Creating a new town koine : children and language change in Milton Keynes.

Koineization – the development of a new, mixed variety following dialect contact – has well-documented outcomes. However, there have been few studies of the phenomenon actually in progress. This article describes the development of a new variety in the English New Town of Milton Keynes, designated in 1967. The article is structured around eight “principles” that relate the process of koineization to its outcomes. Recordings were made of 48 Milton Keynes-born children in three age groups (4, 8, and 12), the principal caregiver of each child, and several elderly locally born residents. Quantitative analysis of ten phonetic variables suggests that substantial but not complete focusing occurs in the child generation. The lack of linguistic continuity in the New Town is demonstrated, and the time scale of koineization there is discussed. Finally, it is shown that demography and the social-network characteristics of individuals are crucial to the outcomes of koineization

Brit Mæhlum and Unn Røyneland: Det norske dialektlandskapet.

In setting about reviewing an undergraduate textbook on dialects in Norway, I am faced with some choices. I can evaluate its pedagogical value. Or else I can seize the opportunity to present the book for the benefit of a non-Norwegian reading audience, helping to make information about Norwegian dialects available to a wider readership. And finally, I can take the book as a piece of scholarly writing and evaluate it as such. Potential readers of this review will most likely want to know what the book tells us about language variation in what is often referred to as a ‘sociolinguistic paradise’ (Røyneland 2009) – and this is the principal approach I will take

Annen opponent

Solheims avhandling er et viktig bidrag til diskusjonen omkring koinédannelse (jf.Siegel 2001, Trudgill 2004). Det som er spennende, er at hun ikke bare har opplysningerom språkbruk i reell tid, men også førstehånds sosiolingvistiske opplysningerom stadium II (etter Trudgills modell), dvs. generasjon II (barna til de opprinneligeinnflytterne). Denne generasjonen står sentralt i Trudgills teori, da det er nettopp hersosiale faktorer, spesielt samlebegrepet “identitet”, ifølge ham fullstendig fallerbort. Solheim mener å kunne påvise at dette slett ikke er tilfellet