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Lexis

Episode 71 - Mercedes Durham & Welsh English

Mar 22, 2025
35:28

Welcome to Episode 71 of Lexis. Lisa, Dan and guest presenter Amanda Cole talk to Professor Mercedes Durham, from the Centre for Language and Communication, Cardiff University about her work on Welsh English.

We talk about:

  • The Leverhulme Trust project "Sociolinguistic Variation in South East Wales: Change and Contact"

  • What makes Welsh English distinctive

  • Varieties of Welsh English and how they’ve come to be

  • Attitudes to Welsh English accents

  • The power of Gavin and Stacey

  • Charlotte from The Traitors

  • The Speak For Yersel project that links Welsh English to other varieties around the UK and Ireland

Mercedes Durham’s Cardiff University profile page: https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/durhamm 

Some of the coverage of the ongoing work: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2684264-whats-occurin-dialects-in-barry,-caerphilly-and-pontypridd-subject-of-academic-study 

Welsh accents: Is commuting changing how people speak? - BBC News

Wenglish: Experts research how the English language is used in day-to-day life in Wales 

The Traitors: how trustworthy is a Welsh accent? A sociolinguist explains

Welsh language: Is mixing with English causing 'erosion'? - BBC News   

The Speak For Yersel pages:

https://speakforyersel.ac.uk/wales/ 

University of Glasgow - Colleges - College of Arts & Humanities - About Us - College of Arts & Humanities news - Your voice needed as language survey expands to Ireland and Wales 

Mercedes’ favourite book about language: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/language-and-gender-a-reader-2e-j-coates/3651256?ean=9781405191272 

Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social 

Contributors

Lisa Casey 

blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

Dan Clayton 

blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social 

Jacky Glancey 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

Raj Rana

Matthew Butler 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA 

Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys 


Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

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