we look â commuting patterns, university attendance, participation in mobile .... Mathisen (1999: 120) showed that this variant, across appa- rent time, enjoyed .... ('face', 'make') to [æɪ]; have back rounded realisations, e.g. [Éɪ], of /ai/ ('price',.
The heterogeneous homogenisation of dialects in England1 David Britain Abstract As a result of high levels of mobility in contemporary England, one outcome of the resultant dialect contact that has been regularly highlighted in the literature is supralocalisation – the success of dialect variants that have a wide geographical currency at the expense of those which are much more locally restricted. This article begins by presenting the case for the existence of supralocalisation, but then goes on to problematize it, thereby suggesting where we must look in order to fully understand the linguistic consequences of present-day social and geographical mobility. I begin by pointing out that supralocal forms mentioned in the literature are often still minority forms in their communities, but suggest that this is understandable given the multiscalar nature of our own mobilities. Secondly, I argue that whilst mobility is often portrayed as a democratising force that is driving linguistic convergence, contemporary mobilities themselves are extremely socially differentiated. I suggest, consequently, that this diversity needs to be taken into consideration when we examine the linguistic consequences of movement – we need to ask who is mobile. Finally, I propose that we need to socialise studies of supralocalisation, which, until now, have largely ignored the dynamics of the social indexicality of supralocal forms. Both supralocalisation and mobility have been depicted as forces of convergence – this article attempts to show that the diversity of the latter undermines a simplistic view of the former. 1. Introduction In research on the English dialect landscape, there have been a number of empirical studies which have highlighted traditional dialect loss alongside 1 The ideas in this paper were first presented at the ‘Linguistic and extra-linguistic factors in the formation of regiolects’ workshop at the Universiteit Gent in November 2009. I would like to thank: both the two anonymous reviewers from Taal en Tongval and the audience at the workshop for their useful comments; Gunther De Vogelaer for his patience, and Reinhild Vandekerckhove for stimulating discussions about supralocalisation, dialect contact and dialect obsolescence that provoked this work.
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an increasing adoption of forms that have a broader regional or supralocal currency. This development has, it is argued, led to internal convergence at the regional level as local dialect differences wither away. This adoption of forms that have scope well beyond the local, and at the expense of local forms, has been labelled supralocalisation (e.g. Milroy, Milroy & Hartley 1994, Britain 2010) or regional dialect levelling (e.g. Williams & Kerswill 1999) in the Anglophone literature. It has been argued that its emergence can be explained as a result of ‘mobility, manifested in commuting and other forms of short distance travel, as well as relocation’ (Kerswill 2003: 224). The phenomenon has been noted in a number of European countries: In addition to a number of studies in England (Altendorf 2003, Britain 2005, Przedlacka 2002, Torgersen & Kerswill 2004, Watts 2006, Watt 1998, 2002, Watt & Milroy 1999), Vandekerckhove (e.g. 2002, 2005a, 2005b, 2009) discusses examples from West Flanders, Røyneland (2009) examines south-east Norway, Hernández-Campoy & Villena-Ponsoda (2009) look at supralocalisation in Southern Spain, Armstrong (2002), Hornsby (2006, 2007, 2009) and Pooley (1996) all investigate parts of France, Christen (1997) looks at Swiss German regiolect formation, Cornelissen (1999) at the Niederrhein in North-Western Germany, and, further afield, Al-Wer (1997) looks at a range of cases from across the Arab world. The aim of this paper, however, is to problematize supralocalisation studies. Without wishing to deny the process is taking place, the paper argues: firstly, that the progress of supralocalisation is in some cases rather modest and that supralocal forms, rather than having overwhelmed local variants, appear in many studies to be rising emergent forms rather than well-established majority ones. The literature suggests that supralocalisation is still very much in progress with local variants still competing strongly with their supralocal competitors. Secondly, there is evidence in some quarters of what appear to be counter-supralocal tendencies in progress, where local forms appear to be increasing and supralocal ones not gaining ground. As we will see, this evidence forces us to recognise that supralocalisation can work at many different scales and levels of localness, a fact which argues for supralocalisation as a more appropriate term for the phonemenon than regional dialect levelling since it is neutral with respect to scale above the local. Finally, I argue that supralocalisation has not been sufficiently socialised as a concept. This lack of socialisation has two dimensions: first, there has been little recognition in the literature that the mobilities that provoke supralocalisation are socially differentiated. As Adey argues, “while mobility has brought time-space compression to those who can afford it, many people cannot experience its benefits so acutely because they simply do not have access to it” (2010:92). As we will see, the mobilities mentioned by Kerswill are deeply socially differentiated and so the consequences of them will also be variable and unevenly distributed, both socially and geographically. Secondly, relatively little research has investigaBritain - The heterogeneous homogenisation of dialects in England
ted the social differentiation of supralocalisation itself, who is doing it, where, and in what historical context. Many studies suggesting supralocalisation in progress are based on data collected from just one town or city - generally we lack multi-locational studies that can provide the necessary evidence of convergence on supralocal forms. I begin then by providing evidence from the literature of, first, local dialect levelling and, second, of supralocalisation. In the context of the latter it will become clear that in the English context, at least, this is still very much in progress, supralocalising rather than supralocalised, and with the (few) multilocality studies showing on-going heterogeneity at the regional level. I end with perhaps the most important and most problematic aspect of supralocalisation – the highly socially uneven distribution of mobilities. At whichever mobility we look – commuting patterns, university attendance, participation in mobile tertiary sector employment, automobility, mobile consumption behaviours, we see that whilst we are all ‘on the move’, some are more regularly, more intensively and more diversely mobile than others. We can begin to understand the linguistic consequences of these mobilities, I would argue, only when we take into account who is engaging in them. It is not everyone to the same extent or with the same vigour. Many of the mobilities that are affecting England (and other Western societies) are disproportionately middle class and rural mobilities, and are affecting a countryside socioeconomically and culturally quite unlike the picture-postcard ‘chocolate-box’ image of a pastoral idyll, conservative, sheltered, “where nothing interesting happens” (Woods 2011: 35), but one which is itself already mobile, socially differentiated and employed overwhelmingly outside agriculture. Supralocalisation has almost solely been examined from within the dialect contact literature which, for all its virtues and advances, has not been especially sensitive to the social parameters that other variation studies take for granted. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the supralocalisation literature has largely proceeded as if the community is full of, to cite Philo (1992) “Mr Averages…men in employment, earning enough to live, white and probably English, straight and somehow without sexuality, able in body and sound in mind, and devoid of any other quirks of (say) religious belief or political affiliation” (1992: 200).
2. Evidence for dialect levelling and supralocalisation The focus on dialect contact and innovation diffusion in the dialectological literature on England has to a certain extent meant that the lens has been firmly pointed at the innovation and not the feature undergoing attrition. The spread of certain salient features across England has particularly dominated the attention of dialectologists. In many cases, however, this diffusion, charted so meticulously in recent years, has not led to dialect levelling at all, but simply Taal & Tongval 63 (2011), nummer 1; www.taalentongval.eu
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a replacement of one traditional form with an innovative one. Consequently, the rapid advance of the fronting of /θ/ and of non-initial /ð/ to [f] and [v] respectively has not led to levelling, but to replacement. Only in a few areas where localised forms of /θ/ and /ð/ existed, e.g. in the South-West where /ð/ is traditionally realised occasionally as [d] (see Piercy 2010: 232), can this change truly be seen as levelling, a true reduction in the number of variants in the community’s accent repertoire. Similarly the spread of the vocalisation of /l/ has largely simply replaced [ɫ] with [ʊ], and the spread of labiodentalisation of /r/ has replaced [ɹ] with [ʋ]. Change, yes, but not levelling (see Britain 2005, Maguire, McMahon, Heggarty & Dediu 2010). This focus on innovation diffusion, however, has also meant that there are relatively few works which focus specifically on attrition per se. One clear cut case is the attrition of rhoticity in a number of locations in the South West. In Britain (2009) I reported a number of small scale studies which showed rhoticity under decline – in St Ives in Cornwall, in urban Exeter in Devon, on the Isle of Wight off the South Coast, in Telford and Milton Keynes New Towns, and in rural Devon and Somerset (see Britain 2009: 130-133). Recent more substantial investigation by Piercy (2006, 2010) has confirmed this decline in the South-West. In research on rural and urban Dorset, she found that rhoticity was virtually absent in speakers under the age of 50. In addition, a dozen other traditional dialect features were also undergoing decline (Piercy 2010, see Britain in press for a summary), some replaced by supralocal non-standard forms, others by more standard forms. Dialects, especially it seems rural ones, in East Anglia are also demonstrating evidence of attrition. Kingston (2000) reports the decline of local traditional third person present-tense zero in rural Suffolk, and Amos (2007) shows how, on Mersea Island, off the north-east coast of Essex, the use of flaps [ɾ] for /t/ (‘better’ [bɛɾə]) and the use of generalised palatal glide deletion after noncoronals (‘few’ [fuː], ‘huge’ [huːʤ], cf RP [fjuː], [hjuːʤ]) have declined significantly across apparent time (see Figure 1). Further, Trudgill (1999a) reports the decline of a number of phonological features traditional to Norwich and East Norfolk.
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Figure 1: % use of traditional non-standard variants [ɾ] of /t/ and [uː] of /ju/ on Mersea Island, Essex (from Amos 2007). In the north of England, evidence also points to levelling in progress in some varieties. Figures 2a and 2b show the use of the local variants of /ei/ (‘face’), /ou/ ‘goat’ and /ɜː/ ‘nurse’ for working class and middle class speakers respectively in Watt & Milroy’s (1999: 35, 36, 38) research on urban Newcastle. Quite understandably, middle class speakers use fewer of these variants than the working class speakers in the same city, yet we can point to apparent time decline in both class groups, and a clear gender split, with women systematically abandoning the variants more than men. This is dramatic evidence, and with the expected social conditioning of change (see, for example, Labov 1990).
Figure 2a: The use of traditional local variants of /ei/, /ou/ and /ɜː/ respectively among working class Newcastle speakers (based on Watt & Milroy 1999)
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Figure 2b: The use of traditional local variants of /ei/, /ou/ and /ɜː/ respectively among middle class Newcastle speakers (based on Watt & Milroy 1999) Supralocalisation is less well evidenced. A robust demonstration of it would require real or apparent-time analysis of data from a number of locations all within the same apparent dialect region, with all demonstrating convergence away from locally-restricted dialect forms and towards the common adoption of some feature already enjoying a wide geographical currency. Such studies would be expensive, time-consuming, and consequently are rare. Much more common is the identification of supralocal variant adoption from one or perhaps two locations in an area, or the revitalisation of a non-standard regional form. The classic example in the literature from England was presented in a number of papers by Lesley and James Milroy and their associates on Newcastle (Milroy, Milroy & Hartley 1994, Milroy, Milroy, Hartley & Walshaw 1994, Milroy 1999, Docherty, Foulkes, Milroy, Milroy & Walshaw 1997; see Britain 2010 for an overview). They demonstrated the gradual emergence of [ʔ] for /t/ – common across almost the entire country - and the gradual decline of local [tʔ]. The emergence of glottal stop use was led, perhaps surprisingly given the perceived stigma of this form in England, by middle class young women. This same pattern, showing the emergence of glottal stop among young middle class women, was also found in Cardiff in Wales (Mees & Collins 1999) as well as in Sandwell in the English West Midlands, near Birmingham (Mathisen 1999). In the latter, another regional variant appeared to be behaving somewhat similarly, namely [ŋg] variants of stressed /ŋ/ (in words such as ‘sing’, ‘wrong’, ‘rang’). Mathisen (1999: 120) showed that this variant, across apparent time, enjoyed fairly consistent support amongst both working and middle class speakers in Sandwell, especially among women, and (only) slightly more among the working class speakers. But its use was highest amongst the 16 Britain - The heterogeneous homogenisation of dialects in England
year old speakers in her sample, and, additionally, was found most in more formal styles. Research from Cheshire, to the North-West of the Midlands, but in the same ‘West Central’ modern dialect area proposed by Trudgill (1999b: 65), found a similar reinvigoration of [ŋg]. Watts (2006) found young middle class speakers in Wilmslow using this form almost 80% of the time (while using extremely low levels for other ‘national’ non-standard forms, such as the fronting of /θ ð/ (5%)). Together, the social profile of variant choice and the rise in its use among younger speakers suggests that [ŋg] too could perhaps claim supralocal status in this region. Torgersen and Kerswill (2004) provide very convincing evidence of convergence and supralocalisation of vowel systems in the south-east of England. They examine two urban locations – Reading to the west of London, and Ashford to the South-East. An apparent time comparison of young 14-15 year old speakers with speakers in their 70s and 80s showed a systematic anticlockwise shift of vowels in Ashford, namely: the fronting of /ʊ/ (‘foot’, ‘book’); the fronting of /ɪ/ (‘kit’, ‘big’); • the lowering of /ɛ/ (‘dress’, ‘pet’); • the lowering of /æ/ (‘trap’, ‘bag’); • the backing of /ʌ/ (‘cup’, ‘fun’). • •
In Reading, however, there was much less movement: §
/ɛ/ and /æ/ were already lowered among the older speakers; there was fronting of /ʊ/; § there was slight backing and lowering of /ʌ/. §
The results of these changes, substantial in the case of Ashford, relatively minor in the case of Reading, was that the two varieties ended up with very similar short vowel systems. As the authors state: “we see that the apparent-time changes over the past two generations have resulted in two vowel systems which are remarkably similar… The reason for the absence of the chain shift in Reading is, simply, that the front vowels already had the positions in the vowel space which were the targets for the change farther east in … Kent (Torgersen & Kerswill 2004: 46).
3. Problematising supralocalisation Although the evidence base for supralocalisation is not yet substantial, the findings from the studies mentioned above, and others, all provide strong suggestions of an emerging trend. It is not my wish here to somehow deny it Taal & Tongval 63 (2011), nummer 1; www.taalentongval.eu
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is taking place or to criticise the existing research. Work currently underway in rural and urban East Anglia in Eastern England provides further evidence of supralocalisation for several more linguistic variables (Britain, in preparation). The literature is, now, significant enough, however, to begin to probe it more critically and suggest areas that need further consideration, empirical investigation and consolidation. Here I want to propose three areas where such problematisation is, I believe, warranted and deserves recognition. Firstly, supralocalisation is still very much in progress, rather than accomplished. There may be evidence that some local dialect variants are going, but they are by no means all gone. Secondly, supralocalisation, whilst working at a scale higher than the local, is multiscalar (and not necessarily ‘regional’). Thirdly, the mobilities which it is argued have triggered supralocalisation are themselves deeply socialised and not everyone is participating in them to equal extents – they do not in themselves represent the stimulus of some sort of sociolinguistic democratisation process, breaking down class and other social barriers on the way to producing a common levelled koine. Indeed these mobilities are, in fact, as we will see, strongly class-based. Finally, and a corollary of the previous point, much more research is needed to socialise studies of supralocalisation itself, such as examinations of the local implementation of supralocal forms in communities of practice, rather than the quite traditional ‘first-wave’ (Eckert 2005) variationist approaches that have been applied (albeit necessarily, at this early stage in the development of this theme of research) so far.
3.1. Supralocalisation – underway but far from complete Supralocalisation is a process and not a fait accompli. An inspection of the literature shows just how important a recognition of this is. The Newcastle work mentioned earlier identified the emergent glottal stop as a supralocal form. There is probably no better linguistic candidate to represent supralocal change than it – it is found in both rural and urban communities alike, up and down the country, with few (though notable) exceptions. Looking closer at cases where the glottal stop appears to be serving a supralocal role, however, we see that it is still a minority variant, albeit one increasing in popularity. Data from Milroy et al (1994) and Docherty et al (1997) (combined graphically in Britain 2010: 194), shows that it is only among the children in their study that the glottal stop is used more than any other variant, and even then its use does not reach 50%. Older adults, and even teenagers retain the local form more than the glottal stop. The same is true in Sandwell, where at its peak glottal stop use reaches just 30% in word final position (among the teenagers) (Mathisen 1999: 116) and Cardiff (an average of nearly 32% in word final position, with 45% in the relatively infrequent pre-pausal position) (Mees & Collins 1999: 198). Given that it is only among the children where we find glottalling as the Britain - The heterogeneous homogenisation of dialects in England
dominant variant, we must naturally await more recent studies of Newcastle to learn whether the change towards glottalling continues, or whether it is merely age grading. Research in nearby Middlesbrough (Llamas 2007, see below) suggests strongly, however, that it may well be on the increase.
The research by Torgersen and Kerswill showed clear evidence of a convergence of short vowel systems in the South-East of England. Nevertheless studies in the area have still found considerable diversity in the extent to which other convergent forms have been adopted in different parts of the region. Przedlacka’s (2002) research on ‘Estuary English’, the label given to the supralocal dialect of the South-East, for example, shows that while four of the counties surrounding London appear to be dialectally converging, they are doing so to different extents, at different speeds, for different variables. Only a minority of the variables she analysed showed no statistically significant differences between the different counties in their use of the different supralocal variants analysed, suggesting the survival of regional differentiation to some extent. This minority could, of course, potentially be seen as at least a sign of increased homogeneity, but in fact the results in these few cases sometimes showed either that the use of the apparently ‘Estuary English’ variant was low in all locations (e.g. diphthongal realisations of /i:/), or was in fairly balanced co-existence with more standard-like variants (e.g. back nuclei of /ai/). In some cases, there was no evidence of change across real time at all - both teenagers and speakers from the Survey of English Dialects born a century earlier had similar proportions of glottal stop use, reminding us, also, that levelling and delocalisation processes have been underway around London for a long time. Indeed, Ellis, writing in 1889, often comments on his inability to ‘find dialect’ (Ellis 1889: 225) around the capital. Table 1 below shows which counties from the four analysed in Przedlacka’s study showed the highest and lowest amounts of the supposedly “Estuary English” variants, and the percentage range between the highest and lowest proportions across the 4 counties. Buckinghamshire and Kent, at opposite sides of London – to the north-west and the south-east of the capital respectively – show the highest levels of apparently regiolectal forms. Przedlacka argued therefore, that “the extent of geographical variation alone allows us to conclude that we are dealing with a number of distinct accents, not a single and definable variety” (2002: 97).2 2 Altendorf (2003) finds a good deal of convergence in her data, but her sample isn’t ideal for examining regional convergence. The only working class and ‘upper’ class speakers in her sample are from London, and the non-London locations only provided data from teenagers attending grammar schools, selective schools overwhelmingly attended by upper middle class pupils. Grammar schools were abolished in most of England between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s. Nationally only 4% of pupils attend them (Coe, Jones, Searle, Kokotsaki, Kosnin & Skinner 2008: iv). No evidence, therefore, Taal & Tongval 63 (2011), nummer 1; www.taalentongval.eu
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If we needed reminding, we can still find studies of significant class variation within supposedly heavily supralocalising areas. Ryfa (2005) examined two teenage communities of practice in Colchester, Essex, one predominantly working class, the other mostly middle class, and analysed informal relaxed conversational data recorded among them. She found significant differences for many variables she analysed: the working class group were significantly more likely to: diphthongise /iː/ to [əɪ] (‘keep’, ‘feed’); lower the nucleus of /ei/ (‘face’, ‘make’) to [æɪ]; have back rounded realisations, e.g. [ɔɪ], of /ai/ (‘price’, ‘time’); realise /au/ (‘mouth’, ‘sound’) as [æə]; front /θ ð/ to [f v] respectively; glottalise /t/; drop /h/; and use [n] variants of unstressed /ŋ/. Variable Lowering of /ei/** Fronting of /ou/** Raising of /æ/** Fronting of /ʌ/** Diphthongisation of /ɔː/** Glottalling of /t/ Vocalisation of /l/** Fronting of /θ ð/ Fronting of /uː/** Diphthongisation of /iː/ Backing of /ai/ Fronting of the offglide of /aʊ/ Palatalisation of /stɹ/ Postcoronal palatal glide deletion
Most Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire Kent Buckinghamshire Kent Buckinghamshire Kent Kent Buckinghamshire Kent Buckinghamshire Kent Kent Kent
Least Essex Essex Surrey Essex Essex Essex Surrey Surrey Surrey Essex Essex Buckinghamshire Surrey Buckinghamshire/Essex
Range 54.8% 54.5% 43.9% 42.9% 35.2% 34.9% 34.9% 29.5% 18.7% 25.0% 36.3% 18.7% 50.0% 39.5%
Table 1: Supralocalisation in the South-East of England?: the counties showing the highest and lowest proportions of use of 14 linguistic variants, and the range – the percentage difference between the highest and lowest (based on data in Przedlacka 2002). ** Statistically significant differences between counties at p
