Paul Kerswill - Dialect Levelling in Milton Keynes

Who carried out the Milton Keynes dialect levelling study in 1996?

Paul Kerswill.

What did Paul Kerswill investigate in the Milton Keynes study?

Paul Kerswill investigated dialect levelling and how accents change when people from different regional backgrounds move to the same area.

What is dialect levelling?

Dialect levelling is the process by which regional linguistic differences become reduced as features that mark strong regional identity are lost.

Why was Milton Keynes a suitable location for studying dialect levelling?

Milton Keynes was a new town with a large population of people who had moved there from different parts of the UK, creating contact between many different dialects.

Who were the participants in Kerswill’s study?

The study focused particularly on children and adolescents living in Milton Keynes, as young speakers often lead language change.

How did Kerswill collect data in the Milton Keynes study?

Kerswill collected recordings of speakers from different age groups in Milton Keynes and analysed the pronunciation features they used.

What did Kerswill discover about the speech of adults who moved to Milton Keynes?

Adults who had moved to Milton Keynes tended to retain many features of their original regional accents.

What did Kerswill discover about the speech of children growing up in Milton Keynes?

Children who grew up in Milton Keynes were more likely to develop a new local accent influenced by a mixture of dialect features.

What did the Milton Keynes study show about the role of young people in language change?

The study showed that young people play a major role in language change because they adopt and spread new linguistic features.

What did Kerswill conclude about dialect levelling in Milton Keynes?

Kerswill concluded that contact between speakers from different regions led to the reduction of strong regional features and the emergence of a more levelled local accent.

Why is Kerswill’s Milton Keynes study important in sociolinguistics?

The study provides evidence of dialect levelling in modern Britain and shows how new towns and increased mobility can influence the development of new accents.