NEA: investigation ideas part 1
In this, the 1000th post on EngLangBlog (OMG), I'll run through a couple of quick ideas for language investigations based on recent stories in the news or language posts elsewhere. 1. Changing UK accents and dialects. The stories in the press and on the radio last week about the Sound of 2066 report were fascinating and worrying in equal measure. The report itself can be downloaded here and is a really good read (and very useful for anyone studying Change and Diversity for the new A level course). It looks at what English might look and sound like in 50 years and traces some patterns that have already been established - abbreviations, borrowing and simplification of sounds - to see what is likely to occur as time goes on. Here's a nice clip of the report's authors talking about their predictions. There are several language investigations in there, I think. One might be to consider one or two variables in your own family and the ways in which these might have changed acro...