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Dialect Levelling

This term refers to the standardisation of dialect that we are now seeing.  Traditional rural dialects are dying out and more complex urban varieties are on the rise (e.g. Estuary, Posh Scouse etc).  

Reasons for this are:

• Migration - people moving for work etc
• Ease of travel
• Globalised media - we have access to linguistic varieties from all over the English-speaking world

Greater proportion of people are university-educated- the uni experience itself mixes people from many regions (most still leave home to go, although that is lessening)

In the new specification, you may also need to think about global levelling.  It seems likely that a new Global Standard English will emerge, which will probably be different from UK Standard English.  Reasons we can ascribe to this are:

• Increased business and political links across/around the world
• The massive influence of US English via the media, the internet and Microsoft software
• Increased travel for leisure
• English’s status as a global lingua franca
• Rising economies and markets in the developing world wanting to trade with the US and other countries