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Was/were variation: A perspective from London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2009

Jenny Cheshire  and
Sue Fox
Jenny Cheshire
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
Sue Fox
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
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Abstract

This article presents a systematic analysis of morphosyntactic variation in London English, investigating was/were variation in the speech of adolescents and elderly speakers in a multicultural inner London area and a less diverse outer London area. In outer London, dialect leveling to a mixed was/weren't system is well underway, as in many other areas of the U.K. Negative weren't is frequent and a grammaticalized invariant weren't it tag is developing. In inner London, variation in adolescent speech is strongly influenced by ethnicity, resulting in a lower overall frequency of was leveling and, in negative contexts, a mixed pattern of leveling to both wasn't and weren't. The patterns of variation of Anglo “heritage” inner London adolescents differ both from elderly speakers in the same area and from their peers in outer London. Our analysis confirms the need for socially realistic models of language change that take account of the social diversity of large multicultural urban cities.

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Type
Research Article
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Language Variation and Change , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 1 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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