Coming so soon;)

Eagerly waiting… :)

This should be interesting!

I’m intrigued! : P~

Fikry is keeping us on the edge of our seats! :)

Hi Debbie ! wow, shiny moon-like face .

ok .I’ll tell you which english we should talk.

..London is said to be the source of linguistic innovation in Britain in pronunciation and grammar. Quantitative sociolinguistic research in the southeast centres outside London, and notes great dialect levelling (homogenisation), with features apparently diffusing from London. London has not yet seen a systematic sociolinguistic study, and we will remedy this. Our study takes account of (1) London’s massive multilingualism; (2) linguistic innovation in adolescence; (3) the effect of a ‘multiracial vernacular’ among young Londoners on mainstream speech; (4) differences in ethnic makeup, mobility and networks between inner and outer London, resulting in differences in capacity to innovate and spread linguistic features. We sample 16-19 year olds in two boroughs, using quantitative and qualitative methods to find explanations for their speech patterns. We seek the origins of linguistic change in London’s complex social mix, thus gaining a critical understanding of levelling in Britain.

This project is a study of the spoken English of London, the first to be undertaken for some time and the first taking full and explicit account of the diversity of London’s population and its social and geographical mobility. Many linguists have claimed that London is in fact the origin of many changes in spoken British English – a claim we will test, since it is not obvious that it is true in every detail. The project tries to answer the following questions:

i) What are the characteristics of London English today? How has it changed from traditional ‘Cockney’? Which Cockney features are still thriving? How do Londoners differ in the way they speak? What social factors (e.g. ethnicity, district, gender, class, age) seem to account for these differences?

ii) Do London features spread out from London to other accents and dialects in the south-east and beyond? If so, which? Do all features spread in the same way and the same direction? If not, how can we explain these differences?

iii) What effect does the massive multilingualism of London have on the English spoken there? (One-third of the primary school population does not have English as a first language).

iv) What types of Londoners are linguistically innovative in their pronunciations and grammatical features? Are these differences in innovativeness related to ethnicity, gender, degree of geographical mobility and type of friendship groups?

v) Are there different types of linguistic innovations in inner vs. outer London boroughs? Do these depend on factors such as differences in affluence, mobility and the proportion of second-language English speakers?

vi) In what kind of contexts (e.g., formal interviews vs. ordinary chat with friends) do particular pronunciations and grammatical features turn up? Does this give up a window on how features are spread from person to person?

The project starts from the insight that young people are innovative linguistically. It investigates the possibility that this innovativeness, in the context of the strongly multiethnic metropolis of London, leads to changes in the spoken English of Britain as a whole. It is often noted that young people are able to put on a range of different ‘voices’ – often to achieve special effects, and often playfully. Some of this involves using speech patterns characteristic of ethnic groups other than their own: for example, a white teenager will on occasion use ‘black’ or ‘Asian’ English pronunciations. This leads to the possibility that non-majority speech forms find their way into mainstream English.

To answer the questions, we will record the speech of 64 16-19-year-old college students in two east London boroughs, as well as 16 elderly residents – a total of 80 subjects. As a benchmark, we will also use the limited number of good-quality older recordings that exist.

.WE SHOULD LEARN AND TEACH THE ENGLISH SPOKEN BY NORTH LONDONERS…

Fikry! Moon child here!! ;)

That was definitely worth waiting for :) I live in one of London’s home counties too. Very interesting seeing how English has changed even since I went to school.

Question – why should there be only one “type” of English spoken? Or one type of Spanish or German or Arabic or any other language for that matter?

I have to say I prefer speaking English with my Californian American accent and slang. It’s just who I am. Why should I need to speak North Londoner English? I think by only allowinng ourselves one type of each language is so confining and boring.

haha..I’ve lived in several spanish speaking countries. I speak a mixture of “spanish”.

I also live in Miami, which is a large cosmopolitan area full of central and south american spanish speaking people.

Its interesting to hear different accents, words, slang, and so on.

I agree Christina. I am very partial to the American accent! It just would not be the same if you spoke like a Londoner!!

I do love a good British accent too, but I think American English has it’s place, as does South African, etc.

When we say “British accent”, which one are you really referring to? There at least 3 major accents, and a lot of regional accents. Some are barely comprehensible to foreigners.

There are also about 4 major American accents, but they are not too far off from each other.

Hmm… I like that there are different languages within English & I don’t think I would like to be confined to one… I would not want to always speak a proper form of English, especially when hanging with friends… I prefer to use Southern Cali slang… =) We have an interesting way of speaking & I wouldn’t want that to change…

Oh about Egyptians zey berefer anozer accent. Zey learn English like zat at zeir schools and zey sink zat zis is za best way to speak English.

I hope you all got what I mean but I was just trying to speak like an Egyptian who has learnt English at local schools in Egypt.

;)

You know I never thought about the variations one might find with any given language until becoming part of this community. Now I think about it a lot! I realized how much I enjoy hearing proper British English (accent included). I love it, and find it very charming.

While some slang has it’s place, I find that when I hear the Queen’s English I think of breeding, manners and things of that nature. I think a lot of people could use more of this in every day language. Then again there are some charming things about a casual conversation. I think a balance of them is ideal!