Cross-disciplinary Insights on Regional Dialect Levelling



: Dave Sayers

: J. Partridge, N. Schmidt-Renfree, J. Mills & D. Hornsby

: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

: 2010

: Interfaces in Language

: 239

: 269

: 31

: 978-1-4438-2399-9


The term ‘dialect levelling’ describes one phonological outcome of the mixing of local dialects. This usually refers to individual speech communities in which previously disparate groups of people have come into prolonged contact. The term ‘regional dialect levelling’ has subsequently been coined to describe such outcomes happening on a much larger scale; as the name suggests, across whole regions. However, despite claims that regional levelling is a recent phenomenon—and hints toward heightened population mobility as a cause—there has been little discussion about the kinds of socioeconomic and geographical changes that may have underlain its emergence. Compounding these difficulties is a tendency in social dialectology to compare dialects as discrete, isolated entities, which can constrain conceptualisation of broad regional changes and their causes. This paper offers a historical account of when regional levelling began, and points to areas of human geography that could help explain who is involved in the process, and why.



Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 23:12