The English language today has many different dialects each person’s spoken English has unique variations. Differences in speech can be due to age, sex, health, size, personality, emotional state and personal idiosyncrasies so are dialects changing?
Dialects are changing due to the fact of people moving inside and out the country, with the constant moving of people some dialects can not be associated with one place. This makes it difficult for foreigners to distinguish which dialect is which.
The reason why dialects are seen to be changing is because of bidialectalism, this is when someone uses two dialects or accents of the same language. This is commonly seen in the youth of today as in a formal setting their dialects will change to suit the setting whereas when they are with their friends they will often switch to their non standard dialect.
Dialect leveling is a linguistic phenomenon studied and observed by dialectologists and sociolinguists. Dialect leveling is the decrease of differences in dialects, it is believed that this can be due to more people moving from rural areas into towns and cities standardizing the English language. Dialect leveling can be influenced by the different types of media. Dialect leveling occurs mostly in socially and geographically mobile groups and in contexts where people have a tendency to adapt to their listener in order to ensure they better understand.People who come to a new town adapt their language and unconsciously leave out local language elements so that the hearer will understand them better.
Some relevant research (bibliography needed). To improve, really think about the task, which was to write an article or blog post and then try and meet the needs of the GRAPE. Some of this is quite academic and wouldn't be good in the exam because there you have to show your skills in transforming content from academic register to writing that is accessible for a more general target audience e.g. Guardian readers.
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