Is there a difference in the way ‘ing’ is pronounced by people from Birmingham and the Black Country?

This chapter discusses an ethnographic study of the accents and dialects associated with the West Midlands region of the UK. The project investigated the extent to which locally based performers such as actors, comedians, folk musicians, poets and storytellers drew upon the accent and dialect associated with their locality in local, live performance events. Sociolinguists had predicted that linguistic variety in English would eventually die out, through a process known as dialect levelling. This was due to a number of factors, such as that increasing numbers of people were becoming literate in standard English and that standard English is the accent and dialect heard and read the most in print, film, TV and other media. Sociolinguistic research has also shown that speaking with a recognisable accent and dialect are correlated with social class. It is clear that dialect levelling is occurring, particularly in relation to lexis and morphosyntax.