Friday, April 19, 2013

Bend it like Beckham


There's been a lot of recent discussion about accommodation - the way in which we shift our language style towards, or away from, that of others - particularly in the field of politics. But, an edition of this week's Newsnight also featured some discussion about how David Beckham's voice has changed from his Estuary accent in the 90s to his apparently more "posh" tones these days.

The clip above provides a good explanation of what's happening and why, but if you want a bit more detail about it, have a look here, and if you want some more on "Estuary English" itself, you can't really get much more detail than what John Wells offers here.

Black British English vs MLE

The latest episode of Lexis is out and it features an interview with Ife Thompson about lots of issues connected to Black British English, i...