We all speak with an accent and we all speak a dialect these include both the Standard English dialect and the Modern Non-standard Dialects. There are variations of accents according to a speaker’s age, gender, ethnicity and social and educational background. The difference between standard and non-standard English is now narrowing. Accents seem to be fading in England, mainly in the south-east of Britain where there has been a great loss of a variety of accents in different areas of London. The distinctive rural voices which were more common years ago are not heard anymore. Now it seems much harder to distinguish where a person is from based on their accent. The influence of London, particularly due to commuting, has also changed accents in Britain. Other parts of England have a similar effect due to many factors. Open networking is one of the factors influencing changes to accents and dialects.
According to Milroy open and closed networks influence linguistic change. In society in Britain now there are a lot more open networks due to people commuting. People travel for work and study commitments where they meet a variety of people of different backgrounds from different areas of Britain which influence their speech. Closed networks are rarely found anymore especially since factories and mines where closed networks were predominately found have seized to exist as much in Britain. Regional accents still do exist, however they are fading. There are only a small amount of regional areas in Britain that now have closed networks therefore still have a strong accent.
There is also the influence of immigrants on communities, which have settled in parts of Britain. The Jamaican and African accent