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Smoothing
Smoothing is a monophthongization of a closing diphthong (most commonly /eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ, əʊ, aʊ/) before a vowel sound that can occur in Received Pronunciation and other accents of English.
For example, chaos, pronounced [ˈkeɪɒs] without smoothing, becomes [ˈkeːɒs] with smoothing. Smoothing applies particularly readily to /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ when preceding /ə/, hence [faːə] for fire and [taːə] for tower, or with the syllabicity loss of /ə/, [faə̯, taə̯]. The centring diphthong [aə̯] deriving from smoothing and syllabicity loss may further undergo monophthongization, realizing fire and tower as [faː, taː] or [fɑː, tɑː], similar or identical to far, tar; unlike smoothing, this type of monophthongization (which Wells terms "monophthonging") does not require a following vowel.[1]
Smoothing can occur across word boundaries in the same conditions (closing diphthong + vowel), as in [weː aʊt] way out, [ðeː iːt] they eat, [ɡəː ɒf] go off.[2]
Some have called this "levelling,” but this is rarely used because it may be confused with dialect levelling.
