A History of the Welsh English Dialect in Fiction
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_________________________________________________________________________Swansea University E-Theses A History of the Welsh English Dialect in Fiction Jones, Benjamin A. How to cite: _________________________________________________________________________ Jones, Benjamin A. (2018) A History of the Welsh English Dialect in Fiction. Doctoral thesis, Swansea University. http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa44723 Use policy: _________________________________________________________________________ This item is brought to you by Swansea University. Any person downloading material is agreeing to abide by the terms of the repository licence: copies of full text items may be used or reproduced in any format or medium, without prior permission for personal research or study, educational or non-commercial purposes only. The copyright for any work remains with the original author unless otherwise specified. The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder. Permission for multiple reproductions should be obtained from the original author. Authors are personally responsible for adhering to copyright and publisher restrictions when uploading content to the repository. Please link to the metadata record in the Swansea University repository, Cronfa (link given in the citation reference above.) http://www.swansea.ac.uk/library/researchsupport/ris-support/ A history of the Welsh English dialect in fiction Benjamin Alexander Jones Submitted to Swansea University in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Swansea University 2018 i Summary The systematic study of language varieties in fictional texts have primarily focused upon written material. Recently, linguists have also added audio-visual genres to the analytic framework of literary dialect studies. Studies have traditionally examined writers’ lexical, phonological, and grammatical output; contemporarily, research has begun examining metalinguistic commentaries and linguistic indexing of character stereotypes to this repertoire (Hodson, 2014). Except for minor analysis of early texts (German, 2009), there has been no large- scale investigation of any Welsh English dialect in fiction. This thesis addresses this gap, asking the fundamental question: throughout history, how has Welsh English been represented in fiction? The thesis surveys a large chronological scope covering material from the 12th century until the present day across four narrative-genres: early writings and theatrical writing, novels, films, and, new to literary dialect studies, videogames. In doing so, a historical discussion forms that covers Welsh English’s fictolinguistic output, cross-referencing its linguistic forms with recorded data, identifying forms hitherto unknown to dialectological surveys, and addressing metalinguistic and attitudinal stereotypes in fiction. Key findings include that phonology was an early representational linguistic domain in the literary dialect, whilst lexical and grammatical domains became common from 19th century literature onwards. The commonest phonological and lexical features were glottal fricative drops and tapped /r/; and the endearment terms ‘bach/fach’ and ‘mam’ respectively. Grammatically, ‘Focus Fronting’ and ‘Demonstrative There’ regularly occurred. Regarding linguistic evidence, several authors and filmmakers were prolific lay surveyors of the variety, adding to the historical dialectological record. Concerning dialectal attitudes, Elizabethan playwrights used linguistic stereotyping to create character stereotypes of Welsh people as ‘comical’. By the 19th century, fictive Welsh English representation was the dominion of native-users in literature, film, and videogames; however today, the Comic stereotype, and an emerging stereotype of Welsh English users being Fantastical, appears embedded within the dialect’s representation. i ii DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed ...................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction services have been used, the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ NB: Candidates on whose behalf a bar on access has been approved by the University (see Note 7), should use the following version of Statement 2: I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loans after expiry of a bar on access approved by the Swansea University. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ iii iv Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... ix List of figures, maps, and tables................................................................................... x Reference maps ........................................................................................................... xi List of abbreviations .................................................................................................. xiii Broad transcription as used in text: Welsh English (WE) and Received Pronunciation (RP) phonology .................................................................................................. xiv Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Defining ‘Welsh English’ ....................................................................... 1 1.2 Welsh English or Welsh Englishes? ........................................................ 5 1.3 Studying Welsh English and thesis structure .......................................... 8 Chapter 2 A brief history of systematic Welsh English study ............................... 11 2.1 A.J. Ellis’ ‘Welsh English’ .................................................................... 11 2.2 David Parry’s Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects .................................... 15 2.3 Layman and non-specialist glossaries ................................................... 17 2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 22 Chapter 3 The study of dialect in fictive texts ....................................................... 24 3.1 The linguistic field of Dialect in Literature/Film .................................. 24 3.2 Literary dialect as linguistic evidence .................................................. 25 3.3 Authors’ methods for representing dialect ............................................ 32 3.3.1 Representation of linguistic domains (lexis, grammar, phonology) ..... 32 3.3.2 Use of ‘Eye-dialect’ .............................................................................. 34 3.3.3 Metalinguistic observations .................................................................. 37 3.4 Example case studies: previous scholars’ literary dialect studies ......... 38 3.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 45 Chapter 4 Perceptions and attitudes towards language varieties, the Welsh English variety, and the Welsh cultural sphere ................................................................ 47 4.1 Dialectal discrimination and language ideologies ................................ 47 4.2 Dominance and subordinance of dialectal speakers in live-action and animated film ........................................................................................ 48 4.3 Insights from language attitude studies ................................................ 51 4.4 Analyses of Welsh English attitudes and perceptions - historic ........... 54 4.5 Analyses of Welsh English attitudes and perceptions - recent ............. 56 4.6 Attitudes, perceptions, and stereotypes of Wales and the Welsh people .............................................................................................................. 58 4.6.1 The Welsh as barbarians and uncultured .............................................. 59 4.6.2 The Welsh as the Fantastical ................................................................ 61 v 4.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 63 Chapter 5 Methodology ......................................................................................... 65 5.1 Defining ‘Fictive text’ ........................................................................... 65 5.2 Research questions ...............................................................................