Northern English: A Social and Cultural HistoryCambridge University Press, 2006 M06 29 English as spoken in the north of England has a rich social and cultural history; however it has often been neglected by historical linguists, whose research has focused largely on the development of 'Standard English'. In this groundbreaking, alternative account of the history of English, Northern English takes centre stage for the first time. Emphasising its richness and variety, the book places northern speech and culture in the context of identity, iconography, mental maps, boundaries and marginalisation. It reassesses the role of Northern English in the development of Modern Standard English, draws some pioneering conclusions about the future of Northern English, and considers the origins of the many images and stereotypes surrounding northerners and their speech. Numerous maps, and a useful index of northern English words and pronunciations, are included. Innovative and original, Northern English will be welcomed by all those interested in the history and regional diversity of English. |
Contents
| 23 | |
Section 2 | 32 |
Section 3 | 36 |
Section 4 | 37 |
Section 5 | 41 |
Section 6 | 47 |
Section 7 | 53 |
Section 8 | 62 |
Section 10 | 82 |
Section 11 | 87 |
Section 12 | 88 |
Section 13 | 115 |
Section 14 | 136 |
Section 15 | 160 |
Section 16 | 169 |
Section 17 | 199 |
Section 9 | 64 |
Common terms and phrases
appears ballads Beal boundary century onwards certainly Cheshire cited common Coronation Street counties cultural Cumberland Cumbria Danelaw definite article reduction dialect areas dialogue distinctive Durham eighteenth century English dialects Estuary Estuary English example further chapter Geordie grammar Humber Ihalainen 1994 influence interestingly isoglosses John Knowles Lancashire language Leeds lexis linguistic literary Liverpool London English Manchester marked markers Melvyn Bragg Merseyside Middlesbrough Milroy Mugglestone music-hall Newcastle nineteenth century Norse North-east North-South divide North-west Northern accents Northern dialect Northern English Northumberland Northumbrian noted origin Pennines period pitmatic poem poet popular present-day pronoun pronunciation provincial regional Scandinavian Scotland Scots Scottish English Scouse Sheffield shire significant social sociolinguistic songs South South Yorkshire Southern speakers speech spelling Standard English stereotypes suggests T-glottalling towns traditional Trent Trudgill 1999b Trudgill's twentieth century Tyne Tyneside Upton usage vernacular vowel Wakelin West Riding West Yorkshire Widdowson 1999 working-class Wright York
Popular passages
Page 124 - Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.
Page 148 - s been dubbed by [AS] into RP, Received Pronunciation, please believe [AS] your speech is in the hands of the Receivers.' 'We say [AS] not [uz], TW! ' That shut my trap. I doffed my flat a's (as in 'flat cap') my mouth all stuffed with glottals, great lumps to hawk up and spit out...
Page 3 - Fortunately, at the present time, the great majority of the English Dialects are of very little importance as representatives of English speech, and for our present purpose we can afford to let them go, except in so far as they throw light upon the growth of those forms of our language which are the main objects of our solicitude, namely, the language of Literature and Received Standard Spoken English.
Page 114 - The language, too, of these men has been adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived...
Page 106 - ... or of their flexions and terminations, nor differs but by different degrees of skill or care. The oral diction is uniform in no spacious country, but has less variation in England than in most other nations of equal extent. The language of the northern counties retains many words now out of use, but which are commonly of the genuine Teutonick race, and is uttered with a pronunciation which now seems harsh and rough, but was probably used by our ancestors. The northern speech is therefore not...
Page 67 - ... out of the Latin or French, and of this different pronountiation one example in steed of many...
Page 29 - English regional snobberies are nationalism in miniature ; for it suggests that placesnobbery is not a working-class characteristic. There is nevertheless a real difference between North and South, and there is at least a tinge of truth in that picture of Southern England as one enormous Brighton inhabited by lounge-lizards. For climatic reasons the parasitic dividend-drawing class tend to settle in the South. In a Lancashire cotton-town you could probably go on for months on end without hearing...
Page 98 - I'll got' (or I'll gut',) for /'// go to; runt', for rutt to; hoost, for she shall; intle (or int'll) for if thou will; I wou'dldd'n, for / wish you wou'd, &c. But as trade in a general way has now flourished for near a century, the inhabitants not only travel,, but encourage all sorts of useful learning; so that among hills, and places formerly unfrequented by strangers, the people begin within the few years of the Author's observations to speak much better English ; if it can properly be called...
References to this book
Thinking Northern: Textures of Identity in the North of England Christoph Ehland Limited preview - 2007 |