New towns and koineization:
linguistic and social correlates*
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PAUL KERSWILL and ANN WILLIAMS
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Abstract
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The establishment of new towns in the twentieth century in many parts of
the world is a test bed of koineization, the type of language change that
takes place when speakers of di¤erent, but mutually intelligible language
varieties come together, and which may lead to new dialect or koine formation. This article presents the case of Milton Keynes, an English new town
designated in 1967. Our study investigated the speech of a sample of 48
working-class children divided into three age groups: four, eight, and twelve
years of age, along with one caregiver for each. We hypothesize that the
formation of a new dialect is in the gift of older children. We also hypothesize that dialect levelling, which is part of koineization, will be more rapid
in a new town than in an old-established town. Detailed quantitative results
for four vowels strongly support these hypotheses. At the same time, we investigate the social network types contracted by new town residents. We
found many to be socially isolated locally, but that they maintained contacts with their place of origin. We show that migrants violate what the
Milroys argue to be the normal inverse relationship between socioeconomic
class and social network density: migrants have uniplex networks, while still
having a low socioeconomic status. The consequences for dialect change are
considered.
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1. Introduction: linguistic and sociolinguistic approaches to the study of
new town koines
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This issue of Linguistics deals with language, migration and the city.
In this article, we focus on all three by referring to the case of
‘‘koineization’’ — the process of dialect contact leading to what Trudgill
has called ‘‘new dialect formation’’ (Trudgill et al. 2000). New dialect formation is the emergence of distinctive, new language varieties following
Linguistics 43–5 (2005), 1023–1048
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P. Kerswill and A. Williams
the migration of people speaking mutually intelligible dialects to linguistically near-‘‘virgin’’ territory (or at least territory where there is relatively
little contact with any prior languages spoken). We will approach new dialect formation from two angles. The first involves employing a ‘‘dialect
levelling’’ model (Milroy 2002). Dialect levelling is the ‘‘process whereby
di¤erences between regional varieties are reduced, features which make
varieties distinctive disappear, and new features develop and are adopted
by speakers over a wide geographical area’’ (Williams and Kerswill 1999:
149). By a more linguistic definition, dialect levelling can be viewed as the
reduction of variation in exponents of phonological and morphological
categories.
Of course, an understanding of this essentially linguistic process is
closely tied to sociolinguistic factors. Our second angle is therefore sociolinguistic or, better, sociological, focusing very much on the social integration of migrants in a city. In sociolinguistic studies, migrants are often
treated as a ‘‘special case’’: they are no longer part of their old communities, nor yet are they fully insiders in their adopted ones. For this reason,
they have tended to be excluded from working definitions of the ‘‘speech
community,’’ such as that of Labov (1966) (see Patrick 2002). The few
language variation studies which have singled out migrants have demonstrated the uniquely fluid and changing network characteristics of such
individuals (Bortoni-Ricardo 1985), their complex and highly variable
linguistic and social relationships with a ‘‘host’’ community (Kerswill
1994), and their contribution to the overall sociolinguistic structure of a
city (Horvath 1985). This article deals, however, with a city — Milton
Keynes in the south of England — that is composed almost entirely of
migrants and their o¤spring. This means that the processes of integration
will be of a di¤erent nature, as the new inhabitants and their children
feel their way in a linguistic no-man’s-land. We hope to show that, after
a generation or two, they eventually succeed in forming a ‘‘new town
koine.’’
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2.
The Milton Keynes and dialect levelling projects: some premises
Between them, the Milton Keynes and dialect levelling projects1 investigated new dialect formation as it was actually happening, while at the
same time placing this process within its wider geographical context. The
Milton Keynes project was designed around the following two premises:
1)
The formation of a new dialect in a new town is in the gift of children, not adults, because:
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New towns and koineization
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2)
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1)
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2)
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adults’ speech is relatively fixed for both psycholinguistic (critical period e¤ects) and sociolinguistic reasons (relative fixedness
of social identity);
– change in children’s speech is initially not limited by either of
these considerations, but is increasingly influenced by them as
the children reach their early- to mid-teens.
The shape of the new dialect will be discernible in older children’s
speech, not that of younger children. This is because:
– preschool children will be acquiring their parents’ dialect;
– as children grow older, they will increasingly align themselves
linguistically with the speech of their peers. In a new town,
there will be no available focused model in the form of adult
speech. For the first cohort of young people growing up, there
will also be no older teenage model to form a (potential) target.
This is the group who will lay the basis for the new dialect.
The project used an apparent-time variationist methodology (Bailey
2002), with the di¤erence that, in addition to adults, three child age
groups were chosen — 4, 8, and 12 years — to allow us to investigate
the second premise. Appendix 1 shows the structure of the project.
The dialect levelling project extended the scope of its predecessor by
taking in two other towns/cities. One, Reading (to be discussed in this article), was chosen to enable a comparison to be made between a new town
with high mobility (Milton Keynes) and a long-established town situated
in the same region but without this level of mobility. At the same time,
the presence of ‘‘regional dialect levelling’’2 (in addition to new town
koine formation) could be assessed.3 The premises for the dialect levelling
project were the following:
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3)
In areas of high population movement, there may be rapid changes
in dialect and accent features, especially those involving levelling.
Social networks are loose-knit. The speech community is di¤use
(Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985).
Membership of a stable social network with strong local ties leads
to linguistic conformity. This inhibits change, including that manifesting as levelling. The speech community is focused (Le Page and
Tabouret-Keller 1985).
A new town will prefigure any levelling tendencies within its own
region.
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Thus, two variables were systematically varied: high vs. low mobility
(Milton Keynes vs. Reading), and high vs. low distance from London
(Hull vs. Reading). Here, we will only deal with the first of these: mobility.
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The extent to which regional levelling is anticipated in a new town can be
gauged by a comparison of Milton Keynes and Reading. The structure of
the dialect levelling project is given in Appendix 2.
In Kerswill and Williams (2000a), we discussed the process of new
dialect formation from the point of view of eight ‘‘principles of koineization,’’ covering the loss of geographically and socially marked forms,
simplification, and the time scale of the process. Kerswill and Trudgill
(forthcoming) cover the time scale in greater detail, drawing additionally
on New Zealand and Norwegian data. Williams and Kerswill (1999) and
Kerswill (2003) deal with regional dialect levelling in England. The present article focuses very specifically on the role of children in the process,
drawing on new analyses of two variables (Section 3). It deals with crossgenerational continuity and speed of change in new and old towns (Section 4). It also tackles the issue of the type of individuals who are prone
to migrate, and the linguistic consequences of their particular social network characteristics (Sections 5 and 6).
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3.
Dialect contact and the contribution of children to new dialect
formation in Milton Keynes
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For the Milton Keynes project, three hypotheses were developed out of
the premises already established. These are as follows:
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Hypothesis 1: In a new town, children’s speech will, in general, be
much more homogeneous than adults’ speech. If this hypothesis is
supported, it can be inferred that children are creating a new dialect. Homogeneity will, however, be tempered by the emergence of
structured variation, of the kind characteristic of focused speech
communities;
Hypothesis 2: Older children will be linguistically more homogeneous than younger children;
Hypothesis 3: Older children diverge more from adult speech than
do younger children.
We consider data for two variables: the fronting of the o¤set of the diphthong // as in goat and the fronting of /u/ as in goose.4 The former
has been sporadically noted as a minor tendency in British Received Pronunciation, though the fronting of the whole diphthong appears to be
involved (Gimson 1970: 134; Wells 1982: 294). Fronting of the vowel
nucleus (the onset) is found in Southern varieties of American English
(Labov 1994: 59, 202, 208). /u/-fronting has been noted in many parts of
the English-speaking world (Bauer 1985; Clarke et al. 1995; Torgersen
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New towns and koineization
F2-F1
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2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
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200
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300
GOOSE
FLEECE
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400
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12
500
GOAT
F1
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600
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700
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START
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800
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TRAP
900
Figure 1. Mr. S, b. 1915 (Reading): formant plots for FLEECE, GOOSE, GOAT, TRAP,
and START
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1997; Torgersen and Kerswill 2004). Because both changes involve the
fronting of central vowel, it may be instructive to compare their sociolinguistic behavior; co-variation between them has been noted in, for example, Philadelphia and other southern U.S. varieties (Labov 1994: 202).
Figures 1 and 2 provide visualizations of these changes. They show
F1–F2-F1 plots for several tokens of both goat and goose (the di¤erent
symbols representing di¤erent lexical items) and three reference vowels,
fleece, start, and trap, with formant frequencies established using SIL’s
Speech Analyzer software. The data is taken from an elderly and a young
speaker from Reading, where a similar change is taking place. For goat,
the di¤erent trajectory taken by the diphthong in the two speakers’ productions is clearly visible. Each goat token is represented by a straight
line showing its movement from an onset with a high F1 (an open vowel
quality) to an o¤set with a low F1 (a closed vowel quality). In the case of
the elderly speaker, this is not accompanied by any appreciable forward
movement. The young speaker’s diphthong starts at the same position
as for the older man, but moves rapidly forwards as well as upwards.
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F2-F1
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GOOSE
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400
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FLEECE
500
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GOAT
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600
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F1
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700
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800
START
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TRAP
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900
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Figure 2. Paul, b. 1981 (Reading): formant plots for FLEECE, GOOSE, GOAT, TRAP,
and START
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For goose, which has both monophthongal and diphthongal variants, we
find that the younger speaker’s pronunciations are much more fronted
than the older speaker’s, overlapping with fleece to some extent. These
patterns were repeated for four elderly men and four boys analyzed in
Reading and Ashford (Kent).
Table 1 below shows the way in which the phonetic continuum for
//-fronting was divided into four variants, and scores assigned. For
each speaker, an index score from 0 to 3 was calculated.
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Table 1. Key to (ou): the fronting of the o¤set of //, as in GOAT
Variant
Score
Comment
[o], [o]
[], [Y]
[]
[I]
0
1
2
3
northern and Scottish realizations
older Buckinghamshire and London
fronting
fronting and unrounding
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New towns and koineization
2
(Most 3
fronted)
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2.5
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(ou) index
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caregivers
children
1.5
1
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0.5
(Least
fronted)
0
Subjects
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Figure 3. Association of Milton Keynes children’s (ou) index scores with those of their caregivers (from Kerswill and Williams 2000a: 102)
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Figure 3 examines the association between caregivers and children. The
children have been ranked according to their index score, and the caregiver plotted against the child. There is a significant but weak correlation
(r 2 ¼ :177; p < .01).5 This is discernible from the figure, there being some
obvious associations towards the right-hand end of the graph. While there
is some association between adults and children (which we discuss below),
in almost every case the child has a higher score than the caregiver. Only
11 of 48 caregivers have a more front o¤set. The children would seem to
be moving towards a new norm.
The second premise of the Milton Keynes project suggests that we
should look for new dialect formation among older, not younger, children. We would therefore expect a significant correlation between caregivers and four-year-old children, on the grounds that at this age the
children are still strongly influenced by parental dialect/accent features.
Figure 4 shows the correlation of the four-year-olds’ index scores with
those of their caregivers. Taking the caregivers’ scores first, we note that
they cover a very wide range. Four of the sixteen have scores close to 0,
indicating high-back rounded pronunciations characteristic of the north
of England and Scotland. The remaining twelve are all from the south of
England, and show varying degrees of fronting. Like the adults, the children fall into two groups: those using high-back northern variants, and
those favoring southern diphthongs.
However, all the children are Milton Keynes-born, so we have here a
case of some young children acquiring their parents’ non-southeastern
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2.5
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Children's (ou) index
4
1.5
girls age 4
boys age 4
1
0.5
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0
0
0.5
1
1.5
Caregivers' (ou) index
2
2.5
Figure 4. Correlation of (ou) indices for four-year-old children and caregivers
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phonology, while others have either not acquired it or have already accommodated to southeastern speech before the time of the interview. In
fact, we have direct evidence of this type of accent mobility in this age
group: one of the two boys at bottom left of the figure, the child of Scottish parents, was using a mainstream southeastern accent by the time he
was recorded for a second time eighteen months later.
For these four-year-olds, the choice between a high back variant and a
central or fronted diphthong is a binary one. Some follow their parents,
others turn away from them. However, there is a further, more subtle
pattern in the data. Among the twelve children who have southeastern
parents (represented by the large cluster in the center and top-right of
the figure), and who therefore do not have a gross binary choice to
make, there is a strong positive correlation with the degree of fronting
of their caregivers, with an r 2 of .3551 (p < .05). A paired t-test on just
these subjects6 supports this result, since there is no significant di¤erence between caregivers and children. This suggests, of course, that these
children match their (female) caregivers’ quality for this vowel very
closely.
Figure 4 shows that there is a great deal of diversity among the fouryear-old preschoolers, resulting (we argue) from the fact that many of
the children reflect the dialectal background of their principal caregiver.
However, in any speech community, we expect older children to show
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New towns and koineization
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Children's (ou) index
4
1.5
girls age 12
1
boys age 12
girls age 8
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13
boys age 8
0.5
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17
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19
0
0
0.5
1
1.5
Caregivers' (ou) index
2
2.5
Figure 5. Correlation of (ou) indices for eight- and twelve-year-old children and caregivers
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greater homogeneity (as they turn away from parental models) and to reflect a norm that is di¤erent from that of the caregivers (in many cases
advancing existing changes). These are essentially the arguments put forward by Eckert (2000: 4) and Labov (2001: 427). In a new town, these
observations increase in importance because of the absence of stable adult
norms to act as a brake on change. In the next section, we will consider
the relative speed of change in old and new towns in relation to the vowels of price and mouth. For now, we must consider the older children’s
scores, for which we would expect greater homogeneity and a nonsignificant correlation with caregivers’ scores. Figure 5 displays the association between caregivers and eight- and twelve-year-old children. Once the
three children from northern families have been removed, there is an almost complete absence of correlation (r 2 ¼ :0532). Paired t-tests for both
the eight-year-olds and twelve-year-olds and their caregivers show highly
significant di¤erences (p < .001 in each case), and correlations are not
significant. By the age of eight, the children are apparently no longer influenced by their caregivers’ pronunciation — at least with respect to this
vowel.
Not only is there greater homogeneity, but there is also focusing on a
di¤erent norm even from that of the southeastern caregivers. Table 2
shows the mean scores for the southeastern caregivers and their children,
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Table 2. Index scores for (ou): children and caregivers from the southeast of England
Child age
group
(ou) index:
southeastern
caregivers
(ou) index:
children with
southeastern
caregivers
Standard
deviation
(children)
Significance
(paired
t-test)
r2
4-year-olds
8-year-olds
12-year-olds
1.47
1.44
1.31
1.52
1.80
1.70
0.4887
0.3545
0.3124
p > .05
p H .01
p H .001
.355 (p H .01)
.045 (p > .05)
.23 (p > .05)
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Range of index: 0–3
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12
13
14
Children age 12
2
Children age 8
15
16
1.5
17
18
1
19
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Children age 4 (w/o 2
Scots)
Southeastern caregivers
0.5
21
22
23
0
24
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27
NB 1. Score for 4-year-olds excludes two boys with Scots phonology
2. Score for 8- and 12-year-olds includes those with non-southeastern caregivers
Figure 6. (ou) index for all age groups
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with paired t-test results, standard deviations, and a calculation of r 2 . For
the eight- and twelve-year-old groups, the children’s (ou) index is significantly higher than that of their caregiver.
Figure 6 shows the data di¤erently displayed. All the children have, on
average, a higher fronting score than the caregivers, a di¤erence which is
greater for the two older groups. The fact that the older children have
higher scores strongly suggests that, in their lifetimes, they have fronted
their pronunciation of this vowel. We also need evidence that the fronted
vowel is a norm. Table 2 shows that there is a reduction in the standard
deviation as the age group rises, the biggest reduction being between
the four- and eight-year-olds. This is visible in the tighter distribution of
scores on the y-axis in Figure 5 than in Figure 4. This suggests that there
is an increase in homogeneity with age. Hence, we infer that the children
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Table 3.
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Key to (u:): the fronting of /uÉ/ as in GOOSE
Variant
Score
y
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Table 4.
9
Index
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Index scores for (u:): major subgroups
Caregivers
Girls
Boys
.60
.55
.37
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are converging on a new, fronted norm with respect to this vowel. For the
moment, all three hypotheses given above have been supported.7
For (ou), there are no significant gender di¤erences within age groups.
However, this is not the case for (u:) (the fronting of the vowel of goose),
to which we turn now. We will also find that our hypotheses are not
so unequivocally supported. (u:) was quantified by calculating an index
based on the scoring system shown in Table 3.
By contrast with (ou), there are no significant correlations between
caregivers and children either for the dataset as a whole (r 2 ¼ :0424) or
for any subgroup. Surprisingly, paired t-tests on subgroups did not reveal
any significant di¤erences between caregivers and children — though taking the dataset as a whole came close to yielding a significant di¤erence
(p ¼ .06). However, this near-significance relates to a higher score on
the part of the caregivers, the opposite of what we might have expected.
Table 4 shows the mean scores for caregivers, girls, and boys.
All this suggests (1) that there is no particular parental influence with
this vowel, and (2) that there is no ongoing change which would give rise
to a generational di¤erence. We suggest that /u/-fronting may have been
completed earlier than //-fronting: the women already have fronted
vowels, and the absence of correlations with caregivers or di¤erences
from caregivers means that there is no new norm (which would be observable in late-adolescent or young adult groups) for children to accommodate to as they grow older. Certainly, for received pronunciation (RP),
Bauer (1985) finds marked fronting among speakers born in the 1940s.
Our instrumental data shows the same degree of fronting for elderly
speakers in Reading (b. 1911–1915) as for Bauer’s RP speakers born 20–
25 years later. This suggests that /u/-fronting was more advanced in
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3
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2
2.5
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(ou) index (GOAT)
3
R 2 = 0.7987
2
2
R = 0.0506
boys aged 12
1.5
girls aged 12
1
regression line boys
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0.5
regression line girls
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13
0
0
0.2
14
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
(u:) index (GOOSE)
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0.4
Figure 7. Correlation of (ou) and (u:), twelve-year-olds
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nonstandard accents, such as those of our speakers, and was already under way in the 1930s.
We suggested earlier that /u/- and //-fronting might be linked.
However, the correlation is insignificant, with a very low r 2 of .0001. As
before, we surmise that the reason for the lack of correlation lies in the
absence of age-related di¤erences in the data for (u:), unlike that for
(ou). But there is one subgroup of speakers whose behavior is very di¤erent: this is the twelve-year-old girls. Figure 7 shows the correlation of the
two variables for twelve-year-old girls and boys.
Overall for the age group, the correlation is significant, though it turns
out that this e¤ect is contributed almost entirely by the boys (r 2 ¼ :7987,
p ¼ :002). However, the focus must still be on the twelve-year-old
girls, since this is the only group with a significantly higher score than
any other — t-tests showed that this group scores significantly more
highly than both twelve-year-old boys (p ¼ :004) and eight-year-old girls
(p ¼ :02). Table 5 shows the index scores.
35
36
Table 5. Index scores for (u:): child subgroups
37
Girls
Boys
.31
.48
.86
.42
.27
.43
38
39
40
41
42
4-year-olds
8-year-olds
12-year-olds
Range of index: 0–2
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New towns and koineization
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8
9
10
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1035
In Kerswill and Williams (2000a: 93–94), we noted that the children
who scored the highest on (ou) were four twelve-year-old girls, all of
whom scored 2.0 or higher. We see from Figure 7 that three of the same
girls score highly on (u:) as well, though one does not (with a score of
.47). And we note that one of the high-scoring boys for (ou) also scores
highly on (u:), with an index of .87.
A qualitative analysis revealed (continued) //-fronting to be led
by female children who are very well integrated into a (mainly schoolcentered) peer group (Kerswill and Williams 2000a: 94). These children
were sociable and apparently well-liked. Interestingly, the boy who scored
highly on the index had mainly cited girls as his friends, and was in
turn cited by them; as noted, he too has a high /u/-fronting score. It
appears that the interpretation adduced for //-fronting largely holds
for /u/-fronting, which has been noted elsewhere as a female-led change
(e.g. Torgersen 1997: 60).
In the context of a new town, we must consider whether these two
changes (one current, the other largely completed) are generated from
within the community (as an endogenous change) or whether they are
borrowed from outside (exogenous change: see Trudgill 1999 for a discussion of this distinction in Norwich). It is quite clear that all the changes
we have observed in Milton Keynes are exogenous in character — by
contrast with the established city of Norwich. This is not surprising: Milton Keynes inhabitants maintain contacts with their original communities
(on this, see Section 5), and the town has extremely good transport links
with other places, particularly London. Indeed, we have hypothesized
that, in Milton Keynes, these regional changes are accelerated. We turn
now to this question.
28
29
30
31
4. Cross-generational discontinuity and speed of change in a new speech
community
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
Two vowels in particular are converging on an RP-like pronunciation in
the working-class speech of the southeast of England. These are /a/, as
in mouth, which is converging on an RP-like [a], moving away from
localized pronunciations both urban and rural, including [] and []
(London) and [I] and [Y] (the southeast north and west of London).
Tables 6 and 7 show developments in this vowel over about four generations in Milton Keynes and Reading: in both towns, the youngsters
almost exclusively favor [a]. We conclude that this vowel shows both
regional levelling (towards a supra-local form) and social levelling (the
di¤erence between working-class and middle-class speakers is reduced, in
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P. Kerswill and A. Williams
Table 6. Percentage use of variants of (a) (MOUTH), Milton Keynes working class, interview style
3
[Y]
[I]
[]
[a ]
[]
[a]
25.6
0
0
0
9.8
11.7
0
0
0
17.2
5.9
12.3
1.2
38.6
4.7
3.8
0
31.5
88.8
83.1
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Survey of English Dialects (SED)
informants, 1950–1960s
(Orton et al. 1968)
Elderly (2f, 2m)
Women age 25–40 (n ¼ 48)
Girls age 14/15 (n ¼ 8)8
Boys age 14/15 (n ¼ 8)
Z
63.2
0
0
0
11
12
Table 7. Percentage use of variants of (a) (MOUTH), Reading working class, interview style
13
14
15
16
17
18
SED informants
Elderly (2f, 2m)
Girls age 14/15 (n ¼ 8)
Boys age 14/15 (n ¼ 8)
[Y]
[I]
[]
[a ]
[]
[a]
Z
53.5
0
3.8
38.1
2.3
3.2
3.3
0
0
0
8.0
5.7
4.1
0
0
0.7
90.4
87.1
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
favor of middle-class forms). However, there are di¤erences between Milton Keynes and Reading. In Milton Keynes, there appear to be three
stages in the development of this vowel (Table 6): first, a period of stability in which [Y] and [I] predominated, followed at the height of the Milton Keynes settlement in the 1970s by a period of greater heterogeneity
in which [], the form favored by the majority of the in-migrants, was
dominant. A ‘‘re-focusing’’ finally began with the second-generation migrants (the 1990s children), who are settling on [a]. The discontinuity between the scores of each generation in Table 6 reflects the lack of social
continuity in this town, where most children have grandparents originating elsewhere. We do not have data for the younger adult generation in
Reading; however, Table 7 indicates that young working-class speakers,
like their Milton Keynes counterparts, are rejecting the regionally marked
forms in favor of [a]. Significantly, some young speakers (perhaps twenty percent) occasionally use the old forms of their grandparents in a way
that is indicative of the strong social continuity in the part of the town in
which they live (as shown in Table 10, below).
The di¤erence between Milton Keynes and Reading is more striking
for /aI/, as in price. In Milton Keynes, [ I] or [ I] can only be heard
among the very oldest, pre-new town speakers, while in Reading they
are still to a considerable extent maintained by children. In both towns,
the new target appears to be [þI], which can be construed as intermediate
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New towns and koineization
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4
1037
between RP [aI] and broad London [þ]. This variant is geographically
widespread in southeastern urban varieties. However, in Reading, the
generational change is much slower, reflecting (we argue) the greater social continuity there than in Milton Keynes.
5
6
7
Table 8. Percentage use of variants (aI) (PRICE), Milton Keynes working class, interview
style
8
[a I]
[þYI]
[þI]
[ I]
[ YI]
[ I]
0
25.4
1.0
0
44.6
38.0
24.4
29.2
60.0
56.6
0.5
0
15.3
0
0
3.4
0
0
9
10
11
12
Elderly age 70–80 (2f, 2m)
Girls age 14/15 (n ¼ 8)
Boys age 14/15 (n ¼ 8)
13
14
Table 9.
Percentage use of variants (aI) (PRICE), Reading working class, interview style
15
16
17
18
19
Elderly age 70–80 (2f, 2m)
Girls age 14/15 (n ¼ 8)
Boys age 14/15 (n ¼ 8)
[aI]
[þYI]
[þI]
[ I]
[ YI]
[ I]
0
2.8
0.6
12.4
21.2
19.1
47.8
45.1
63.7
21.8
21.1
13.7
1.7
4.3
2.7
15.7
5.1
0
20
21
22
5. Network types among migrants to a new town
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
A question we need to answer is: do in-migrants to new towns show particular levels and kinds of social integration that set them o¤ from people
in old towns? If so, what are the linguistic consequences of this? To begin
to answer this, we must look at the relationship between social integration, social mobility, and social class.
One of the most important contributions to the understanding of the
social embedding of language change in recent years has been the proposal by the Milroy and Milroy (1992) to combine the two fundamental
concepts of social class and social network into a single model. Here, we
hope to show that the relationship between class and network that they
propose needs modification to take account of highly mobile, but by no
means socially marginal, groups of internal migrants whose sociolinguistic patterns are not normally considered in speech community studies.9 A
discussion of the class–network relationship is one part of a more general
consideration of the social characteristics of migrants.
The Milroys provide a critique of the Labovian variationist model, the
consensus model, based on a view of society as an integrated whole in
which the di¤erent parts work in harmony with one another. Linguistically this should give rise to shared norms of evaluation and cohesive
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P. Kerswill and A. Williams
speech communities. The consensus view is limited, however, by its inability to account for the dynamic nature and continued vitality of nonstandard vernaculars and therefore is unable to provide an explanation
for linguistic change. Such phenomena can be better understood, according to the Milroys, by adopting as a framework a conflict model which
takes account of the inequalities, divisions, and opposing interests found
within society. This model shows how varieties other than standard, legitimized varieties persist strongly and act as badges of identity for less
privileged groups.
Social network theory provides an explanation for the maintenance
of these nonstandard dialects by showing what the forces acting on
individual speakers might be. Close-knit networks act as powerful normenforcement mechanisms. Strong networks both bind a local community
together and reduce the possibility of changes in behavior, including linguistic behavior.
The interaction between social network and social class can be seen
when one considers that close-knit networks in the West are to be found
mainly at the bottom (and very top) of the socioeconomic scale. Thus, the
least powerful maintain strong social networks because of the need to
maintain such ties for survival. Many other speakers, however, do not
have the need for strong networks and are socially and geographically
mobile. They therefore come into contact with a wider range of people.
Within all groups in society, it is, according to the Milroys, individuals
who establish exceptionally large numbers of weak ties outside their
immediate communities who are able to facilitate language change. Concomitantly, the transmission of innovations between groups is e¤ected
by such individuals. We would infer from this that the spread of changes
occurs rapidly in socially and geographically mobile groups, such as migrants. Conversely, they will be slow in groups with a strong local base
and close-knit networks.
The question arises: in a new town, where we can assume that most
people of whatever social class have loose-knit nonlocal networks, can
we expect dialect change to be accelerated? In order to address this question, we begin by considering some of the social characteristics of the
families we interviewed in both projects.
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
–
What kind of people move to a new town? A factor which seemed
to militate against the formation of close relationships was the practice of ‘‘estate hopping.’’ Most families in the Milton Keynes project had moved at least once within Milton Keynes while three
families had moved six, seven, and nine times, respectively. Several
families had moved frequently before moving to Milton Keynes.
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New towns and koineization
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–
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1039
When attempts were made to locate the families a year after the
original recordings, only 39 of the original 48 children could be
traced, an attrition rate of 18.7%. However, a striking feature of
the families we interviewed was the fact that many people moved
as part of an extended family of three generations or adult siblings.
43% of our twelve-year-olds had their grandparents living in the
town, while this was true of as many as 75% of the four-year-olds.
This is in contrast to what we may suppose is the largely individual migration undertaken by middle-class families, who migrate
to seek better employment. The project families had mainly moved
with the promise of better housing (Kerswill and Williams 2000a).
What is it like living in a new town? We can quote from a social
study carried out in Milton Keynes in the 1970s (Bishop 1986: aa):
‘‘43% of Heelands residents reported no friendships or even casual
acquaintances on the estate. Neath Hill,10 despite a low friendliness
score, recorded a high proportion of residents with casual and
friendly relationships within the estate.’’ This slightly conflicting
report suggests a high level of isolation among a large segment of
the population, while others are not at all isolated, or prefer to
keep to casual acquaintanceships.
We now look at some of our own data. The following statements are
taken from the interviews with the working class women in the Milton
Keynes project (Williams and Kerswill 1997).
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
It took me about two years to even speak to someone. After the first year I
was cracking up. I just wanted to go back. I hated it. Nobody had been born in
Milton Keynes. Everybody had come from somewhere else. You had them from
everywhere — London, Scotland, Ireland. And if you didn’t come down with
them . . . they stuck to their own groups
They [the neighbors] only spoke to me once and that was to complain
You’ve got to keep yourself to yourself. You’ve always got the feeling ‘‘Are they
going to be talking behind my back?’’ I say hello and that’s about it
33
34
35
36
I never hardly see her [the neighbor]. The only time I see her is when the video van
pulls up. (Williams and Kerswill 1997: 48–49)
But:
37
38
39
40
41
42
I love it here. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m not one for popping in for
cups of tea here and there. After all the years I’ve been on this estate, I’ve only
got two friends
The only people I talk to are the people opposite and the old couple next door,
but that’s the way I prefer it. (Williams and Kerswill 1997: 48–49)
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P. Kerswill and A. Williams
Table 10. Birthplace of Reading teenagers and their parents
2
Working class
Middle class
3
4
5
% born in Reading
Teenagers
Mothers
Fathers
Teenagers
Mothers
Fathers
93.7
81.2
81.2
62.5
26.7
11.8
6
7
8
Table 11. Birthplace of Milton Keynes teenagers and their parents
9
Working class
10
11
Middle class
Teenagers
Mothers
Fathers
Teenagers
Mothers
Fathers
50.0
12.5
13.3
26.7
0
6.7
12
13
% born in MK
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
We have a picture, then, of independent, sometimes isolated individuals,
many with their main family and even routine social contacts elsewhere in
the country. Their networks are often uniplex, though (as we have seen)
some have migrated with their extended families. Many of them in fact
seem to seek out an isolated lifestyle. As a rough measure of people’s
‘‘rootedness’’ in their town of residence, we can find out whether or not
they and their parents were born there. Quantifying this data will give us
an estimate of the degree to which the communities as a whole are composed of close-knit networks. Table 10 shows, as predicted, that there is a
great di¤erence between the working- and middle-class samples in Reading. The figures back up information gained through our interviews: it
was clear that the majority of the working-class children had extended
families on the same estate, while this was not true of the middle-class
group.
Table 11 for Milton Keynes shows that there is little to choose between
the two class groups: both are nonlocal in origin, to an even greater
extent than the Reading middle-class families. However, a number of
the working-class families have maintained kin-supported networks by
migrating in larger family groups — a factor which may promote the
maintenance of the family’s dialect and inhibit levelling. We return to
this point below.
37
38
39
6.
Class, networks, and dialect levelling in a new town and its region
40
41
42
The picture we have of Milton Keynes is potentially at odds with the Milroyian concept of the inverse relationship between social class and dense
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New towns and koineization
1
90
2
80
3
70
4
1041
MK
Reading
60
5
50
6
7
40
8
30
9
20
10
10
11
0
neg.concor
d
12
13
14
MK
Reading
n-s was
n-s were
n-s don't
pret. come
pret. done
n-s relatives
n-s them
33.7
20.6
66.7
47.2
56.8
55.6
3.2
55.5
37.2
28.9
36
63.6
82.4
36.4
3.8
66.7
15
16
Figure 8. Nonstandard grammatical features in Milton Keynes and Reading
17
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22
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29
30
31
32
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40
41
42
social networks. The question is: do the relatively uniplex networks of
the working-class migrants lead to rapid language change? Do they match
the middle-class subjects in using few nonstandard grammatical features,
combined with accent features that are not easy to place geographically?
Milton Keynes working-class speech is indeed much less of a local accent than is its counterpart in Reading. Elsewhere, we have shown the
‘‘compromise’’ nature of much of the local phonology (Kerswill and Williams 2000a: 86), resulting from the levelling out of regionally and socially marked forms. A Reading accent, by contrast, is still perceived as
‘‘country’’ (rural), even by its own users (Kerswill and Williams 2002a),
with vowels (especially the local stereotype [ I] for price) contributing
strongly to this impression. Certainly, too, in terms of dialect levelling,
change has taken place faster in Milton Keynes than in Reading, in a
way predicted by a model which sees loose-knit networks as promoting
levelling and change.
But there is quite another aspect to this. If, instead, we look at the most
commonly used nonstandard grammatical features in the southeast of England, we get a di¤erent picture. Figure 8 shows the use of nonstandard
features by working-class teenagers in both Milton Keynes and Reading
in the interviews we conducted.
It can be seen that neither town has the advantage as far as the use of
nonstandard grammar goes. In both places, the use of these features is
relatively high. Moreover, their use is in striking contrast with middleclass speech in both towns, where the use of these features is so low as
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P. Kerswill and A. Williams
to be negligible. Class, not network (represented by the proxy variable
‘town’), appears to be the primary predictor in terms of grammatical
variation. A similar picture emerges if we consider the use of three lowprestige consonantal features which are currently spreading in Britain
(Kerswill 2003): the use of [f ] for / /, the use of [v] for noninitial /¶/
(‘‘th-fronting’’), and the use of [ ] for noninitial /t/ (‘‘t-glottaling’’). For
these, class remains the main predictor, taking precedence over ‘town’
and ‘gender’ (Kerswill and Williams 2002b).
The variables are strongly di¤erentiated in terms of how they pattern
across social class and town/network — and we must seek explanations
for this. We can report that one of the vowels, (), is being fronted in
a way unrelated to either class or town (Cheshire et al. 1999), while (u:)
shows only marginal further fronting. Two others, (a) and (aI), are
changing towards regionally unmarked variants, leading to the advergence of working-class forms towards those of middle-class speakers;
for these, Milton Keynes is quite strongly in the lead. The three consonantal variables saw nonprestige forms entrenched among working-class
speakers, with middle-class speakers making less use of them. Finally,
the same class-based pattern is found for the nonstandard grammatical
features.
In an earlier article (Kerswill and Williams 2000b), we argued for the
influence of di¤erent class-based cultures, resulting, particularly, from different degrees and types of literacy, as a partial explanation of the strong
class-related di¤erences in the use of nonstandard grammatical features.
We suggested that, for such features, this overrode any levelling e¤ect of
loose-knit networks. We now pursue this argument further by pointing
out that pronunciation features are thought to be more open to social
marking than are grammatical features because of their much greater frequency (Cheshire 1999: 61). This openness in turn leads to the subtle, gradient vocalic patterns which serve to di¤erentiate the two towns in a way
that correlates with their characteristic network types. Yet not all pronunciation features show this subtlety: the three consonantal variables are
di¤erentiated along class lines, reflecting (we would argue) the fact that,
like the grammatical variables, their variants are binary, with one being
strongly associated with standard or ‘‘correct’’ speech. There is no such
association for any of the vocalic variables.
Even this is only part of the story, since it is clear from the earlier discussion that there are quite marked qualitative di¤erences between the
social networks of the working-class and middle-class families in Milton
Keynes, despite the fact that they all predominantly originate elsewhere.
This lies in the tendency for the working-class groups to reproduce kinbased social networks in the new location, through the migration of
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New towns and koineization
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1043
extended families — in contrast to the middle-class migrants, who came
mostly as single people or small family units. The e¤ect of this on the
working-class speakers who are part of such networks is likely to be conservative. Despite this, the members of the working-class Milton Keynes
sample as a whole have moved further towards a levelled southeastern
variety than their Reading counterparts have.
7
8
9
7. Conclusions
10
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34
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36
37
38
39
40
41
42
Our conclusions must necessarily be complex. Dealing first with the issues
raised in the last section, we find linguistic variables behaving very differently. Quite clearly, in the new town some features are prone to rapid
change by levelling. Two are vowels (mouth and price) which previously
had regionally strongly marked forms, and which are now being replaced
by RP-like variants over a wide geographical area. Here, Milton Keynes
is in the vanguard of change. We have not conducted quantitative studies
of goat and goose outside Milton Keynes; however, indications are that
changes in these vowels are not more advanced there than elsewhere. If
this is correct, we can point out that, unlike mouth and price, these innovations do not lead either to levelling or to convergence with RP-like
accents. Arguably, nonlevelling changes (that is, those which do not lead
to greater homogeneity overall) are not accelerated in a new town. By
contrast, in a new community, levelling changes will be promoted, since
they are the result of processes emerging from dialect contact; at the individual level, these changes will be propelled by the frequent accommodation that takes place between speakers of di¤erent varieties. In a new
community, strategies of neutrality might also play a part (cf. Scotton
1976; Mæhlum 1992), and it is in this context that a standard-like (RP)
realization might be favored by speakers — though it must be added
that these variants are probably not perceived as ‘‘RP,’’ since they are not
identical with variants found in more conservative forms of that variety.
RP, narrowly construed, is unlikely to be a model for speakers today,
since it is an accent which has all but lost its position in English public
life (Kerswill 2001).
For the same reasons that changes in goat and goose are not necessarily favored in a new town, the spread of the nonprestige consonantal features of th-fronting and t-glottaling takes place at about the same rate in
Milton Keynes as elsewhere. Unlike the near-RP pronunciations [þI] and
[a], these are not compromise forms, and so are not part of levelling. Instead, they are innovations which are di¤using in a geographically gradual manner (Kerswill 2003).
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In this article, we have combined three methodologies. First, we have
undertaken detailed quantitative analyses of four phonetic variables, analyzed in the light of the fact that their users are growing up in a new
community. Second, we have adopted a comparative approach involving
a carefully matched established town. Third, we have applied an interpretive approach in assessing the type of social networks people in new
towns tend to contract. The three methodologies complement each other,
in that the quantitative patterns can only be understood against the backdrop of the particular social structures of a new community.
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Received 3 December 2002
Revised version received
5 March 2004
Lancaster University
University of Wales, Bangor
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Appendix 1. Structure of the Milton Keynes project
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– Milton Keynes: a ‘‘new town’’ designated in 1967; 1967 population 43,000,
1991 population 176,000. 70 kms from London, Coventry, and Cambridge.
Migration mainly from southeast England, including London. London:
35%. Rest of Southeast: 41%.
– Research site: adjoining districts in the original part of the new town;
largely rented accommodation in flats and terraced houses. This site was
selected in the expectation of locating mainly nonstandard speakers.
– Subjects: ages 4, 8, and 12, girls and boys, eight in each cell. Total 48 children, all born in Milton Keynes or having arrived there within the first two
years of life. Located through local nursery and primary schools.
– The principal caregiver of each child was recorded — in all but two cases
the mother; remaining cases were an aunt and the father. All caregivers
are broadly ‘‘working class’’ by the criteria of occupation and educational
level.
– Three ‘‘styles,’’ each eliciting a set of target words: single word elicitation;
connected speech task; reading list (not four-year-olds). Recordings conducted in 1991.
– Families studied are from London, area immediately north of London,
Essex, Milton Keynes area, and Scotland. The sample reflects the balance
of in-migrants to the town (MKDC 1990).
– Linguistic variables: 6 vowels and 4 consonants.
– Transcription: 10–30 tokens of each variable from each speaker were transcribed (less for some four-year-olds). The authors agreed on auditory
values. AW recorded, transcribed, and coded the data, with 5–10% checked
by PK.
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New towns and koineization
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Appendix 2. Structure of the dialect levelling project
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3
Three towns:
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Table 12.
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9
10
Reading
Milton Keynes
Hull
High mobility (new town)?
Location
no
yes
no
Southeast
Southeast
North
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In each town:
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Table 13.
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N
Age
8
8
8
8
2
2
14–15
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17
Middle class
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Working class
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Girls
Boys
Girls
Boys
Elderly women
Elderly men
70–80
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Subjects were located through local secondary schools, selected on the basis of
local knowledge of the social characteristics of their catchment areas.
26
– Recordings:
(i) Ethnographic interviews in pairs, including reading lists; group discussions on school, teenage concerns, fashion, music, and language; dialect recognition task (adolescents)
(ii) One-to-one interviews (elderly respondents)
– Linguistic variables: 3 vowels, 4 consonants, 12 grammatical features
– Transcription: as for Milton Keynes project (vowels and consonants); orthographically transcribed searchable corpus (grammatical variables)
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Notes
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*
Correspondence address: Paul Kerswill, Department of Linguistics and English
Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YT, United Kingdom. E-mail:
pkerswill@lancaster.ac.uk.
1. A new dialect in a new city: children’s and adults’ speech in Milton Keynes, directed by
Paul Kerswill at the University of Reading, 1990–1994, funded by the Economic and
Social Research Council (ref. R000232376). Research fellow: Ann Williams. The role
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2.
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4.
5.
6.
7.
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9.
10.
P. Kerswill and A. Williams
of adolescents in dialect levelling, jointly directed by Jenny Cheshire, Paul Kerswill,
and Ann Williams, 1995–1999, funded by the ESRC (ref. R000236180). Research fellows: Ann Williams and Ann Gillett.
Regional dialect levelling is also known as ‘‘dialect supralocalization’’ (cf. Milroy
et al. 1994). This is the formation of levelled, ‘‘supralocal’’ varieties, with few local
di¤erences within a region, resulting from social changes, particularly increases in
mobility. Kerswill (2003) distinguishes between regional dialect levelling as primarily a
geographical phenomenon and ‘‘dialect levelling by accommodation,’’ which refers to
the social psychological mechanisms leading to the levelled varieties.
The third town was Hull on the northeast coast of England, chosen to test the e¤ect of
geographical distance from London on dialect levelling between regions.
These words are used mnemonically following Wells’ (1982) system.
Using the Excel regression function.
Using the Excel paired t-test function.
Wells (1982: 146) notes the great social and regional variability of this vowel; this
would make it particularly available as a social marker. The subtle gradient and quantitative patterns reported here are doubtless symptomatic of this.
Data from 14/15-year-olds is from the dialect levelling project.
Kerswill and Williams (2000b) elaborate further on the link between class and network.
Heelands and Neath Hill are pseudonyms.
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References
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