Of accents and dialects and registers (was: Of accents & dialects)

On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:04:13 -0400, Eldin Raigmore
<eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:
>On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:50:26 +0100, R A Brown
><ray@...> wrote:
>>[snip]
>>In these days of universal education and mass communication, most people
>>in such places are 'bilingual', i.e. they speak dialect among those
>>around them, but in situations when a wide audience is aimed at then
>>they'll speak more or less standard English with some regional coloring
>>in pronunciation.
>>In my last job before I retired one of my colleagues came from the
>>Toxteth area of Liverpool. He spoke standard English with a marked
>>regional accent - he referred to it as "poshed up Scouse" - i.e. the
>>phonology was partially modified to smooth out, so to speak, the more
>>extreme differences between Scouse & RP (and the syntax and vocab were,
>>of course, standard). But his wife told me that when he's with his
>>brother then he's actually speaking Scouse and is almost
>>incomprehensible to us southerners.
>>[snip]
>[snip]
>I have noticed among nearly all of my acquaintances that their speech
>conforms more closely to whatever 'lect they happen to share with their
>interlocutors whenever they have a common 'lect, and to Standard Average
>American English whenever they don't have a common 'lect.
>My own speech, when speaking to another Texan, is markedly more Texan,
>than when speaking to other Michiganders.
>[snip]
When this sort of thing happens, doesn't what was previously a "dialect"
or "accent", start to segue into a "register" instead?
Also, when accents and dialects are used in certain types of songs or stories
or plays or sermons etc., don't they segue into "genres"?