LSA 2009

Paul Kerswill is a sociolinguist specialising in social dialectology with a focus on dialect levelling. His interests include dialect contact resulting from migration, the role of young people in language change, and sociolinguistic aspects of phonetics. He has conducted primary research in Norway and England and has embarked on his fourth ESRC-funded project (with Professor Jenny Cheshire, Queen Mary, University of London), entitled Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition and diffusion of a new variety. He is the author of Dialects converging: rural speech in urban Norway (1994) and co-editor (with Peter Auer and Frans Hinskens) of Dialect change: convergence and divergence in European languages (2005).