stop in Glasgow: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/17/glasgow-accent-scottish-dialect-homogenised-london 
The Bristol ‘l’: http://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2014/03/bristolian-my-ideal-of-an-idea-dialect.html 
An in-depth look at the Newcastle accent: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library - Episode 1

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library Podcast

Episode 2

In the second episode of Linguistics at the Library, Andrew and Rowan discuss some of the differences between regional accents and ‘RP’ (Received Pronunciation), and why people might feel that they have to change the way they speak to work in certain jobs. Using clips from the British Library’s Evolving English Collection, we look at the concepts of stigma and prestige, and how social factors can influence the way we perceive accents.

Tweet us your questions! @ VoicesofEnglish

This week’s ‘What’s the feature?’ used a clip from:

BBC Voices Recording in Driffield. BBC, UK, rec. 2004 [digital audio file]. British Library, C1190/16/02. Available: http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/BBC-Voices/021M-C1190X0016XX-0201V0

Interesting links:
Have you experienced discrimination due to your accent? Submit your story to the Accentism Project: http://accentism.org/ 

Peter Trudgill’s piece on modern RP: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/trudgill.htm 

Social Mobility Commission report: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/less-affluent-kids-are-locked-out-of-investment-banking-jobs

Prejudice against English teachers with Northern accents: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/research-exposes-prejudice-over-teachers-with-northern-accents/

Overt and covert prestige: https://linguistics.knoji.com/language-and-socioeconomic-status-overt-vs-covert-prestige/

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library - Episode 2

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library Podcast

Episode 3

Is the UK in danger of losing its wide variety of local accents? In the third episode of Linguistics at the Library, Andrew and Rowan investigate why we might tone down our accent when talking to people from different areas, and whether the media is making all British accents sound the same. 


Tweet us: @VoicesofEnglish

This week’s ‘What’s the feature?’ used a clip from:

Millennium Memory Bank Recording in Quorn, Leicestershire. BBC, UK, rec. 1999 [digital audio file]. British Library, C900/09097. Available: https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Millenium-memory-bank/021M-C0900X09097X-2100V1 

Studies mentioned:

Penelope Eckert, 2003. Elephants in the room. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(3): pp. 392-397. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9481.00231/full 

Bronwen G. Evans and Paul Iverson, 2007. Plasticity in vowel perception and production: a study of accent change in young adults. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 121(6): pp. 3814-26. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17552729 

Lesley Milroy, 2007. Off the shelf or under the counter? On the social dynamics of sound changes.  In Christopher M. Cain and Geoffrey Russom (editors): Managing Chaos: Strategies for Identifying Change in English, pp. 149-172

W. W. Gill, 1934. Manx dialect: words and phrases (No. 4). Arrowsmith http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/md1933/index.htm

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library - Episode 3

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

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library Podcast

Episode 5

This week is a bumper episode because Andrew and Rowan are joined by Rosy Hall, who completed her PhD placement at the British Library in 2017! We discuss island communities and why these are linguistically interesting, before hearing about Rosy’s own research on the island of Bermuda in the north Atlantic.

Follow Rosy on Twitter: @RosyHall

Tweet us: @VoicesofEnglish

This week’s ‘What’s the feature?’ used a clip from:

BBC Voices Recording in Knowle West, Bristol. BBC, UK, rec. 2005 [digital audio file]. British Library, C1190/07/02. Available: https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/BBC-Voices/021M-C1190X0007XX-0201V0

Further reading:

Varieties of English in the Atlantic: Small Islands Between the Local and the Global – ed. Susanne Wagner, forthcoming (Benjamins Varieties of English Around the World series)

Tristan da Cunha and the Tristanians – Daniel Schrier and Karen Lavarello-Schrier, 2011

Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks: The Story of the Okracoke Brogue – Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes, 1997

Mock Spanish: A Site For The Indexical Reproduction Of Racism In American English – Jane H. Hill, 1995: http://language-culture.binghamton.edu/symposia/2/part1/

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library - Episode 5

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library Podcast

Episode 8

Have you ever wondered how linguistic researchers find people to interview? In this final episode, Andrew and Rowan discuss the methods they use to carry out their research on the Isle of Man and Cardiff, and how these are different to those used for the Evolving English collection. We also talk about the Survey of English Dialects, and how to categorise speakers when they have a mixture of accent influences.

Tweet us: @VoicesofEnglish

This week’s ‘What’s the feature?’ used a clip from:

BBC Voices Recording in Bangor. BBC, UK, rec. 2005[digital audio file]. British Library, C1190/41/13. Available: https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/BBC-Voices/021M-C1190X0041XX-1301V0

References:

Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Penhallurick, R. 1985. Fieldwork for the Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects: North Wales 1980-81. In W. Viereck (ed.) Focus on: England and Wales. 223-234.

British Library Spoken English collections: https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/english-accents-and-dialects

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library - Episode 8

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.