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While the research literature on regional dialect levelling is substantial (e.g. Williams and Kerswill 1999; Britain 2002; Watt 2002; Jansen 2019), this process is under-explored and under-theorised when it comes to patterns of lexical usage. Using maid as a case-study, in this article I provide a detailed account of processes of lexical levelling in Cornwall. I consider the usage of maid from two perspectives, that of onomasiology and semasiology. From an onomasiological perspective, maid, as a variant of the concept woman, exhibits socio-stylistic reallocation, with attested usages of maid in this study being limited to older speakers in careful speech styles. From a semasiological perspective, two senses of maid, ‘woman’ and ‘female servant or attendant’, have undergone structural reallocation in apparent-time with maid ‘woman’ being the prototypical sense for older speakers but a more peripheral sense for their younger counterparts.

In the current chapter, we explore the social meaning of onomasiological variation of the concept lunch box among males in the Cornish town of Redruth. Collected data point us towards the relevance of the Anglo-Cornish dialect forms crib box and croust tin in projecting speakers’ regional identity. Speakers with a stronger sense of Cornish identity recognise, and ultimately use, local dialect lexis more than those with a weaker sense of Cornish identity. Also, declining local dialect terms occur more frequently in careful speech styles of older speakers. We argue that this unexpected pattern occurs because, when speakers are highly aware that their vocabulary is being observed, they ‘perform’ their Cornish identity through Anglo-Cornish dialect lexis. This study also showcases a new methodological framework for collecting data which allows us to analyse socio-semantic variation.