How British Conversation is Changing: Resonance, Engagement, and Social Class!
Tuesday 30th September 2025, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM (London Time)
This short course explores how British people’s everyday conversations are shifting — and why it matters! Drawing on findings from the British National Corpora (1994 vs. 2014) and my recent study British Conversation is Changing (Applied Linguistics, 2024), we will look at how people re-use and acknowledge each other’s words, a process called resonance. Resonance is a powerful marker of verbal engagement: when it’s present, speakers treat one another’s talk as meaningful; when it’s absent, conversations can feel flat or disconnected.
We will discuss how resonance has increased among middle- and upper-class speakers, especially in professions tied to education, politics, and corporate life, while it has remained stable among working-class speakers. This reflects broader societal changes linked to ideologies of inclusivity, equality, and engagement in the workplace.
The course combines accessible explanations with real conversational examples, showing how shifts in interaction style can reveal changing social values. Participants will gain tools to analyze everyday dialogue, reflect on their own conversational habits, and understand how language change is not only about new words, but about how we connect with one another.
🏷️ Price £30 (UK VAT inclusive)
🎥 Recording automatically sent to all who book (even if you cannot attend live)
▶️ Rewatch as many times as you like
📜 Certificate of attendance available
Dr Vittorio Tantucci
Vittorio Tantucci is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Lancaster University and world-leading scholar in the field of Pragmatics, the study of verbal behaviour in context. His research focuses on cross-cultural and cognitive approaches to dialogue, with particular emphasis on intersubjectivity, resonance, (im)politeness, and reciprocity. He specializes in corpus-based methods and computational approaches to large datasets of real conversations to reveal how interaction changes across time, social groups, and languages.
Attend this course for as little as £22 as part of the Voice Professional Training CPD Award Scheme.
Learn MoreSorry, this is an archived short course...
We have plenty of upcoming short courses coming soon. See details of some of them below or look at the full list of short courses.
Tuesday 18th August 2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday 25th August 2026
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Tuesday 1st September 2026
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Tuesday 8th September 2026
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Tuesday 15th September 2026
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Tuesday 22nd September 2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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Musical Theatre Vocal Pedagogy Certificate
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Join Kevin Wilson for this six-part certificated course, offering an in‑depth, practical exploration of contemporary voice teaching for musical theatre. Across six focused classes, participants develop a systematic approach to vocal technique, diagnosis, and repertoire selection that reflects the stylistic, physical, and emotional demands of the genre. The curriculum integrates vocal science, embodied voice work, registration theory, and stylistic awareness across the five major sub‑genres of musical theatre.
Thursday 10th September 2026
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
(London Time)
Dalcroze Eurhythmics in the Voice Studio
Dr Tish Oney
The Dalcroze Method taught by Swiss music teacher Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) has long been valued as a tool for teaching music in group settings (ensembles, choirs, music classes, etc.) But what about its one-on-one use in the applied voice studio? Join Dr. Tish Oney for this interactive short course and learn about the history and principles of this important method of music education. Through the employ of Dalcroze movements and concepts, singers and teachers explore music in ways that can reduce tension and increase the fun of music making, while encouraging discovery of technical and theoretical skill-building practices.
Tuesday 15th September 2026
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
(London Time)
Games & Gadgets: Building Vocal Skills Through Movement & Play!
Naomi Lewandoski
How can simple tools such as exercise balls, bubbles, stretchy bands, straws, ribbons and even toilet rolls transform the way singers learn? Naomi Lewandoski is a singing teacher, voice educator, performer and workshop presenter with a passion for helping singers explore the voice through movement, curiosity and evidence-informed practice. In this interactive course she explores how games, gadgets, movement and play can help build vocal skills by creating greater awareness of how the body coordinates for singing.