Cover not available
Part of
Norms and Conventions in the History of English
Edited by Birte Bös and Claudia Claridge
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 347] 2019
► pp. 191–212

Studying dialect spelling in its own right

Suggestions from a case study

This paper addresses the question of why historical linguistics should be interested in studying dialect spelling in its own right. It deduces a number of arguments in favour of that interest from a case study of the graphical representation of Ulster Scots in the past and present. Referring to a selection of findings from that case study and relating them to central issues of written language, the paper calls for a greater interest in the general structure and the historical development of vernacular written representations. Accordingly, it sketches a systematic framework and suggests basic research questions in support of diachronic (and synchronic) studies of what the paper delineates as “dialect graphy”.

Keywords: dialect graphy , spelling conventions , written and spoken dialect, dialect (il)literacy, Ulster Scots
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Concepts and terminology
    • 2.1Written language and spelling
    • 2.2Spelling conventions
    • 2.3Implications
  • 3.A case study of Ulster Scots
    • 3.1Why Ulster Scots?
    • 3.2Data and methodology
    • 3.3Findings
      • Feature A-(i)
      • Feature B-(ii)
      • Feature B-(i)
      • Feature A-(v)-(b)
      • Feature D-(ii)
    • 3.4Interim conclusions: The history of Ulster-Scots spelling
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 May 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.347.10wol
References
Adams, G. Brendan
(Ed.) (1964) Ulster Dialects. An Introductory Symposium. Holywood: Ulster Folk Museum.Google Scholar
Adamson, Ian
(1986) The Cruthin. The Ancient Kindred. Belfast: Pretani Press.Google Scholar
(21987) The Identity of Ulster. The Land, the Language and the People. Belfast: Pretani Press.Google Scholar
Agutter, Alex
(1988) Standardisation in Middle Scots. Scottish Language 7, 1–8.Google Scholar
Bann, Jennifer, & Corbett, John
(2015) Spelling Scots. The Orthography of Literary Scots, 1700–2000. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
(1984) Language. With a new foreword by C. F. Hockett. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. [Originally published in 1933].Google Scholar
Burridge, Kate, & Kortmann, Bernd
(Eds.) (2008) Varieties of English 3. The Pacific and Australasia. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Carney, Edward
(1994) A Survey of English Spelling. London & New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chambers, Jack K.
(2004) Dynamic Typology and Vernacular Universals. In Bernd Kortmann (Ed.), Dialectology meets Typology. Dialect Grammar from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective (= Trends in Linguistics, 153) (127–145). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Corrigan, Karen P.
(2010) Irish English. Volume 1 – Northern Ireland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coulmas, Florian
(1981) Über Schrift (= Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 378). Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Crowley, Tony
(2005) Wars of Words. The Politics of Language in Ireland 1537–2004. Oxford, etc.: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crystal, David
(2012) Spell it out. The Singular Story of English Spelling. London: Profile Books.Google Scholar
Dürscheid, Christa
(2006) Einführung in die Schriftlinguistik (= Studienbücher zur Linguistik, 8). (3rd ed.). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Falconer, Gavin
(2007) Public Policy and Scots in Northern Ireland. Scottish Language, 26, 33–51.Google Scholar
Fenton, James
(2000) The Hamely Tongue. A Personal Record of Ulster-Scots in County Antrim. Revised and expanded edition. [n.p.]: The Ullans Press.Google Scholar
(2006) Ulster-Scots in the Twenty-First Century. In Anne Smyth, Michael Montgomery & Philip Robinson (Eds.), The Academic Study of Ulster-Scots: Essays for and by Robert J. Gregg (39–43). Holywood: Ulster Folk & Transport Museum.Google Scholar
Finlayson, Alan
(1996) Nationalism as Ideological Interpellation: the Case of Ulster Loyalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 19,1, 88–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Th. A.
(1892) Eine Sammlung von Wörtern und Ausdrücken im nord-irischen Dialekt. Englische Studien, 17, 91–99.Google Scholar
Gregg, Robert J.
(1964) Scotch-Irish Urban Speech in Ulster ed. by G. Brendan Adams, 163–192.Google Scholar
(1972) The Scotch-Irish Dialect Boundaries in Ulster. In Martyn F. Wakelin (Ed.), Patterns in the Folk Speech of the British Isles (109–139). London: The Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Günther, Klaus B., & Günther, Hartmut
(1983) Schrift, Schreiben, Schriftlichkeit. Arbeiten zur Struktur, Funktion und Entwicklung schriftlicher Sprache (= Reihe Germanistische Linguistik, 49). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, James
(2008) The Ongoing Influence of Lowland Scots, Irish and Ulster English on the Developing Varieties of Ulster Scots. Scottish Language, 27, 81–106.Google Scholar
Harris, John
(1984) English in the North of Ireland. In Peter Trudgill (Ed.), Language in the British Isles (115–134). Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, John
(1888) The Scot in Ulster. Sketch of the History of the Scottish Population of Ulster. Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood and Sons.Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond
(2007) Irish English. History and Present-Day Forms. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horobin, Simon
(2013) Does Spelling Matter? Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Houston, Ann
(1991) A Grammatical Continuum for (ING). In Peter Trudgill & Jack K. Chambers (Eds.), Dialects of English. Studies in Grammatical Variation (241–257). London & New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Kingsmore, Rona K.
(1995) Ulster Scots Speech. A Sociolinguistic Study ed. by Michael B. Montgomery. With a foreword by James Milroy and Lesley Milroy. Tuscaloosa, Ala. & London: The University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Kniesza, Veronika
(1997) The Origins of Scots Orthography. In Charles Jones (Ed.), The Edinburgh History of the Scots Languages (24–46), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Koch, Peter, & Oesterreicher, Wulf
(1986) Sprache der Nähe – Sprache der Distanz. Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im Spannungsfeld von Sprachtheorie und Sprachgeschichte. Romanistisches Jahrbuch, 36, 15–43.Google Scholar
(2012) Language of Immediacy – Language of Distance: Orality and Literacy from the Perspective of Language Theory and Linguistic History. In Claudia Lange, Beatrix Weber & Göran Wolf (Eds.), Communicative Spaces. Variation, Contact, and Change. Papers in Honour of Ursula Schaefer (441–473). Frankfurt/Main, etc.: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Kortmann, Bernd, & Upton, Clive
(Eds.) (2008) Varieties of English 1. The British Isles. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lindqvist, Christer
(2001) Skandinavische Schriftsysteme im Vergleich (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 430). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lutton, William
(1923) Montiaghisms. Ulster Dialect Words and Phrases ed. by Francis Joseph Bigger. Armagh: The Armagh Guardian Office.Google Scholar
Maas, Utz
(1992) Grundzüge der deutsche Orthographie (= Germanistische Linguistik, 120). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mac Póilin, Aodán
(1999) Language, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland. Ulster Folklife. 45. 106–132.Google Scholar
Marshall, John J.
(1904) The Dialect of Ulster. Ulster Journal of Archæ-ology, 10, 121–130.Google Scholar
(1905) The Dialect of Ulster – continued. Ulster Journal of Archæology, 11, 64–70, 122–125, 175–179.Google Scholar
(1906) The Dialect of Ulster – continued. Ulster Journal of Archæology, 12, 18–22.Google Scholar
McArthur, Tom
(Ed.) (1992) The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McCoy, Gordon, & O’Reilly, Camille
(2003) Essentializing Ulster? The Ulster-Scots Language Movement. In Maria Tymoczko & Colin Ireland (Eds.), Language and Tradition in Ireland. Continuities and Displacements (156–171). Amherst & Boston: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
McIntyre, Rae
(1990) Some Handlin’. The Dialect Heritage of North Ulster ed. by Rae McIntyre. Limavady: North-West Books.Google Scholar
Meshthrie, Rajend
(Ed.) (2008) Varieties of English 4. Africa, South and Southeast Asia. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moll, Andrea
(2015) Jamaican Creole Goes Web. Sociolinguistic Styling and Authenticity in a Digital ‘Yaad’ (= Creole Language Library, 49). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, Michael, & Montgomery, Francis
(1993) The Barnish County Antrim Dialect Dictionary. Local Sayings, Words and Phrases, etc. ed. by Robert Montgomery. The Barnish: [no publisher].Google Scholar
Montgomery, Michael, & Gregg, Robert J.
(1997) The Scots Language in Ulster ed. by Charles Jones, 569–622.Google Scholar
Ó Cuív, Brian
(1951) Irish Dialects and Irish-Speaking Districts. Three Lectures. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
O’Kane, William
(1991) You Don’t Say? The Tyrone Crystal Book of Ulster Dialect. Dungannon: Irish World.Google Scholar
Patterson, William Hugh
(1880) A Glossary of Words in Use in the Counties of Antrim and Down. London: Trübner & Co.Google Scholar
Preston, Dennis R.
(1985) The Li’l Abner Syndrome: Written Representations of Speech. American Speech, 60,4, 328–336. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000) Mowr and Mowr Bayud Spellin’: Confessions of a Sociolinguist. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4,4, 614–621. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Philip
(1997) Ulster-Scots. A Grammar of the Traditional Written and Spoken Language. [n.p.]: The Ullans Press.Google Scholar
(2012) English/Ulster-Scots Glossary. A Core Vocabulary Wordlist with Verb Tables. [n.p.]: The Ullans Press.Google Scholar
(32018) Ulster-Scots. A Grammar of the Traditional Written and Spoken Language. [n.p.]: The Ullans Press.Google Scholar
Rydén, Mats
(1979) An Introduction to the Historical Study of English Syntax (= Stockholm Studies in English, 51). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de
(1995) Cours de linguistique générale. Publié par Charles Bailly et Albert Séchehaye avec la collaboration de Albert Riedlinger. Édition critique préparée par Tullio de Mauro. Postface de Louis-Jean Calvet. Paris: Éditions Payot & Rivages.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W.
(Ed.) (2008) Varieties of English 2. The Americas and the Caribbean. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Scragg, Donald G.
(1974) A History of English Spelling (= Mont Follick Series, 3). Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Sebba, Mark
(2007) Spelling and Society. The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Todd, Loreto
(1990) Words Apart. A Dictionary of Northern Ireland English. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter
(1999) Dedialectalisation and Norfolk Dialect Orthography. In Irma Taavitsainen, Gunnel Melchers & Päivi Pahta (Eds.), Writing in Nonstandard English (= Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, 67) (323–329). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Ulster Society
(1986) Ulster – An Ethnic Nation? Lurgan: Ulster Society.Google Scholar
Upward, Christopher, & Davidson, George
(2011) The History of English Spelling. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Venezky, Richard L.
(1970) The Structure of English Orthography (= Janua Linguarum, Series Minor, 82). The Hague & Paris: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiggen, Geirr
(1986) The Role of the Affective Filter on the Level of Orthography. In Gerhard Augst (Ed.), New Trends in Graphemics and Orthography (395–412). Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wolf, Göran
(2015) Dialect Spelling: A Case Study of Ulster Scots. Unpublished post-doctoral thesis.Google Scholar
Wyrod, Christopher
(2008) A Social Orthography of Identity: the N’ko Literacy Movement in West Africa. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 192, 27–44.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Markus, Manfred
2023. Phonetic spellings in the Late Modern English dialect of the Isle of Wight (based on EDD Online). Journal of Linguistic Geography 11:1 ► pp. 53 ff. DOI logo
Ronan, Patricia, Sarah Buschfeld & Manuela Vida-Mannl
2023. Multilingualism Between Identities, Ideologies, and Language Policies. In Multilingualism, ► pp. 149 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.