Background
Dialect levelling is a linguistic phenomenon studied and observed by dialectologists and sociolinguists. There are different researcher opinions on what constitutes a dialect in this context. Chambers and Trudgill (1984) choose to view a dialect as a subdivision of a particular language such as the Parisian dialect of French and the Lancashire dialect of English. They feel that standard English is just as much a dialect as any other form of English and that it is incorrect to suppose that one language is in any way linguistically superior to another.
Sociolinguists study relations between language and social groups. This includes topics such as the differences in language usage between men and women, older and younger people, lower and higher social classes and attitudes towards various language forms. The techniques developed by sociolinguists can be used to study the phenomenon of dialect levelling (Boves, & Gerritsen, 1995).
Read more about this topic: Dialect Levelling In Britain
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