A Study of Rhythm in London: Is Syllable-timing a Feature of Multicultural London English?

Recent work on London English has found innovation in inner city areas, most likely as the outcome of dialect contact. These innovations are shared by speakers of different ethnic backgrounds, and have been identified as features of Multicultural London English (MLE). This study examines whether syllable timing is a feature of MLE, as work on rhythm shows that dialect and language contact may lead to varieties of English becoming more syllable-timed. We hypothesized that MLE speakers would also show suprasegmental innovations, having more syllable-timed rhythm than what has been reported for British English. Narratives as told by teenagers of different ethnic backgrounds, elderly speakers born between 1920 and 1935 and speakers born between 1874 and 1895 were extracted from interviews. The speech was segmented into consonantal and vocalic elements by forced phonemic alignment. Measurements of vocalic nPVI, as an indicator of rhythmic patterns, were calculated. Overall, the inner-London speakers were more syllable-timed than what has been found for British English. The results revealed that young speakers of non-Anglo background were significantly more syllable-timed than young Anglo speakers. The relatively low nPVI for all inner-London speaker groups may indicate the capital’s status as a centre of linguistic innovation and long-standing migration. The results of the present study combined with work on other varieties reinforces the idea that the tendency for English to become more syllable-timed is a global phenomenon fuelled by language and dialect contact

Alterations in inflammatory markers after a 12-week exercise program in individuals with schizophrenia—a randomized controlled trial

Background: In individuals with schizophrenia, inflammation is associated with depression, somatic comorbidity and reduced quality of life. Physical exercise is known to reduce inflammation in other populations, but we have only limited knowledge in the field of schizophrenia. We assessed inflammatory markers in plasma samples from individuals with schizophrenia participating in an exercise intervention randomized controlled trial. We hypothesized that (i) physical exercise would reduce levels of inflammatory markers and (ii) elevated inflammatory status at baseline would be associated with improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) following intervention. Method: Eighty-two individuals with schizophrenia were randomized to a 12-week intervention of either high-intensity interval training (HIIT, n = 43) or active video gaming (AVG, n = 39). Participants were assessed at baseline, post intervention and four months later. The associations between exercise and the inflammatory markers soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor, c-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), soluble TNF receptor 1 and interleukin 6 (IL-6) were estimated using linear mixed effect models for repeated measures. For estimating associations between baseline inflammation and change in CRF, we used linear regression models. Results: Our main findings were (i) TNF and IL-6 increased during the intervention period for both groups. Other inflammatory markers did not change during the exercise intervention period; (ii) baseline inflammatory status did not influence change in CRF during intervention, except for a positive association between baseline IL-6 levels and improvements of CRF to post intervention for both groups. Conclusion: In our study, HIIT and AVG for 12-weeks had no reducing effect on inflammatory markers. Patients with high baseline IL-6 levels had a positive change in CRF during intervention. In order to increase our knowledge regarding association between inflammatory markers and exercise in individuals with schizophrenia, larger studies with more frequent and longer exercise bout duration are warranted

Exploring low grade inflammation by soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor levels in schizophrenia: a sex-dependent association with depressive symptoms

Background - There is evidence of increased low grade inflammation (LGI) in schizophrenia patients. However, the inter-individual variation is large and the association with demographic, somatic and psychiatric factors remains unclear. Our aim was to explore whether levels of the novel LGI marker soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) were associated with clinical factors in schizophrenia and if such associations were sex-dependent. Method - In this observational study a total of 187 participants with schizophrenia (108 males, 79 females) underwent physical examination and assessment with clinical interviews (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS), Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT), and Drug Use Disorder Identification Test (DUDIT)). Blood levels of suPAR, glucose, lipids, and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) were determined and body mass index (BMI) calculated. Multivariable linear regression analyses were used adjusting for confounders, and sex interaction tested in significant variables. Results - Adjusting for sex, age, current tobacco smoking and BMI, we found that levels of hsCRP and depressive symptoms (CDSS) were positively associated with levels of suPAR (p  Conclusion - Our findings indicate that increased suPAR levels are associated with depressive symptoms in females with schizophrenia, suggesting aberrant immune activation in this subgroup. Our results warrant further studies, including longitudinal follow-up of suPAR levels in schizophrenia and experimental studies of mechanisms

Conversational Grammar- Feminine Grammar? A Sociopragmatic Corpus Study

One area in language and gender research that has so far received only little attention is the extent to which the sexes make use of what recent corpus research has termed “conversational grammar.” The author’s initial findings have suggested that the majority of features distinctive of conversational grammar may be used predominantly by female speakers. This article reports on a study designed to test the hypothesis that conversational grammar is “feminine grammar” in the sense that women’s conversational language is more adapted to the conversational situation than men’s. Based on data from the conversational subcorpus of the British National Corpus and following the situational framework for the description of conversational features elaborated in the author’s previous research, features distinctive of conversational grammar are grouped into five functional categories and their normed frequencies compared across the sexes. The functional categories distinguish features that can be seen as adaptations to constraints set by the situational factors of (1) Shared Context, (2) Co-Construction, (3) Real-Time Processing, (4) Discourse Management, and (5) Relation Management. The study’s results, described in detail in relation to the biological category of speaker sex and cultural notions of gender, suggest that the feminine grammar hypothesis is valid

Internal and external motivation in phonetic change: dialect levelling outcomes for an English vowel shift.

This article is a contribution to the debate about the primacy of internal versus external factors in language change (Farrar and Jones 2002; Thomason and Kaufman 1988). Taking Labov's Principles of Vowel Shifting (Labov 1994) as representing internal factors, we examine a vowel shift in Ashford, south‐east of London. F1 and F2 measurements of the short vowels suggest a classic chain shift, largely following Labov's Principles II and III (though Labov's assumption that London short front vowels are rising is shown to be wrong). However, corresponding data from Reading, west of London, evidence no signs of a chain shift. The two datasets show identical targets for the changes in each town. Thus, there has been convergence between the two short vowel systems – from different starting points. We argue that a dialect contact model is more explanatory than internal factors in this case of regional dialect levelling in the south‐east of England

Reversing “drift” : Innovation and diffusion in the London diphthong system.

This study contributes to innovation and diffusion models by examining phonetic changes in London English. It evaluates Sapir’s notion of “drift,” which involves “natural,” unconscious change, in relation to these changes. Investigating parallel developments in two related varieties of English enables drift to be tested in terms of the effect of extralinguistic factors. The diphthongs of PRICE, MOUTH, FACE, and GOAT in both London and New Zealand English are characterized by “Diphthong Shift,” a process that continued unabated in New Zealand. A new, large data set of London speech shows Diphthong Shift reversal, providing counterevidence for drift. We discuss Diphthong Shift and its “reversal” in relation to innovation, diffusion, leveling, and supralocalization, arguing that sociolinguistic factors and dialect contact override natural Diphthong Shift. Studying dialect change in a metropolis, with its large and linguistically innovative minority ethnic population, is of the utmost importance in understanding the dynamics of change

A corpus-based sociolinguistic analysis of indefinite article use in London English.

A corpus-based sociolinguistic analysis of indefinite article use in London English Costas Gabrielatos & Eivind Torgersen (Lancaster University) This paper reports on the analysis of the use of indefinite article forms (a/an) in front of vowel sounds in spoken London English, which formed a part of the completed project Analysis of spoken London English using corpus tools (funded by the British Academy). The study used the Linguistic Innovators Corpus (LIC), a 1.4 million word corpus comprising the transcribed and marked-up interview data from the Lancaster/Queen Mary ESRC-funded project, Linguistic innovators: the English of adolescents in London (Kerswill et al. 2008), as well as the Corpus of London Teenage English (COLT) (Stenström et al. 2002). The research methodology combined approaches and techniques from sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics. Variables were examined individually and in cross-tabulations, using both manual/semi-automated and automated techniques (logistic regression analysis). The former analysis took account of the frequency of the a+vowel pattern relative to the number of opportunities for a choice between a or an (i.e. vowel-initial words preceded by the indefinite article) and the proportion of speakers who used the pattern. The study examined both linguistic and sociolinguistic variables, but only the sociolinguistic variables yielded statistically significant results. This suggests that the linguistic variables play a minor role, if any at all, in the choice between a or an in front of a vowel sound. The sociolinguistic variables comprised the speakers’ sex, age, ethnicity and place of residence, as well as the ethnic make-up of the friendship networks. In particular the speakers’ ethnicity and place of residence, emerged as the strongest predictors of the use of a before vowels. The comparative analysis of LIC and COLT showed an almost three-fold increase in the use of a before vowel-initial words by young speakers (19% and 8% respectively). Equally striking is the three-fold change in the proportion of young speakers who use the a+vowel pattern (58% and 20% respectively). More specifically, in LIC, the majority of speakers (52%) alternate between a and an, 43% use an+vowel only, and 5% use a+vowel only. In contrast, the vast majority of COLT speakers (85%) use only an+vowel, with a small minority (15%) alternating between a+vowel and an+vowel - no COLT speaker uses a+vowel only. The indefinite article form a before vowels seems to have undergone a process of reallocation (Britain & Trudgill 1999) in which its sociolinguistic status has been realigned. While the form a in front of vowels earlier seemed to have been avoided, either because it was socially stigmatised or only formed a part of child language and L2 varieties, it is now frequently found among adolescent speakers in inner London. We argue that the indefinite article form a before vowels forms part of Multicultural London English (Kerswill et al. 2008), along with other phonological and grammatical features that have already been documented