We talked in class about the ‘Survey of English Dialects’ (SED). There are some exciting news about a new dialect project to update this most comprehensive survey of dialects in England and open its records to the public. The project has just received a £798,000 National Lottery to continue the work of the Survey of English Dialects, under the direction of Dr Fiona Douglas, University of Leeds.
This story has been picked up by a number of newspapers in the past few days (thank you to Dr Maggie Scott for pointing it out) including:
- Ian Jack writing in The Guardian (21st October) puts his own Scottish perspective on dialects (Billy has asked you to look at this for the transcription workshop for the ENG1001 class): Flattening in England, resurgent in Scotland: accents still shape our island life
- Sarah Knapton in The Telegraph (20th October) stresses that the new study will attempt to redress some of the inequalities of the Survey of English Dialects (notably by ditching its emphasis on the language of non-mobile, older, rural males or ‘NORMs’ who were seen at the time as being the custodians of an older, more traditional form of language). Women to have their voices heard in new study of British dialect
- Lastly, The Yorkshire Post has also covered the story with rather less editorialising than the national papers: Lottery grant to fund study of England’s many dialects
Happy reading!
London English 