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. 


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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

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.