New publication: Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change

Posted on 17 February 2022

A systematic comparative treatment of urban contact dialects in the Global North and South, examining the emergence and development of these dialects in major cities in Sub-Saharan Africa and North-Western Europe

Paul Kerswill (Emeritus Professor of Sociolinguistics, Department of Language and Linguistic Science) is co-editor of the recently published “Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change - Insights from the Global North and South”.

The book provides a systematic comparative treatment of urban contact dialects in the Global North and South, examining the emergence and development of these dialects in major cities in Sub-Saharan Africa and North-Western Europe. Focusing on contemporary urban settings, it sheds light on the new language practices and mixed ways of speaking resulting from large-scale migration and the intense contact that occurs between new and existing languages and dialects in these contexts. In comparing these new patterns of language variation and change between cities in both Africa and Europe, the volume gives us a unique opportunity to examine commonalities in linguistic phenomena as well as sociolinguistic differences both in highly multilingual settings, as in much of Africa, and in settings dominated by the strong monolingual ethos that exists in most of Europe.

“Perhaps driven by my own bicultural and bilingual upbringing, I’ve always been fascinated by the linguistic effects of migration. Having taken up the opportunity to design and edit this book, I believe my Berlin colleague Heike Wiese and I have contributed significantly to our understanding of how different sociolinguistic contexts affect language change” - Prof Paul Kerswill (Department of Language and Linguistic Science)

For additional information and to purchase a copy of this book: Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change - Insights from the Global North and South, Edited By Paul Kerswill, Heike Wiese