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Language Variation and Change, 22 (2010), 69–104
...
00
doi:10
...
It addresses the question of whether these varieties have been converging,
diverging, or maintaining equilibrium as a result of endogenous and exogenous
phonetic and phonological changes
...
Our analysis suggests
that although there has been an obvious reduction in regional variation with the
loss of traditional dialects of English and Scots, there has not been any significant
convergence (or divergence) of regional accents of English in recent decades,
despite the rapid spread of a number of features such as TH-fronting
...
Of the Traditional dialects, he stated (p
...
These dialects differ
very considerably from Standard English, and from each other
...
112229)
...
We would also like to thank the reviewers of this paper for their very helpful (and extensive)
comments
...


Concerning the Mainstream dialects, he noted that they are primarily associated, in
Britain, with the southeast of England, with urban areas, with areas were English
has been introduced relatively recently (e
...
, the Scottish Highlands), with younger
speakers and “with middle- and upper-class speakers everywhere” (p
...

Compared with the Traditional dialects of English, he suggested (p
...
” Trudgill (1990) defined the differences between dialects of
English, Traditional and Mainstream, using carefully chosen, example phonetic and
phonological features, and summarized the results of these analyses in two maps
(pp
...
35, 67)
...
Thus we might question why
Trudgill chose the features that he did and consider whether the results would be
the same if an entirely different or larger set of features were to be analyzed
...
6–7]) and are
incapable of comparing Traditional and Mainstream dialects at the same time
...
Comparing English in England with English in Australia, Trudgill
suggested (p
...
Trudgill
suggested that the kind of divergence seen in earlier stages of English and in
other Germanic languages is unlikely to be repeated in Australia, and the same
could just as easily be said for Mainstream dialects in England too
...

Instead, Trudgill envisaged a state of affairs, already apparent in some parts of
Britain such as the southeast of England, where there is a “spreading out of
urban dialect speech to form new dialect areas” (p
...
Trudgill projected a
possible course of development of English dialects along these lines in a map of
“future dialect areas” (p
...
Although Trudgill suggested that this future development may involve
a degree of convergence between varieties at the regional level—so that, for
example, Tyneside and Middlesbrough English become more similar (if not the
same)—he is at pains to point out that this does not mean that everyone will
soon end up speaking the same throughout England (p
...


T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

71

Trudgill painted a vivid and complex picture of variation and change in varieties of
English in Britain
...
In particular, it describes a method for the simultaneous
comparison of many varieties of English at the phonetic level and for the
quantification of differences between them
...
In so doing, we hope to
clarify the patterns that lie behind Trudgill’s outline of change and to set the
findings of our own analysis in context so that the patterns revealed can be better
understood
...
Trudgill identified a wide range of changes in Norwich English in the
second half of the 20th century and suggested that these changes have come
about as a result of three different forces at work
...
Homogenization toward “a national mainstream,” which Trudgill identified “as
the result of the influence of RP and of other varieties of English English
generally” (p
...
This homogenization mostly consists of redistribution of
vowel phonemes, such that their lexical distribution more closely matches
Received Pronunciation (RP) and London English (p
...
138)
...
Homogenization between (nonstandard) varieties of English which is “bringing
Norwich English into line with other regional accents” (p
...
Changes of
this type include H-dropping, TH-fronting, and labiodental pronunciation of /r/
...
Endogenous change—changes that are absent “from RP and from neighbouring
dialects” and which are “spontaneous” and “internally produced” (Trudgill,
1999:134)
...
134–135)
...


relations with other varieties of the language
...
If homogenization of Norwich
English with other regional varieties of English predominates, a similar loss of
distinctiveness may result, although things may in fact be more complex than
this, as the studies discussed in the following sections indicate
...
Much of this paper will involve discussion of
how we determine the overall effects of these kinds of change
...
149) that the three varieties are, to a certain extent at least, converging “in both
inventory and realisations,” while they are, at the same time, retaining features that
distinguish them (especially Hull in the north)
...
149) as “a process whereby differences between
regional varieties are reduced, features which make varieties distinctive
disappear, and new features emerge and are adopted by speakers over a wide
geographical area
...
The result of both of these processes is what
Kerswill (2003:223) called, more specifically, regional dialect leveling
...

Kerswill (2003) identified change in the pronunciation of the FACE lexical set in
the northeast of England as a likely case of leveling
...
[ɪə] is highly localized
whereas [eː] is characteristic of a much larger geographical area (northern England
and Scotland)
...
Unlike geographical diffusion, Kerswill suggests that one
feature of leveling is that leveling changes establish themselves “simultaneously
throughout a given region” (p
...

An important aspect of regional dialect leveling is that it is, as its name suggests,
conceived of as a regional rather than a national (or indeed international)
phenomenon
...
As an example of this, Kerswill

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

73

(2003) and Torgersen and Kerswill (2004) highlighted the convergence of the
entire short vowel system in two varieties of southeastern English (Ashford and
Reading) which were formerly characterized by rather different pronunciations
of their short vowels
...
g
...
g
...
The effects that some of
these changes have when confronted with rather different, regional phonological
systems, and the overall consequences of regional dialect leveling and how we
might determine this are discussed below
...
They identified three variants of FACE and four
of GOAT: traditional variants [ɪə] and [ʊə] (and possibly [ɵː]); variants [eː] and
[oː], which are characteristic of much of northern England and Scotland; and [eɪ]
and [oʊ], which are really only characteristic of the speech of middle-class
speakers
...
” In effect,
this means that highly localized [ɪə] and [ʊə] are disappearing, and pan-northern
[eː] and [oː] are becoming the default pronunciations of FACE and GOAT in
Tyneside English
...

Watt and Milroy (1999:25) ascribed these changes to a process of “dialect
leveling” in Tyneside, whereby “variants characteristic of a larger area than the
Tyneside region appear to be spreading at the expense of extremely localised
variants
...

The effect of this disruption is the “eradication of socially or locally marked
variants” (ibid
...
Watt and Milroy
(1999:42) remarked on how sharp gender differences are still maintained despite
the overall reduction in variation, and note that, although these developments in
Tyneside English may be part of the establishment of a leveled, koiné variety
characteristic of northern England, this does not mean that the variety that has
developed is in any sense “pan-English” (p
...
Furthermore, some young
speakers use what look like traditional forms “as a symbolic affirmation of local

74

WA R R E N M A G U I R E E T A L
...
37)
...
”
It is worth pointing out at this stage that the developments Watt and Milroy
identified in FACE and GOAT are only the latest stages in a long history of
change
...
” Figure 1 illustrates the considerable lexical redistribution
that fed into the patterns identified by Watt and Milroy
...
The highly localized lexical distribution of phonemes in the traditional
dialects has been transformed into one which is shared over a much wider part
of the English-speaking world and which is much closer to standard varieties of
English (see Maguire, 2009)
...

Thus in Tyneside English, we have, for these features at least, a long history of
change, involving lexical redistribution of phonemes, reduction in highly localized
variants, adoption of pan-regional variants and of (perhaps standard) variants from
further afield, combined with reinterpretation of local features for the projection of
particular identities
...
How we might more fully come to
understand the nature of these changing relationships is discussed further in
Consequences of Change
...
Although he suggested (p
...
Although a wide range of consonantal and vocalic changes
are spreading to this area, Britain suggested that the effects of these changes might
be rather different when they are introduced to areas characterized by phonological
patterns not found in the southeast of England
...
The development of the FACE and GOAT lexical sets in northeast England
...
He found that all of these innovations except STRUT-fronting are found in
the Fens, but the three locations typically differ in the extent to which they are
present
...
For example, L-vocalization is much less advanced in the east where
clear /l/ was a traditional feature of the dialect (even though it is not for young
speakers today)
...

The result of this innovation is that in the west [ɑɪ] ∼ [ɑː] can occur everywhere,
but in the center and east, the difference between the variant before voiceless
consonants (typically [əɪ]) and the variant before voiced consonants and
morpheme boundaries (where [ɑɪ] ∼ [ɑː] is possible) has been accentuated
...
It might be
argued that the varieties in the Fens are becoming more similar to varieties in
southeast England as a result, but even these varieties once had [θ] (see Kerswill,
2003, for evidence from the SED), so it could be argued that the Fens are simply
catching up with a change that does not affect overall relations between varieties in
the long term
...
The
continued (and increased) distinctions between the prevoiced and prevoiceless

76

WA R R E N M A G U I R E E T A L
...
Because the varieties (particularly
the eastern and western ones) also differ across a whole range of phonological and
morphosyntactic variables, it appears to be the case that “at the end of the
twentieth century, extensive diffusion coexisted alongside local and regional
differentiation” (Britain 2005:1017)
...
Although they identify a number of features that seem to have their
origin outside of Glasgow—for example TH-fronting and “Cockney-style” Lvocalization (in words such as feel and milk)—these are used alongside
traditional dialect features such as monophthongal /ʉ/ in the MOUTH lexical set
and traditional “Scots” L-vocalization (in words such as all and hold)
...
found that younger working-class speakers combine use of
features of exogenous origin with continued (and in some cases increased) use
of traditional Scots features
...
(2007:248) commented that:
Taking Glaswegian in the overall U
...
context, we might think that this is dialect
levelling in its broadest sense (Kerswill, 2003), and in time, this may be the
outcome
...


A number of issues are identified as important in this mixing of new and traditional
features, including projection of a young, local, working-class Glaswegian identity
and a rejection of middle-class practices and values
...

Consequences of change
It is clear from the previous discussion that changes in British English have been
far-reaching and complex
...
Despite these varieties sharing many
changes, they have not all become the same
...
As was discussed, the kinds and proportions of
different changes will have an important influence on the relations between
varieties
...
If, on the other hand, the
same exogenous changes affect different varieties, convergence might be the
outcome if those changes predominate
...
On the other hand, the leveling of localized patterns at
different locations is undoubtedly going to affect the relationships between
varieties
...

In particular, he noted (p
...
Few researchers have been able to demonstrate its opposite— divergence or
diversification— in local varieties
...
Is it possible for there to be neither convergence or
divergence, but a maintenance of the status quo? That is, might varieties,
through a combination of endogenous and exogenous changes, remain relatively
equidistant from each other, even though the details change considerably? The
case studies discussed suggest that this might be possible (although we cannot
tell for sure)
...
We label this kind of change dynamic equilibrium
...
It is possible that various kinds of change may
combine and “cancel each other out,” at least in terms of the overall relationships
between varieties
...
It is obviously not possible to identify changes in
relationships between varieties without comparing more than one variety
...


order to determine the nature and direction of changes in relationship between
varieties, we suggest that the following steps are necessary:
1
...

2
...

3
...

4
...


Thus we argue that to determine whether divergence or convergence (or neither)
have taken place it is essential that we develop methodologies that look beyond a
single geographical location and a particular set of features that may or may not
be important for defining overall relationships between varieties
...
In
the rest of this paper, we outline a method for doing precisely this and examine
what it can tell us about changing relationships between varieties
...
This method shares with other
dialectometric methods a concern with quantifying the similarities and
differences between varieties in an objective way, but it differs from methods
such as that described in Nerbonne, Heeringa, and Kleiweg (1999) and
Nerbonne and Heeringa (2001) in that it prioritizes linguistic accountability over
computational simplicity
...
A full description of this
method can be found elsewhere;1 in summary, this approach has four steps:
1
...

2
...

3
...

4
...
, 2005;
McMahon & McMahon, 2005; McMahon et al
...


This method is particularly well suited to analyses of the sort desired here because it
is capable of comparing numerous varieties of a language at the same time (e
...
, RP
with Tyneside, RP with Liverpool, RP with Glasgow, Tyneside with Liverpool,
Tyneside with Glasgow, Liverpool with Glasgow)
...
In the following sections, we discuss a number
of issues that were not covered in the previous papers, because they are the result
of further developments to the method, developments which should help us to
answer the questions posed at the beginning of this article
...
As was noted in in the
introduction to this article, it is essential that such a comparison avoids
preselection of features, because this would give us at best a limited insight into
the relationships between the varieties, and at worst leads us into a kind of selffulfilling prophecy whereby we find that the features selected for analysis are
exactly those that appear to be important
...
Given
that we hoped to cover a wide range of varieties of English and other Germanic
languages, and given that our method requires the comparison of (Germanic)
cognates, the most straightforward and feasible way of getting the data we
required was by using a word list
...

The word list wish list
...
the discussion of Trudgill’s analysis of
English dialects)
...


This does not mean, however, that the members of the word list were selected at
random
...
The comparison mechanism requires that all of the words compared are cognates
in all of the varieties analyzed
...
As it is our intention to develop a method that is applicable beyond varieties of
English—so that, for example, (varieties of) English can be compared to
(varieties of) German—these cognates must be shared by English and its
Germanic relatives (see McMahon & McMahon, 2005, and McMahon et al
...


Therefore, it follows that all words in our cognate list stem from the inherited
Germanic lexicon; indeed their original Proto-Germanic forms stand as a “nodeform” through which we can match up their modern phonetic reflexes precisely,
to ensure that we are comparing “like with like” between all the present-day
varieties (see McMahon et al
...

Because our method depends crucially on the comparison of cognates across a
wide range of Germanic varieties (including regional dialects of many languages),
this considerably restricts the number of possible cognates, because not all are
attested in every variety
...
Thus a word
such as water is excluded because the Scandinavian languages reflect the ProtoGermanic stem *watnan whereas the West Germanic languages reflect the ProtoGermanic stem *watar (Orel, 2003:451)
...
The full word list is reproduced
in Table 1
...
The word list
ice
in
is
knee
lamb
leaf
liver
long
mid
milk
moon

mother
mouse
mouth
nail
naked
name
needle
new
night
nine
north

oak
one
open
out
oven
over
quick
rain
red
right
ring

salt
see
seven
sharp
sit
six
snow
sore
stone
stool
storm

swear
tear
ten
thing
thorn
three
thunder
toe
tongue
tooth
top

two
warm
wash
what
white
wind
wool
word
yard
year
young

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

81

categorizing varieties of English (and other Germanic languages), so that
preselection of features was not an issue
...
This was done by comparing the frequency
of selected phonological features (in particular initial consonants and stressed
vowel phonemes) in our word list with a standard word list—the Thorndike and
Lorge (1944) list of the 1,000 most frequent words in a range of English texts
from both sides of the Atlantic
...
The frequency of particular features in
our word list and in the Thorndike and Lorge word list are compared in Table 2
and Figure 2
...
3 The discrepancies that do exist may well
be attributable largely to the etymological restrictions placed on our word list
(entirely Germanic in origin, with no French loans)
...
g
...

Thus despite their different origins and intentions, these two word lists are very
similar in terms of the frequency of stressed vowel and initial consonant phonemes,
which suggests that our word list is a reasonable representation of the sound
patterns of English
...


TABLE

2
...
0

...
0

...
9
1
...
8
1
...
8
1
...
7
2
...
7
2
...
9

...
0

...
7
3
...
1
2
...
6
3
...
1
2
...
3
2
...
6
3
...
5
5
...
4
5
...
4
6
...
1
9
...
1
10
...
8
24
...
7
1
...
0
8
...
0
3
...
2
8
...
9
6
...
1
6
...
8
19
...


82

WA R R E N M A G U I R E E T A L
...
Comparison of the frequency of RP initial phonemes in the Sound Comparisons
(SC) and Thorndike and Lorge (TL) word lists
...
(2007),
it was initially felt that the best way to get data for a range of varieties of
English was to approach experts in particular dialects and ask them to provide us
with transcriptions that would be representative of the working-class accents
found at particular locations
...
4
Although these data were very much what we required, and are included in our
analysis, there were a number of issues with this approach to data collection that
meant that we moved away from it in favor of collection of primary data
ourselves
...
In many
cases, much was known about particular features in a given accent but, pending
further research, it proved difficult to find experts who were confident in
providing accurate transcriptions of our full word list in particular accents
...
Secondly, the transcriptions received in
this way were, despite the best efforts of the contributors, rather diverse in their
interpretation of our transcription requirements, such that some transcriptions
were more detailed and others were more normalized
...
This was not always easy, despite being done in discussion with

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

83

the contributors, and it was felt that this process added an extra level of subjectivity
which might be avoided were other methods of data collection to be employed
...

Audio recordings were made of native speakers of varieties of interest reading
the word list
...

Once the data had been collected, a narrow segmental phonetic transcription was
made by a single specialist in English dialectology and phonetics (the lead author of
this paper) to avoid transcriber isoglosses
...
6
It is clear that readings of word lists are never going to be the same as vernacular
speech, but by the same token, nor are they a necessarily inaccurate reflection of (a
subset of) the linguistic patterns present in the speech community
...
With reference
to H-dropping, for example, speaker JB (F, born 1962) from North Devon dropped
[h] twice in the 12 H-initial words, whereas speaker SA (M, born 1968) from
Rossendale in Lancashire dropped [h] in all H-initial words
...
Many other
speakers produced equally localized pronunciations, suggesting that for many
speakers reading need not necessarily suppress the vernacular—see Stuart-Smith
et al
...
In any case,
because we are comparing like with like, any effect of reading on the kind of
speech produced should not affect the overall results
...
Given that we wished to cover a wide range of geographical
varieties of English in the most economical way possible (using a word list), it is
also clear that the same depth of analysis of social variation in each speech
community would not be possible
...

We therefore decided to gather, in many of our regional locations, not just one
but multiple recordings, categorized in broad subvarieties, to provide some
insight into apparent time change in modern English
...


84

WA R R E N M A G U I R E E T A L
...
Although there is undoubtedly considerable variation
among speakers at any given location, it was assumed that relative to other locations
it is possible to find speakers who are typical, in terms of their speech patterns, of
their speech community
...
Where
only one representative speaker was recorded in the locality, a phonetic
transcription of that speaker’s word list reading was used in our comparison;
when more than one speaker was recorded at a location, a single representative
speaker was transcribed or, in cases where there was noticeable variation
between speakers, a composite transcription was made that included the most
typical pronunciation form of each word
...

The Traditional subvariety
...
In all three of these (rather different)
locations, he has regularly encountered (and continues to encounter) traditional
dialect pronunciations of a sort familiar from traditional dialect surveys but which
are often peripheral to modern sociolinguistic studies
...
Obvious examples include [ɜʉl] ‘old’ and [ët] ‘eat’ in Tyrone, [niˑt] ‘night’
and [uˑt] ‘out’ in Newcastle, and [ɡïd] ‘good’ and [meˑəɾ] ‘more’ in Edinburgh
...
Nevertheless,
it is clear that these kinds of pronunciations form a part of the speech of speakers
in many locations across the British Isles, and indeed are particularly salient
...
As such, and
because the data available to us from traditional dialect surveys such as the SED
are not compatible with our word list or transcription methods, it was decided
that an attempt would be made to gather, where possible, traditional dialect
pronunciations of this sort at many of the locations surveyed in this project
...
To overcome this problem,
the following approach was adopted:
1
...

2
...

3
...


T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

85

4
...
g
...

5
...

6
...
”8
7
...
It was usually immediately obvious whether or not the
speaker was familiar with the pronunciation in mind
...
g
...

The confidence some speakers had in identifying their “broader,” “local”
pronunciations was often striking
...
” Pairs produced included
[bɹʌðɚ] ∼ [bɹɪ¨ðɚ] ‘brother’, [kʰɐʏ] ∼ [kʰʉː] ‘cow’, [fɑ¨ ðɚ] ∼ [fɛˑðɚ] ‘father’,
[fʏt] ∼ [fɪ¨t] ‘foot’, [hɛːd] ∼ [hid] ‘head’, [hoˑm] ∼ [heˑm] ‘home’, [hɐʏs] ∼
[hʏs] ‘house’, [hʌndɹət] ∼ [hʌnɚ] ‘hundred’, [wʌn] ∼ [ jɛ¨ n] ‘one’, [ jɑ¨ ːɹd] ∼
[ jɚːd] ‘yard’
...
Perhaps most instructive of all, and typical of many speakers who have
comfortable command of traditional dialect pronunciations alongside more
standard ones, was an older male speaker from the West End of Newcastle Upon
Tyne, who, when asked to read the word list, said the following:
[Speaker]: Well I’ll say them what I … you know, I’m not being broad or nowt, I’ll not
say them me eh … I’ll just say the way I talk [tʰäːk]
...
I mean to talk [tʰɔːk] to you, I
would say all this [ɔːl l ̪ɪs]
...

[Interviewer]: OK
...
g
...


reading the word list as he might read aloud generally and reading it as he might
pronounce the words in more informal circumstances
...
We consider this
Traditional subvariety to be equivalent to Trudgill’s Traditional dialect type
...
Nor is it our assumption that this version of the word list in
some sense represents the “actual” way these speakers talk; rather it represents
one part of a continuum of variation in the speech community, a part which may
well represent the final stages of the move away from traditional dialect in
Britain and elsewhere
...
As one of the aims of this research is to determine
whether recent changes in British English have affected the relationships between
varieties, it was deemed necessary to sample the speech of younger speakers at our
locations where this proved possible
...
Note that these speakers were not chosen on linguistic grounds, so
that in some cases (e
...
, Berwick) their speech did not differ dramatically from
their older counterparts, whereas in others (e
...
, Edinburgh) they did
...
We consider our
Emergent subvarieties to be roughly equivalent to Trudgill’s urban-focused
incipient varieties of English
...
Note that in some instances, especially where
informants were few in number, a single speaker may have provided both
Typical and Traditional versions of the word list
...

In the following section, we examine the results of the comparison of these
varieties
...

RESULTS

The result of the comparison between these varieties of English is a matrix
expressing the percentage similarity (or conversely, difference) between each
pairwise comparison
...
, 2007:126,
for an example) require further interrogation and manipulation for the patterns

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S
TABLE

Variety
Belfast
Berwick
Black Country
Bristol
Buckie
Buxton
Coldstream
Cornhill
Dublin
Edinburgh
Fermanagh
Glasgow
Hawick
Holy Island
Lewis
Liverpool
London
Longtown
Manchester
Middlesbrough
Morley
Morpeth
North Antrim
North Devon
Norwich/Norfolk
Renfrewshire
Rhymney
Rossendale
RP
Sheffield
Shetland
Somerset
SSE
Stoke
Tyneside
Tyrone

87

3
...


within them to be revealed
...
In Investigating multidimensional relationships, we analyze the
multidimensional relationships that hold between the varieties more fully
...
(2007:130–133 in particular), one method of
representing the complexities in such matrices in a visually interpretable way
without oversimplifying the data is to use network-type phylogenetic analysis
programs, which draw trees where the relationships in the data are treelike, but
draw networks when the relationships between varieties are more complex
...


FIGURE

3
...


Splitstree 4 (Huson & Bryant, 2006) has proven especially suited to displaying the
complex relationships between dialects and languages as encoded in similarity
matrices
...

Similarity of varieties to RP
The mean differences, along with standard deviations, between all the Traditionals,
all the Typicals, and all the Emergents in our sample from RP are given in Table 4
...
Thus our data, in an apparent time
interpretation, suggest that there has been no movement toward RP English in

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S
TABLE

Mean distance from RP
Standard deviation

89

4
...
171

...
114

...
114

...
There is, however, a significant
difference between the similarity of the Typicals and Emergents to RP on the
one hand and the similarity of the Traditionals to RP on the other, with RP being
considerably less similar to the Traditionals than the other subvarieties
...

Investigating multidimensional relationships
In this section, we compare the similarity of all the Traditionals, Typicals, and
Emergents with each other
...
The first of these networks illustrates the relationships between the
Typical and Traditional subvarieties, whereas the second illustrates the
relationships between the Typical and Emergent subvarieties
...

Figure 4 illustrates the relationships between the Typical and Traditional
subvarieties at those locations where both of these subvarieties were sampled in
the British Isles
...
The distance between any pair of varieties is
represented by the shortest distance along the lines between them—thus this
network reveals, for example, that the distance between Typical Hawick and
Typical Coldstream is rather small (as we might expect, given their geographical
proximity), but the difference between Traditional London and Traditional
Antrim is relatively big (again not surprising given their geographical locations)
...
A good example of this is the
different behavior of Typical Devon and Emergent Devon in Figure 5
...
Emergent Devon, on the

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WA R R E N M A G U I R E E T A L
...
Network illustrating the relationships between the Typical and Traditional
subvarieties
...
The fact that Typical Devon and
Emergent Devon are, despite their different relationships with other varieties,
rather close to each other, is indicated by the reticulation that joins them; but this
reticulation does not change the relationship between Dublin and London
...

Looking in detail at the network in Figure 4, it is clear that there is a major split
between, on the one hand, a set of varieties made up of Typical and Traditional
Devon, Typical and Traditional Scottish, Typical and Traditional Northern Irish,

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

91

5
...


FIGURE

and Typical Dublin, and, on the other hand, all other Typical and Traditional
English varieties along with Traditional Dublin
...
We suggest that this
split is the result, at least in part, of the presence versus absence of rhoticity—
the inclusion of Devon Typical and Traditional on the (otherwise) Scottish/Irish
side of the split may well be a result of these subvarieties being rhotic, whereas
the other English varieties are nonrhotic
...

As might be expected, geographically proximal varieties tend to be closer
together in the network than geographically distant ones (cf
...
Of particular interest, given the questions raised throughout this paper,
are the relationships between the Typical and Traditional subvarieties for each
location
...
g
...


are further away from other varieties than the Typical subvarieties are
...
For
example, there is a clear distinction between the rather homogeneous Scottish
Typicals, which we might term “Scottish Englishes,” and the more diffuse Scottish
Traditionals, which we might term varieties of Scots (see Corbett, McClure, &
Stuart-Smith, 2003:2–4, for a discussion of this distinction)
...
the findings in Glauser, 1974, on the crystallization of
the Scottish/English linguistic border)
...
Dublin Typical
finds itself between the Northern Irish varieties and Devon on the rhotic side of the
split, whereas Dublin Traditional lies between London and Liverpool, but is not
particularly close to either of them (or anything else)
...
In this case,
the position of Dublin Traditional is very likely explicable in terms of features
(such as lack of rhoticity, glottal replacement, lenition) which it shares to varying
degrees with Liverpool and London (see Hickey, 2005)
...

In sum, then, the network which illustrates the relationships between the Typical
and Traditional subvarieties shows a strong signal for rhoticity and reveals that the
Typicals are, by and large, closer to each other than the Traditionals (see Table 5 for
details)
...
In most cases, the paired Typicals and
Emergents are found close together in the same part of the network, and it does not
appear to be the case that the Emergents are any closer together than the Typicals
(in fact in some cases, e
...
, London and Berwick, they are slightly further apart)
...
It seems likely that this rather striking pattern also reflects (at least in part)
rhoticity, because the varieties on the top side of the split are consistently rhotic,
whereas those below the split are nonrhotic, or are only variably so—see Romaine
(1978) and Stuart-Smith (2003) for the loss of rhoticity among younger speakers in
(urban) Scotland
...

One simple way of assessing this is to examine the similarity relationships that
hold between varieties for each word entered into the comparison
...
Emergent Edinburgh compared with Typical Edinburgh and Emergent Berwick
...
Comparing Emergent Edinburgh in this way,
with two varieties from each side of the major split in the network, allows us to
assess which words are involved in the apparent time movement of Emergent
Edinburgh toward the English varieties
...
Higher scores on the x and y axes indicate
higher similarity for the words concerned
...
In many of
the words where Emergent Edinburgh and Emergent Berwick are more similar,
historical postvocalic /r/ was, but no longer is, present in these two Emergent
subvarieties (whereas it is present in Typical Edinburgh)
...
This suggests that the
“move” of the Scottish urban Emergents is a consequence of one major
structural change: the loss of rhoticity in these varieties
...

Table 5 summarizes the average distances between all the Traditionals, between
all of the Typicals, and between all of the Emergents
...
Although the networks
give us a very useful visual interpretation of the (changing) relationships
between the varieties, they do not (and are not intended to) tell us what exactly

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WA R R E N M A G U I R E E T A L
...
Average distances within the groups of subvarieties
Between Traditionals

Between Typicals

Between Emergents


...
053


...
046


...
040

constitutes a statistically significant difference between varieties
...
” Therefore, we
need to compare the distances between the first set of varieties, d(Si, Sj ), 1  i,
j  n, against the distances between the second set of varieties, d(Sk,Sl ), n þ
1  k,l  m
...

To be more explicit, we will consider in detail one of the cases described later,
namely the differences between Traditionals and Typicals in the LAX case (i
...
,
only for those locations where at least two types of variety were recorded)
...
22 and a standard deviation of
...
We did
the same for the 20 Typical varieties, resulting in 400 (= 20 × 20) distances
between all pairs of such varieties, with a mean of
...
046 (see also Figure 8)
...
78) = 19
...
2·10−16, but the resulting p value would be too liberal because our data
violate the assumption of independence of observations
...

A way to address this issue is to use randomization tests (Edgington, 1987),
which are robust to the independence assumption being violated, and to the data
not being normally distributed
...

We report results for two broad cases, depending on the number of speech
varieties collected at each location:
1
...

2
...


Using the one-way randomization ANOVA and t tests described previously, we can
assess the significance of various groupings of speech varieties, and of the

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

95

7
...

TRAD = Traditional; TYP = Typical; EMG = Emergent
...
The box plots in Figures 7 and 8 show the distances for
all pairwise comparisons within each of five relevant groupings of speech varieties
...
Likewise, Figure 8 plots the same distances, but for
the LAX case
...
We have
also used randomization independent sample t tests (see note 11) to compare
these distance groups with each other (e
...
, the distances between all Typicals
against the distances between all Traditionals)
...
Table 6 shows
the pairs of distances that are significantly different (after multiple testing
correction)13 in the LAX and STRICT cases
...


FIGURE 8
...
TRAD =
Traditional; TYP = Typical; EMG = Emergent
...
The significance level used
is
...

TABLE

6
...
This means
that, as the networks and box plots indicate, the Emergents are not significantly more
or less similar to each other than are the Typicals are, whereas the Typicals and
Emergents are significantly more similar to each other than are the Traditionals
...

CONVERGENCE, DIVERGENCE, OR DYNAMIC
EQUILIBRIUM?

This paper examines the changing relationships between varieties of English in the
British Isles as a result of endogenous and exogenous changes
...

Rather, we have argued, we must use methods that examine not individual
features or individual varieties in isolation but the behavior of a wide range of
linguistic features in a wide range of different varieties at the same time
...
Our method first rates the similarity of
phonetic transcriptions of a standard word list in pairwise comparisons of
varieties from across the British Isles
...
Using up to
three subvarieties from many locations, this method has revealed five key patterns:
1
...

2
...

3
...

4
...

5
...


Thus our methodology gives us different answers, depending upon which period of
development (in apparent time) we look at in the history of English
...
Items 4 and 5, on the other hand, do not
...
This finding accords with the

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WA R R E N M A G U I R E E T A L
...
Although the
Emergent subvarieties are very slightly less similar to each other than the
Typical subvarieties, this difference is not significant, and it is likely that it has
other causes
...
(2007)
...
An apparent
time interpretation of this situation suggests that there has been a marked
convergence of varieties of English at some point in the past, in the transition
from traditional English and Scots dialects to modern accents of English
...
Two processes
that might explain this change were identified earlier: geographical (innovation)
diffusion and leveling
...
Furthermore, as Trudgill (1999) pointed out,
exogenous changes can have different sources, such that some changes have the
effect of making varieties more similar to the “national mainstream” (including
RP), whereas others bring varieties into line with other regional accents
...
This is
particularly so with leveling changes, which eradicate highly localized variants
(by their nature nonstandard), leaving features that are shared by a range of
varieties (which may ultimately be of standard origin)
...
Clearly
[ɑɫ], [aːd], and [ɐʉl] are highly localized and hence may be subject to leveling,
leaving [oɫd], [old], and [old], which, not coincidentally, are nearer to RP
English [əʊɫd] phonetically and phonologically
...
This may well explain why our Traditional subvarieties are further from
RP than the Typicals and Emergents, and this difference need not indicate that
speakers have moved toward RP English directly
...
The differences between varieties

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

99

are being reduced (cf
...
Although the term
“regional dialect leveling” seems suitable for this change, an alternative term,
“dialect death” (see Britain, 2009), might be more appropriate, given the
wholesale restructuring of the lexical incidence of phonemes and change at all
linguistic levels that underlies this convergence
...
Although traditional dialect pronunciations do
still survive, for some speakers at least (see The ‘Traditional’ sub-variety), a
number of factors suggest that the transition from traditional dialect to modern
varieties of English is not really an ongoing change for the vast majority of the
population and has not been for some time
...
Second, our own methods for eliciting traditional dialect
pronunciations make no claim as to how commonly used these pronunciations are,
and this is also the case with traditional dialect surveys such as the SED or Ellis
(1889)
...

Comparing Typical and Emergent subvarieties
When we compare the Typical and Emergent subvarieties, we find that there is no
significant evidence for overall convergence or divergence
...

That the introduction of patterns of exogenous origin is possible without
convergence was discussed in above
...
This is not to say that
our Emergent subvarieties are the same as the equivalent Typical ones
...
Things have not stood still in recent
decades
...

But might it be the case that the overall similarity of the Typicals and the
Emergents is obscuring changes in the relationships between varieties at the

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WA R R E N M A G U I R E E T A L
...
In order to answer this question fully, a much larger sample of (sub)
varieties would be needed from a variety of British regions
...
If we compare the three
varieties in the northeast of England for which we have both Typical and
Emergent data (see Table 7), there is still no evidence for convergence between
them (cf
...
If anything, the Emergents are
less similar than the Typicals, although the small number of varieties involved
means that the significance of this pattern is impossible to gauge—see Lack of
divergence above for some suggested reasons for this difference
...
Table 8 indicates that although the
London and Norwich Emergents are somewhat less similar than the London and
Norwich Typicals, Devon Emergent is rather more similar to both the London and
Norwich Emergents than Devon Typical is to the London and Norwich Typicals
...
One of the features that
Devon Emergent shares with London and Norwich but which Devon Typical
does not is that it is a largely nonrhotic variety
...
In Table 9, the similarity of the southern
varieties to each other is calculated without including those words which
contained historical coda /r/, hence factoring rhoticity out of the equation
...

Thus like Edinburgh, the apparent change in similarity between Devon and
other varieties appears to be a symptom of one major phonological change—the
loss of rhoticity
...

Thus there is no evidence in our data (which is admittedly limited in this respect)
for convergence at the regional level
...
The similarities of northeastern varieties

Berwick—Tyneside

Berwick—Middlesbrough

Tyneside—Middlesbrough


...
90


...
90


...
91

T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S
TABLE

101

8
...
87

...
83

...
84

...
The effect of loss of rhoticity
Devon—London

Devon—Norwich


...
89


...
89

determine whether this holds true for English in Britain more generally and to
evaluate the reality of Trudgill’s future dialect areas
...
The data we have analyzed here support Trudgill’s scenario, at
least to an extent—there has been a significant convergence in the transition
from traditional dialects to modern varieties of English
...
demonstrated,
change, both endogenous and exogenous, is complex and can have unexpected
results
...
The result
is that varieties change, often in similar ways, but can remain just as distinct as
they ever were—that is, they are in a state of dynamic equilibrium
...
Trudgill’s comments about Australian English)
...
This paper is
only a first attempt to address this complex issue in a quantitative fashion
...
Likewise,
we have only analyzed a rather limited range of speakers which, we hope, gives
us some insight into change (or lack of it) in apparent time
...


desirable that this analysis should be broadened to include strictly comparable
samples of speakers at each location, something which we have begun to do at
two urban locations, Newcastle and Edinburgh
...


NOTES

1
...
(2005), McMahon and McMahon (2005), McMahon
et al
...
(1999), and Nerbonne and Heeringa (2001)
...
languagesandpeoples
...
htm
...
But not for traditional dialects, thanks to surveys such as the SED
...

3
...

4
...
Peter Trudgill provided
Typical and Emergent transcriptions for Norwich and a Traditional transcription for rural Norfolk
...

5
...

6
...
com/
...
Note that for many such speakers, these sorts of pronunciations go well beyond a few lexicalized
survivals, perhaps used to signal local identity, in the way many residents of Newcastle Upon Tyne
might refer to Newcastle or Newcastle United, as the [tʰuːn] (Toon/Town), but never refer to other
towns in this way (see Beal, 2000:349)
...
It follows that the fieldworker must be aware, in advance, of the kinds of traditional pronunciations
to be expected in each area
...
Note the speaker’s use of [tʰäːk] when referring to his “mates”, as opposed to [tʰɔːk] in reference to
the interviewer (the lead author)
...
A randomization independent samples t test of TRAD-RP versus TYP þ EMG-RP finds that the
difference is very highly significant ( p =
...
171)
...
114)
...

11
...
g
...
As an example, for a
one-way randomization ANOVA, such a statistic is Σi (T2i /ni), where Ti is the total and ni is the
number of observations in group i (Edington, 1987:71–74)
...
g
...
Finally, after a large
number (in our case, 10,000) of such randomized values have been computed, the “original” value is
compared to their distribution and, if an extreme (very low or high), then the original structure of the
data was probably not due to random sampling (for details see Edington, 1987)
...
05 or
...

12
...
g
...

13
...


T H E PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E O F E N G L I S H D I A L E C T S

103

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...

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...
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Britain, David
...
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...


...
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Corbet, John, McClure, J
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Hickey, Raymond
...
Dublin English: Evolution and change
...

Holm, Sture
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A simple sequentially rejective multiple test procedure
...

Huson, Daniel, & Bryant, David
...
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Kerswill, Paul
...
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...
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...

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...
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...

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...
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