How diversity in English Language is valued. . .

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/article209405.ece - last accessed 15/09/15

It's all raait! It's a new black-white lingo

In this article linguists have discovered England's first multi-ethnic dialect; meaning that we have adapted to speaking using phrases, words and sounds from places all around the world. The most prominent ones seem to be Cockney, Geordie, Jamaican Creole and Bengali. It seems that this type of speech is becoming more and more popular amongst people in England as the cultural diversity increases. The majority of people appear to be thinking that this is a great thing for London as it is allowing people to mix with several cultures and have more diverse friendship groups. This type of speech has mostly been affecting young people and teens as they are growing through online role-models and their presence in social media. However some people think that this is not a good thing for youth as it is affecting their understanding of the standard English language.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/from-the-mouths-of-teens-422688.html - last access 16/09/15

From the mouths of teens


This article is all about how slang has become apart of everyday language for teens across England. The reporters in this article record a conversation between two teens and later got one boy from a secondary school in London to 'translate' and explain what the slang words mean. Researchers are calling this type of multicultural slang speech MLE (Multicultural London English) whereas most people would describe someone speaking this way as ''he's speaking like a black boy but he's just speaking like a London boy''. Professor Paul Kerswill of Lancaster University says that ''Adolescence is the life stage at which people most willingly take on new visible or audible symbols of group identification... fashions specific to this age group change rapidly. Fashion and music often go together, and these in turn are often associated with social class and ethnicity. The same is true of language'' This explains that teens are the most likely to have picked this up from music and fashion meaning that they have been influenced to talk this way by something/someone. The study shows that this type of language is most noticeable when they express them selves, such as when explaining a conversation ''i was like'' instead of ''i said''. Kerswill also describes this way of speaking as "It's a real dialect rather than simply a mode of speech, and there's already evidence that it's spreading to other multicultural cities like Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester. It'll become more mainstream through force of numbers and continued migration, and because it's considered cool." Where he can see that this is a new phenomenon others do not see it in that light such as one young boys mother who says "I can't understand a word he's saying sometimes''. With the way this type of dialect is growing in numbers we will soon all have no choice but to understand what is being said.