A Place in the Sun: the Linguistic Consequences of Lifestyle Migration to Southern Spain

This thesis explores the mixed language and dialect setting of an international school in Spain across two age groups, young children and adolescents. It aims to investigate the impact of frequent and sustained interaction between Anglo and Non-Anglo informants, and if within such a turbulent, fluid and messy speech community, processes of dialect contact can be traced. Dialect contact research to date has usually focussed upon two distinct varieties coming together in a melting pot situation, with eventual stability. This speech community is fluid and turbulent. People are joining and leaving the community constantly. The study aims to reveal that despite previous research claims that the process of koinéisation takes two or three generations (see Kerswill and Williams 2000; Trudgill 1986; 2004), a speech community such as the one in the present study shows that processes of koinéisation can be demonstrated in a shorter time span. Through the analysis of the BATH vowel and the (t) variable across the two age groups and three broad ethnic groups, the study finds evidence of focussing over time in this highly diverse speech community. It also reveals that certain social factors which have been shown to influence new dialect formation in other studies, have an impact upon variation in this rather unique speech community.