Project aims

Birmingham City Centre

Language and Place: Birmingham

The Language and Place: Birmingham project will focus on the following:

To identify enregistered phonological, lexical and grammatical features of the BIrmingham accent and dialect
To focus on the interaction of these features with ethnic diversity, geographical stability, gender and social identity
To discover the extent to which use of accent and dialect expresses an alternative ideology
To look for language-internal and discourse-level explanations for the use of dialect in writing and performance
To add to our understanding of the relationship between dialect use associated with a specific geographical place and social, cultural and regional identities
To investigate issues of regional diversity versus national identity
To disseminate our findings among both the academic community and non-linguists.