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
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday 1st September 2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday 8th September 2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday 15th September 2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday 22nd September 2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
(London Time)
Musical Theatre Vocal Pedagogy Certificate
Kevin Wilson
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.
Tuesday 22nd September 2026
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
(London Time)
Doubles and Stacks, Reverbs and Effects: Teaching Vocal Production Skills
Kelly Hoppenjans
Vocal production, or the process of recording a voice, is a multifaceted practice requiring a diverse set of skills. It has traditionally been considered the role of the producer in a recording studio, and vocalists can often feel intimidated by learning complex technical skills or prohibited by the cost of recording equipment. This course is aimed at voice coaches and vocalists who want to learn to record and shape their vocal tracks, as well as how to teach these skills to voice students. No matter your technical experience or setup, you can record great-sounding vocals!
Monday 28th September 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Tuesday 29th September 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Wednesday 30th September 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Thursday 1st October 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Friday 2nd October 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
(London Time)
Certificate in Executive Voice Coaching and Communication
Louisa Morgan
This five-day course is designed for professional coaches who want to extend their practice into executive coaching, leadership communication, and professional corporate voice work.