For example, in rural areas of Britain, although English is widely spoken, the pronunciation and the grammar have historically varied.
"[3] The results of the Atlas Linguarum Europae in England, collected in the late 1970s, did indeed find a reduction of lexical diversity since Harold Orton's survey.
Dialect levelling occurs mostly in socially and geographically mobile groups and in contexts where people have a tendency to adapt to their listener in order to ensure they better understand.
Though most of the adjustments happen largely unconsciously, some people are more open to language change and adaptation than others and this influences the extent to which dialect levelling takes place (Kerswill, 2003; Milroy, 2002).
Historical examples show that dialect levelling generally takes place anywhere and anytime in situations of extensive mobility and cultural and linguistic mixing.
Southern features seem to be spreading throughout the whole country and typical vowel sounds seem to be centred on big cities like Glasgow, Manchester, or Newcastle (Kerswill, 2001).
Due to an increase in mobility, migration, and the media, who portray variety in language as something positive, dialect levelling seems to take place more quickly than before (Kerswill, 2003).
A large group of working class people have moved to Milton Keynes, away from their home town and kin, in the hope of finding better housing.
They also adapt their accent, for example pronouncing the ⟨h⟩ instead of dropping it, replacing the glottal stops with [t] as in water, and changing some vowels.
Schools realise the need for a common language variety and encourage pupils to adopt Standard English (Williams, & Kerswill, 1999).
Popular media such as TV and radio stations broadcast mostly from London and the south, causing traces of southern accents to be found in the north.
Nowadays however, one finds a generally positive attitude towards different language forms as Non-Received Pronunciation English can be heard on every radio and television station.
These class-based norms influence a person's willingness to adopt standard English and Received Pronunciation and their dislike for different language varieties (Kerswill, & Williams 2000).
Over the larger area of Great Britain, geographical diffusion tends to take place as opposed to dialect levelling.
In this case specific language features spread out from a densely populated, economical and culturally dominant centre.
Where dialect levelling takes place locally, geographical diffusion covers large areas (Kerswill, 2003).