Watching television can be a factor in accent change

New research has provided the first evidence to prove that active and engaged television viewing does help to accelerate language change. In particular the study, funded by Economic and Social Research Council and published in the American journal 'Language', looked at how watching the television soap 'EastEnders' is altering certain features of the Scottish accent. Linguists at the University of Glasgow found two particular features of pronunciation typically associated with London English that were becoming increasingly apparent in the Glaswegian dialect among people who regularly watched the television soap opera. Jane Stuart-Smith, Professor of Phonetics at the University of Glasgow and lead researcher on the project, said: "Our study shows that the programmes that we watch on television can help to accelerate changes in aspects of language which are also well below the level of conscious awareness. "In particular, this study was investigating why certain linguistic factors that are normally found within the Cockney dialect in London were gradually entering into Glaswegian. Although this trend was apparent in people who had with friends or family living in London, there was a stronger effect for people who had strong psychological engagement with characters in EastEnders." The particular features in question are: using [f] for /th/ in e.g. think, tooth, and a vowel like that in "good" in place of /l/ in words like milk, and people. The results show significant correlations between using these features with strong emotional and psychological engagement by the viewers of this program.