Authors
Eivind Torgersen
Publication date
2012
Journal
Dialectological and folk dialectological concepts of space: Current methods and perspectives in sociolinguistic research on dialect change
Pages
75-95
Publisher
De Gruyter
Description
Findings from London show emerging multi-cultural varieties of English (Cheshire et al. 2008b; Kerswill, Torgersen and Fox 2008). Speakers having different ethnic backgrounds, but whose main functional language is English, appear to converge on a number of phonological variables. In particular, the diphthongs face, price and goat have monophthongal or near-monophthongal realisations in the region of [e],[a] and [o], respectively. A study in Birmingham has found similar vowel variants for these diphthongs used among non-Anglo speakers of different backgrounds (Khan 2006). These vowel qualities are almost identical to those found in London. This begs the question of whether the multi-cultural varieties in the UK are non-regional and whether listeners are unable to hear a difference between multicultural varieties of English spoken in the two cities. Hence, there would be a difference between multicultural …
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