Dialectologia Et Geolinguistica and Dialectologista, Possibly Surrounded by a ‘Wheel’ of Transla- Tions in the Main Languages, Members Favoured the Second Version

2012 · Volume 20 D ialectologia et Geolinguistica Journal of the International Society for Dialectology and Geolinguistics

Editors Astrid van Nahl Scandinavian Department University of Bonn Am Hof 1d 53113 Bonn E-mail: [email protected]

Wolfgang Viereck University of Bamberg Germany

Editorial Support Shane Walshe Executive committee Nominating committee President Martin Haase, Germany (by office) Maria-Pilar Perea, Spain Fumio Inoue, Japan Mihaela Koletnik, Slovenia Vice-Presidents Jožica Škofic, Slovenia Hans Goebl, Austria Astrid van Nahl, Germany (by office) Chitsuko Fukushima, Japan Eveline Wandl-Vogt, Austria Manuela Nevaci, Romania

Treasurer Christina Schrödl, Austria

Secretary Ruth van Nahl, Germany

Chief-Editor Astrid van Nahl, Germany

Editorial Board Gotzon Aurrekoetxea, Spain Peter Ernst, Austria Hans Goebl, Austria Fumio Inoue, Japan John Kirk, United Kingdom Jean Le Dû, France Nicolae Saramandu, Romania Agris Timuška, Latvia Shane Walshe, Switzerland Seosamh Watson, Ireland Contents / Sommaire / Inhalt

Articles / Articles / Aufsätze Wolfgang Viereck, The International Society for Dialectology and Geolinguistics: A Brief History ...... 3 Michael Pearce, Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear...... 5 Alenka Valh Lopert and Mihaela Koletnik, Expressing local identity through radio discourse...... 26 Claudine Chamoreau, The geographical distribution of typologically diverse comparative constructions of superiority in Purepecha ...... 37 Aleksandar Mikić and Vesna Perić, Origin and diversity of the words denoting some traditional Eurasian pulse crops in Mongolic and Tungusic ...... 63 Daniel Meschenmoser and Simon Pröll, Automatic detection of radial structures in dialect maps: determining diffusion centers ...... 71 Warren Maguire, Mapping The Existing Phonology of English Dialect ...... 84 Anika Falkert, La dialectologie perceptuelle: problèmes et perspectives ...... 108

Reviews / Comptes rendus / Besprechungen Dieter Stellmacher: Wörterbuch der Volkssuperlative von aalglatt bis zappen- duster. Zusammengestellt und herausgegeben von Guido Oebel. Teil I: Wörter- buch, Teil II: Begleitband, Hamburg: Dr. Kovač 2011 ...... 130 Dieter Stellmacher: Sarah Dessì Schmid, Jochen Hafner & Sabine Heinemann (Hrsg.), Koineisierung und Standardisierung in der Romania (Studia Romanica 166). Heidelberg: Winter 2011 ...... 132 Olga W. Babikowa: Elisabeth Knipf-Komlósi: Wandel im Wortschatz der Minder- heitensprache. Am Beispiel des Deutschen in Ungarn. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2011 ...... 137 Jean Le Dû: Patrice Brasseur, Atlas Linguistique et Ethnographique Normand, t. 4, Caen, Office Universitaire d’Études Normandes (OUEN), 2011, non pagi- né, cartes 1069–1400 et suppléments ...... 140 Wolfgang Viereck: Peter Trudgill, Sociolinguistic Typology. Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity. Oxford: University Press, 2011 ...... 142

The International Society for Dialectology and Geolinguistics: A Brief History

When, in mid-1990, an international congress of dialectologists was held at the University of Bamberg an enormous interest in this field became evident. About 170 papers were presented there by scholars from more than 20 countries, with four thick volumes of congress proceedings subsequently being published in the first half of the 1990s by the congress President Professor WOLFGANG VIERECK and his team. It thus seemed quite an appropriate time to discuss the foundation of a society. First steps in that direction were taken in 1990 and 1991 with the publi- cation and distribution of a Bulletin containing the society’s statutes as well as some information on sister associations and congresses. Some discussions, first in Florence, centered around the name of the society’s journal. Of the three proposals Dialectologica et Geolinguistica, Dialectologia et Geolinguistica and Dialectologista, possibly surrounded by a ‘wheel’ of transla- tions in the main languages, members favoured the second version. The front page of the journal was expertly designed by Dipl. Ing. and architect GERNOT DIETEL and the first two numbers were printed from camera-ready copy by Lincom Eu- ropa, Munich. The printing then went to Italy, namely to Edizioni dell’Orso in Alessandria. Since no. 10/2002 the society’s journal has been printed, at the President’s suggestion, by Mouton De Gruyter in Berlin. From the first issue down to no. 11/ 2003 the computational production of the journal and the Bulletin lay in the expert hands of Mrs LIESBETH DIETEL, secretary at the Chair of English Linguistics and Medieval English Literature at Bamberg University. In the Bulle- tin of 2003 Professor Viereck expressed his sincere thanks to them as well as to Dr. BIRGIT BRIETZ, Prof. Dr. GABRIELE KNAPPE, Dr. SHANE WALSHE and Mr. KENNETH WYNNE for their unfailing support during all these years. Professor Viereck was editor of our journal from no. 1/1993 to no. 11/2003. The first President of our society was Professor MARIO ALINEI who acted in this capacity until 1997 when, at our second congress in Amsterdam, Vice-President Professor WOLFGANG VIERECK was elected his successor. Professor Alinei was not present at the society’s first congress in Budapast where Professor Viereck had to take over his role at very short notice. In 1997 GABRIELLA GIACOMELLI also stepped down as Secretary and Treasurer. That was really at the last moment. She would have ruined our society had she stayed on for another year or two. She used certain tricks so that her annual financial reports could not be checked however hard we tried. She also employed a student assistant and paid her with the society’s money. The result was that, when Dr. BIRGIT BRIETZ took over as Treas- urer, the society had nothing but serious debts. It was only with the help of the Rector of Bamberg University, the support of the Society of Friends of Bamberg University and a handsome contribution from the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy in Uppsala that our society and its journal survived.

4 The SIDG: A Brief History

The first congress of our society was held in Budapest in April 1993, organised by Professors JENŐ KISS and SANDOR ROT. Due to financial difficulties, no congress proceedings were published. Further congresses followed, namely in Amsterdam in 1997 (organised by Professors JAN BERNS and JAAP VAN MARLE, who also edited its proceedings), in Lublin in 2000 (organised by Professor STEFAN WAR- CHOŁ, who also edited its proceedings), in Riga in 2003 (organised by Professor AGRIS TIMUŠKA, who also edited its proceedings), in Braga, Portugal, in 2006 (badly organised by Professor BRIAN HEAD; unsurprisingly no proceedings were published), in Maribor in 2009 (organised by Professor MIHAELA KOLETNIK, who also edited its proceedings). In 2012 the society will meet at the Austrian Acad- emy of Sciences in Vienna. At our congress in Riga in 2003, some members were elected for a number of positions: Professor WOLFGANG VIERECK was elected Honorary President; LARS- ERIK EDLUND (Sweden) became the new president and Professor GRAHAM SHOR- ROCKS (Canada) the new editor. The appointment of the new editor turned out to be a real catastrophe. With the new President, the society did not fare much better; he resigned from this post in early 2006. During all these years, the society faced, after the financial crisis, another difficult period. But, again, there was hope. Dr. ASTRID VAN NAHL of Bonn University kindly accepted the position as editor. Ever since no. 12/2004 she has devoted much time, energy and money to producing our journal and always on time. Indeed, it is due to her unfailing efforts during the last decade that the society’s journal is well respected. Following Pro- fessor Edlund’s resignation Professor Viereck accepted the presidency again for a short period. The society needed someone who could fill the vacancy till the next elections. These elections took place at our next congress in Braga in September 2006. Since that time, Professor MARTIN HAASE has been the society’s President; he stepped down in 2012 when, in Vienna, Professor MARIA-PILAR PEREA was elected our new president. Dr. ASTRID VAN NAHL continued as editor of Dialec- tologia et Geolinguistica; she has been supported by Professor Viereck officially since the Maribor Congress in 2009. During Wolfgang Viereck’s Presidency, our Society received UNESCO recogni- tion and is now a full member of CIPL, the Comité International Permanent des Linguistes. Our journal enjoys an excellent reputation. It has been highly rated on several occasions by the European Science Foundation. Manuscripts are now offered to us and they are peer-reviewed; we no longer have to ask for them as we had in the first years of the journal’s existence. Our volumes could easily be thicker, only financial restrictions do not allow that. To sum up, our society has had its ups and downs, but it is now alive and well. Hopefully it will continue to enjoy the same reputation in future. Only then will it attract more members and officers dedicated to its scholarly aims. Bamberg, 2012

Wolfgang Viereck (Honorary President)

DiG 20 (2012), 5–25 DOI 10.1515/dialect-2012-0001

Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear

Michael Pearce

Abstract

This article explores folk-perceptions of dialect differences within Tyne and Wear, North East England. It presents a qualitative analysis of responses to an online survey in which participants offered their descriptions of linguistic variation. These richly detailed comments are used in the composition of a nuanced picture of lay perceptions of linguistic variation in the region.

1. Introduction

My ongoing research into the perceptual dialectology1 of North East Eng- land has shown how ‘the folk’ – that is, ordinary people with no linguistic training – inhabit a complex landscape in which perceived differences in speech map onto elements of the region’s static and dynamic geographies. I have found that features such as roads, rivers, buildings and hills are identified by people as marking out, and sometimes even forming, cultural boundaries, and that territories on opposite sides of these boundaries are associated with different forms of speech (Pearce 2009 and 2011). Further- more, when I compared these perceptual areas with ‘production’ areas (based on locally salient linguistic features, see Pearce 2009: 178‒188) I found that in North East England, people appear to possess high levels of metalinguistic awareness about actual variation in space. In this article I address the precise nature of this metalinguistic awareness by presenting findings from an online survey completed by 165 people from Tyne and Wear.2 Some of the questions (the answers to which were reported in

______1 Since Dennis Preston’s pioneering work in the 1980s and 90s, perceptual dialectology (PD) is now a well-established approach in the study of ‘folk linguistics’ (a term used to describe the beliefs and attitudes about language held by ordinary people). Most intro- ductory works in sociolinguistics have something to say about PD. For example, Meyer- hoff defines it as “the study of people’s subjectively held beliefs about different dialects or linguistic varieties”, a study which “complements the regional dialectologists’ more objective focus on the way people are recorded as speaking” (2006: 65). There are useful overviews in Preston (2010) and Montgomery & Beal (2011). 2 Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in North East England, formed in 1974. It consists mainly of the urban areas of Tyneside (centred on the city of Newcastle-upon- 6 Michael Pearce

Pearce 2011) focused on issues of cultural identity and affiliation in relation to the two largest cities in the North East: Newcastle-upon-Tyne (hereafter Newcastle) and Sunderland, and the nature of the ‘borderland’ between the two. One question was designed to elicit respondents’ descriptions of the speech of people in Tyne and Wear, in particular the differences between the speech of people in the two cities, and it is the responses to this question which I report on in this article.3 Since language is central to individual and group identity – acting as a “psychosocial rallying-point” (Edwards 2009: 55) – it is not surprising that the folk-picture of territoriality, ‘bordering’, division and rivalry uncovered in my research (Pearce 2011) has a linguistic dimension. Only two respondents who took the survey suggested that there are no differences between Newcastle and Sunderland speech. The rest were prepared to describe and evaluate differences at varying levels of specificity, citing a range of linguistic features. In section 2, I provide an overview of folk descriptions of the differences claimed by respondents, beginning with phonology, followed by grammar and lexis, and concluding with prosodic and paralinguistic features. In section 3, I consider folk evaluations of difference. In order to place these perceptions in their dialectological context, where possible I link them with production evidence of geographical distribution drawn from a variety of sources, in particular the basic materials of the Survey of Eng- lish Dialects (SED) and the associated Linguistic Atlas of England (LAE); the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (DECTE); the Mil- lennium Memory Bank archive (MMB) at the British Library, Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (EDD) and Burbano-Elizondo 2008 (the most extensive study of Sunderland dialect so-far produced). Addi- tional material, illustrating both ‘actual’ production and metalinguistic awareness, is gleaned from publicly available postings on social network sites and message boards.4 ______

Tyne) and Wearside (centred on the city of Sunderland). Before the reorganization of county boundaries in 1974, parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne were in the county of Northumberland and parts south of the Tyne were in County Durham. Demo- graphic details of the respondents are in Pearce (2011: 11). 3 The question was: “What are the differences between people from Sunderland and Newcastle in the way they speak? Think about the way words are pronounced and distinctive words people use.” 4 DECTE is at the University of Newcastle ‹http://research.ncl.ac.uk/decte/›. MMB is hosted by the British Library at ‹http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Millenium- memory-bank›. An online version of the English Dialect Dictionary has been developed by researchers at the University of Innsbruck ‹http://www.uibk.ac.at/anglistik/projects/edd- online/›. Examples of online discourse are taken from the social network sites MySpace and Bebo, and the message boards of Tyne and Wear’s biggest football clubs: Sunderland A.F.C. (www.readytogo.net) and Newcastle United F.C (www.newcastle-online.org). Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 7

Fig. 1. Map of Tyne and Wear (source: Wikipedia)

2. Folk descriptions of dialect differences

Perceptual dialectology has often been concerned with the examination of attitudes towards and evaluations of linguistic variation, using methodolo- gies which are good at capturing spontaneous reactions. But as Røsstad points out “less weight has been given to informants’ responses that are based on thoughtful consideration” (2009: 97). The tables in this section indicate that when respondents are allowed the time and space for ‘thoughtful consideration’, they often display a level of metalinguistic awareness which might not have been anticipated, describing differences at the “mul- tiple levels of linguistic structure” identified by professional linguists as salient in differentiating dialects, including “syntactic construction, prosodic or intonational contours, lexical inventory, and phonological realization” (Nygaard 2005: 397).

2.1. Phonology

Table 1 records respondents’ perceived phonological contrasts between the dialects of Newcastle and Sunderland in the form of their semiphonetic respellings. This technique is widely used to represent ‘marked’ varieties of spoken English in various written genres (particularly literature), so it is not surprising to see it being used by people to express their perceptions of accent. In addition to respelling, some respondents gave more extended accounts of their auditory perceptions, as in these examples: 8 Michael Pearce

(1) … with a longer ‘a’, extra vowel. (2) I think the ‘ee’ sound is ‘higher’ the closer to Newcastle you get. (3) … distinctive elongated vowels. Generally speaking, respondents were imaginative and thoughtful in their attempts to describe speech sounds, although some did express their frustra- tion with the task: (4) Can’t think how to write the Sunderland version. (5) I can’t explain how it’s said.5

Table 1: Perceptions of phonological variables Variable ‘Newcastle’ ‘Sunderland’ a. FOOT vowel in or- ‹book›‹boook›‹boouk ‹bewk›‹boeok› ‹booock› thographic ‹-ook› ‹buck› ‹buk› ‹boook› ‹boowk› ‹bouk› ‹buke› ‹buok› ‹buwk› ‹cewk› ‹lewk› b. GOOSE vowel ‹schoool› ‹skul› ‹skule› ‹schewl› ‹schooool ‹schuol› ‹skuul› ‹scuel› ‹skewel› ‹skewl› ‹skuil› ‹schewel› ‹skuool› c. MOUTH vowel ‹aboot› ‹hoose› ‹broon› ‹brown› ‹dawn› ‹down› ‹doon› ‹oot› ‹toon› ‹tuun› ‹tawn› ‹pouund› ‹town› ‹toooon› d. Initial [h] ‹at› ‹ere› ‹howls› ‹oover› ‹ula oops› e. The vowel in ‘make’ ‹maik›‹taik› ‹mack›‹mak› ‹tack› ‹tak› and ‘take’ ‹myak›‹tyak› f. FLEECE vowel ‹cappucceeno› ‹greeen› ‹cheasy› ‹cheys› ‹jeens› ‹cappucceino› ‹grein› ‹jeins› g. LETTER and ‹Amaandaah› ‹compewter› COMMA ‹borga› ‹computa› ‹Peetaah› h. The vowel in the first ‹curry› ‹hurry› ‹kurri› ‹cerry› ‹herry› ‹kerry› syllable of bi-syllabic ‹Murray› ‹herry› ‹Merry› words rhyming with ‘curry’ i. GOAT vowel ‹herm› ‹lifeburt› j. NURSE vowel ‹borga› ‹korb›

______5 Comments from the survey have been lightly edited for ease of reading. Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 9

What the respellings and the more extended descriptions reveal is people’s willingness to engage with the details of phonological variation. Table 1 presents perceived differences in order of saliency (the most re- marked upon differences appear first). The first column lists the variable and the second gives examples of respellings used by respondents to represent pronunciations associated with speakers from each city. I now describe these phonological perceptions, linking them with production evidence of geographical distribution drawn from a variety of sources. (a) One of the most frequently mentioned differences was the FOOT vowel in words ending in orthographic ‹-ook›. This is typically [ʊ] (e.g. RP). But in some accents of the north of England, words which have ‹-ook› in the spelling are pronounced with a long back vowel [uː]. The perceptual consensus here associates the shortened vowel with Newcastle speakers and the unshortened vowel with Sunderland, and there is some production evidence to support this perception: [ʊ] is the more widespread vowel, but some speakers (particularly to the south of the region) preserve the more traditional [uː] in these words (see Llamas 2001, cited in Burbano-Elizondo 2008: 285). (b) Some respondents also commented on the GOOSE vowel, often reflecting the perception that the ‘typical’ Newcastle pronunciation is the monophthong [uː] (or perhaps longer, as respellings such as ‹schoool› and ‹schoooool› suggest), whereas spellings such as ‹schewl› and ‹scuel› are attempts to capture a contrasting realization believed to be characteristic of Sunderland speech. One possible interpretation of these spellings is that this vowel is perceived as realized in Sunderland as a diphthong. Burbano- Elizondo (2008) reports on a categorical use of the monophthong [uː] in her Tyneside sample from the DECTE corpus. A monophthong was also very common amongst her Sunderland speakers (occurring 96.6% of the time in GOOSE words), but it was “frequently more fronted”, approaching either [ʉː] or [ʏ:] or very occasionally [ɵ:] (Burbano-Elizondo 2008: 292). Diph- thongal realizations were very rare (3.4%), but interestingly 40% of these occurred in the word ‘school’. It appears that there is some production evidence to support the claim that a ‘non-[u:]’ vowel – particularly in the word ‘school’ – is a marker of Sunderland speech. (c) One of the most well-known shibboleths of Newcastle speech is the MOUTH vowel. The ‘traditional’ dialects of Scotland and the far north of England preserved a pre-Great Vowel Shift monophthongal [uː] in words belonging to this set. But this pronunciation has been receding throughout the twentieth century, and only a small number of older, male, working- class speakers tend to use it in North East England today. Contemporary production evidence from the MMB suggests that the great majority of speakers use the diphthongs [əʊ], [aʊ] or [ɛʊ] for most words in this set 10 Michael Pearce

(Pearce 2009: 179–184; Beal 2004: 124). Nevertheless, some respondents associate this pronunciation in particular with Newcastle speech, offering these respellings: ‹toon›, ‹tuun› and ‹toooon› for ‘town’; ‹broon›, ‹doon›, ‹aboot›, ‹hoose› for ‘brown’, ‘down’, ‘about’ and ‘house’. In contrast, standard spelling is generally used to show Sunderland pronunciations. Use of standard spelling implies a diphthong, as might these semi-phonetic respellings: ‹dawn›, ‹tawn›, ‹pouund› (‘down’, ‘town’, ‘pound’). It seems that some respondents perceive Newcastle as a place where more conservative pronunciations of the MOUTH vowel are preserved. The perceptual linking of [uː] with Newcastle is probably related to the way in which this pronunciation is prominent in a small set of words associated with Tyneside identity, where the [uː] pronunciation “has been lexicalised and reflected in the spelling” (Beal 2004: 124). The most well-known of these is Toon – pronounced [tuːn] – which is generally used not to refer to towns in general, but usually occurs in the phrase ‘the Toon’ as an alternative label for New- castle and as a nickname for Newcastle United F.C.6 Other items in this group include brown (in relation to a brand of beer called Newcastle Brown Ale which until recently was brewed in Gateshead), down, and out (because people often go ‘doon the Toon’ on a night ‘oot on the Toon’ where they might drink some ‘broons’).7 Some respondents, however, suggest that this pronunciation occurs in words beyond these specific local contexts (e.g. ‘about’ and ‘house’), and there is some evidence from naturally occurring online discourse to suggest that the [uː] vowel in MOUTH is not as fossil- ized as it might seem to be: There was always somethin shifty aboot Mox ... only turns out he’s an arsonist!; Me, at my new hoose; food flyin oot ya mooth. But online evidence such as this needs to be treated with caution. Do these spellings reflect the actual pronunciation of the posters in their everyday speech, or are they simply a form of vernacular ‘display’ in the perfor- mative context of online social networking?

______6 The distinction between toon and town is neatly captured on a sign on the local bus service between South Shields and Newcastle, which reads ‘From Town [i.e. South Shields] to Toon [i.e. Newcastle]’. 7 The saliency of Toon in North East culture was reflected in the most recent collec- tion by the well-known Newcastle-based poet, Sean O’Brien. His November (2011) con- cludes with a long Dantesque poem in which a “water-sprite, a river girl” guides the poet on a phantasmagoric tour of the “secret Hell of Tyne”, which prompts him to reflect on the region’s history and mythology, and anatomise what the river girl calls ‘Geordismo’, a distinct variety of North East machismo epitomized in the poem by the “slabs of lard/In dandruffed suits” watching in “unsmiling concentration” while “dog-headed dancing- girls” perform in a nightclub guarded by a “triple-headed bouncer”. The title of this sa- tiric-epic is ‘On the Toon’. Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 11

(d) The presence or absence of initial [h] was also an issue for some respondents: “we in Sunderland tend to drop our H’s; Sunderland don’t seem to pronounce the H.” Beal (2000: 352) suggests that “h-dropping is a shibboleth of Makkem speech,” and is salient mainly because Tyneside, unusu- ally for an urban accent in England, is associated with [h] retention (Hughes et al. 2005:66).8 There is some production evidence to support this. The SED (as summarized by Burbano-Elizondo 2008) shows that County Dur- ham was an area where [h] was variably dropped (although it was retained in Northumberland), and MMB data associates ‘h-dropping’ with south west County Durham and a narrow coastal strip extending as far north as Sunderland (Pearce 2009: 183). Interestingly, Burbano-Elizondo’s own research shows that despite its high perceptual salience, h-dropping appears not to be as common in Sunderland as might be expected, although it is more common than on Tyneside (2008: 215–16). There is some limited evidence of [h] deletion online, particularly in the spelling of Hartlepool (a coastal town in south-east County Durham) as ‹Artlepool› or ‹‘artlepool›.9 (e) The vowel in ‘make’ and ‘take’ was also frequently commented upon. The prominence of these lexical items is due to familiarity with the phrase ‘We mak ‘em, you tak ‘em’ and its variants, which is widely believed to be the origin of the term ‘Mackem’ for a person from Sunderland or Wearside.10 Throughout the north of England, the vowel in the FACE lexical set – to which ‘make’ and ‘take’ belong – is [eː]. But respellings associate the vowel [a] with Sunderland (‹mak›, ‹mack›, ‹tak›, ‹tack›, ‹makem›, ‹takem›, ‹mackem›, ‹tackem›). Spellings for Newcastle pronunciations include standard ‹make› and ‹take› (suggesting ‘mainstream’ [eː]), together with ‹maik›, ‹taik›, ‹myakem› and ‹tyakem›, perhaps pointing to a diphthongal realization of the vowel. SED evidence suggests that traditionally [a] is more frequently found in County Durham than it is in Northumberland, whereas diphthongal realizations are more common in Northumberland (Orton & Halliday 1963: 1008–1011); MMB recordings also point to diphthongal realizations in Tyne- side and south east Northumberland. Kerswill (1987: 29) gives the ‘Durham vernacular’ pronunciation of ‘take’ and ‘make’ as [tak] and [mak]. Interest-

______8 A ‘Makkem’ is a native of Sunderland or Wearside. Beal’s spelling is unusual: ‹Mackem›, ‹Mackam› and ‹Makem› are more commonly found variants. 9 Interestingly, some respondents also suggested that ‘h-adding’ was a feature of Sunder- land speech: “the addition of the letter ‘h’ to words such as ‘eggs’ making them ‘heggs’!”. This form of hypercorrection occurs when speakers who perceive h-dropping to be stigma- tized ‘over-compensate’ by inserting [h] in contexts where it is not normally found. 10 Griffiths suggests that the phrase is associated with the city’s industrial heyday: “the shipyard workers ‘mak’ the ships, the crews ‘tak’ them to sea, and thus Mackems and Tackems are (or were) two important and populous local groups” (2005: 112). 12 Michael Pearce ingly, some respondents, while citing this difference suggested it might be quite rare: “Mak and tak have become clichés. I can’t remember the last time I actually heard a Wearsider use them.” Online evidence for this feature is open to interpretation. When we find hes gana tak me on full time in a com- ment by a teenager from Sunderland, does the spelling ‹tak› reflect his use of the [a] in speech, is it a typo, or is it an example of the tendency when typing rapidly online for some writers to reduce the number of keystrokes where feasible (Crystal 2004: 87)? (f) The mainstream vowel in the north of England in the FLEECE set is /iː/. But some respondents perceive divergence from this pronunciation (mainly in Sunderland but also in Newcastle). One respondent respells Sun- derland versions of ‘green’, ‘cappuccino’ and ‘jeans’ as ‹grein›, ‹cappucceino› and ‹jeins› and Newcastle versions as ‹greeen›, ‹cappucceeno› and ‹jeens›. Another writes “there is the cheesy peas thing where they [speakers from Sunderland] pronounce it cheasy peas (where both rhyme!).” Pre- sumably, the ‹ei› and ‹ea› spellings suggest a diphthongal realization of the vowel. Evidence from dialectology supports the idea of a diphthong associated with Sunderland speakers. In the LAE, maps record diphthongal realizations (e.g. [ɛi]) for the vowel in ‘green’ and ‘cheese’, for locations in the south east of County Durham. (g) The quality of the unstressed vowel in the final syllable of words such as ‘letter’ and ‘comma’ is regarded as a marker of Newcastle/Tyneside speech by some respondents. Spellings such as ‹-aah› for the final syllable in ‘Peter’ and ‹-a› in ‘computer’ rather than ‹-er› are perhaps attempts to suggest an open vowel, rather than the more close vowel which is found in most non-rhotic varieties of English (RP has [ə], for example). Wells describes this ‘Geordie’ vowel as [ɑ~ɛ] (1982: 376). It is often represented orthographically in online contexts; examples include afta, anutha, banta, betta, buskas, eva, hanga, matta, otha, ova, ratha (‘after’, ‘another’, ‘banter’, ‘better’, ‘buskers’, ‘ever’, ‘hanger’, ‘matter’, ‘other’, ‘over’, ‘rather’). Here, two forces are possibly involved in spelling choice: accent stylization and the ‘save a keystroke’ principle. (h) The vowel in the first syllable of bi-syllabic words rhyming with ‘curry’, which is generally [ʊ] in northern England, is claimed by some respondents – as reflected in respellings such as ‹kerry› – to be an open mid [ɛ] in Sunderland. I have been unable to discover dialectological evidence to support this lexical variable, but online metalinguistic commentary does indicate that the pronunciation is a shibboleth of Sunderland speech. As this Newcastle United supporter points out on the Sunderland message board: Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 13 anyone who pronounces curry ‘kerry’ is in no position to lecture anyone on pronunciation.11 (i) Only two respondents imply that the vowel in the GOAT set might dis- tinguish Newcastle/Northumberland speech from Sunderland speech. The spellings ‹bert› for ‘boat’ and ‹herm› for ‘home’ suggest a centralized monophthong [ɵː]. The MMB evidence points to the presence of this variant only in locations north of the Tyne, and there is some online evidence to suggest that in contemporary dialect it is employed in a limited way with particular lexical items: The Fear is still lurking, am gannin herm. Elsewhere, the ‘mainstream’ northern variant [oː] is prevalent. A strand in current popular metalinguistic discourse about variation in North East England particularly associates the centralized variant with the town of Ashington in south east Northumberland, as illustrated in the following joke news report from a social network site: A lorryload of terrapins on its way to Sea World has over- turned in Ashington, local police described the scene as turtle mayhem. (j) One respondent respells ‘curb’ ‹korb› and ‘burger’ ‹borga› to represent Newcastle pronunciations of the vowel in the NURSE set. This vowel is generally [øː] in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, but [ɔː] – which these respellings correspond to and which is very much a traditional, conservative pronunciation – is recorded in MMB for Byker in Newcastle. A picture caption on MySpace represents both the [ɵː] in the GOAT vowel and the [ɔː] in the NURSE vowel: Smerkin a tab in Mcdonnalds … Glad to see its not Borga King.

2.2. Grammar and lexis

Fewer comments were made about grammatical and lexical variation. This is possibly due to the fact that respondents find these levels of language perceptually less salient in distinguishing ‘difference’: in other words grammatical and lexical variables are perceived as being widespread across the North East, and not associated with a particular city. Indeed, even when respondents do identify a feature as ‘Newcastle’ or ‘Sunderland’, production evidence often points to a wider distribution. Nevertheless, a number of differences were claimed.

______11 An assertion which a Sunderland supporter counters with “Shurrup man!! you’s can’t even pronounce Town!! what the fucking hells a Toon?”.

14 Michael Pearce

Table 2: Perceptions of grammatical and lexical variables ‘Newcastle’ ‘Sunderland’ a. Possessive wor (our) our determiners b. Object pronouns we, wer (us/me) c. Wh-words whee, whey; weez, wees, wheez, we’s (who/whose) d. Primary verbs doing deing (doing) divent, divnt (don’t) dinnit, deent (don’t) e. Inserts aye (yes) na, ner, nor (no) nar (no) alreet (all right) a’reet (all right) howay (come on) haway, ha’way (come on) f. Terms of address / mate marra, marrah endearments pet kiddar, kidda g. Lexical nouns yem (home) peyet (head) peeve (alcohol) clays, claes (clothes) kets (sweets) h. Lexical verbs gan (go); gannin, ganin, gawn, garn (going) gannen, gannin’ (going); ganna (gonna) doll off (play truant) plodge (paddle/wade)

(a) There were several comments about perceived contrasting possessive determiner use. Most commonly, wor is associated with Newcastle and our (which is also the Standard English form) associated with Sunderland. Wales calls wor “a characteristic feature of present-day urban Geordie” (2006: 185). It is recorded for all the SED respondents in locations in Northumberland, and there is use of wor in County Durham, Lancashire and Yorkshire, suggesting that wor was once more widespread in the north of England than it is now (Orton & Halliday 1963: 960–61). Contemporary online evidence shows that it is still in use in North East England, but it seems to be restricted to contexts where the speaker/writer is marking an affective stance towards the referent in the following noun phrase, as in these online examples: ayeeee wor soph had her prom on friday, she looked lovely like; you ever guna come back to wor newcastle nd say hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Some online evidence does point to wor as occurring more frequently in Newcastle than Sunderland. On the Newcastle United F.C Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 15 message board, wor occurs proportionately twice as often as a first person plural possessive determiner than it does on the Sunderland A.F.C board.12 (b) A contrast is also claimed for second person object pronouns: “they [Newcastle speakers] say ‘with wer’ instead of ‘with us’”; “‘With we’ (Newcastle and South Shields) instead of ‘with us/me’ (Sunderland).” Here, pronoun exchange is regarded as a feature of Tyneside speech. Such an exchange is not evident in the SED materials for Northumberland or County Durham, but the Tyneside Linguistic Survey (archived in DECTE), contains several instances of pronoun exchange in this particular prepositional phrase, for example: she still keeps in touch with we; there was the little one in with we. Also, one respondent claims that the pronoun yous (as in ‘I’ll clout yous both in a minute’) is more Sunderland. But this morphological variant is in fact widespread across the North East and occurs frequently in online discourse: i was there when yous played there and i seen yous at the union in newcastle hahaha! fookin mint yous are lads! (c) Contrasts are also claimed for contexts where Standard English has who and whose. Sunderland was identified as a place associated with [wiː] and [wiːz] (spelled variously ‹whee›, ‹whey›; ‹weez›, ‹wees›, ‹wheez›, ‹we’s›). The SED shows that [hwiː], [wiː], [hwiːz] and [wiːz] were historically widespread across the North East – but with a tendency towards aspi- ration north of the Tyne (Orton & Halliday 1963: 1078-79). As with wor it seems that a historically widespread form has become more limited in its perceptual associations (but this time the older form is associated with Sun- derland rather than Newcastle). Its saliency for respondents might be influenced by a footballing ritual. In local derbies between Sunderland A.F.C. and Newcastle United, the Newcastle fans will sometimes shake their keys at Sunderland fans while chanting “weez keys are these keys?” (“whose keys are these keys?”), in an attempt to provoke the opposition by aping what is perceived to be a feature of the Sunderland dialect. (d) Variation in the verb do is also noted, particularly when it occurs with the negation clitic. Some respondents associated forms with [dɪv] with Newcastle, and [dɪ] and [diː] with Sunderland. In the SED, when equivalents of Standard English ‘I don’t know’ were elicited, v-forms such as [dɪvənt] were recorded across Northumberland and the north of County Durham, whereas [dɪnt] and [dɪnət] occurred in the rest of the county, suggesting some correspondence between perceptual and production evidence. In my examination of online discourse, I came upon several examples of variation in do, with both positive and negative polarity: Am deein an engi- ______12 On the Newcastle board, wor = 5490; our = 36900 (13.04%). On the Sunderland board, wor = 36500; our = 564000 (6.08%). These approximate figures were derived using Google’s advanced search capabilities in January 2012. 16 Michael Pearce neerin apprenticeship; divin’t lyk puttin 2 much abt is on these; Books r shite dinnit need to use them the newspapers is alreet like; wat ya bin dein like bud?; if a dint reply yana why; im in the house so divnt lock me in. The football message boards suggest that forms with [dɪv] are as popular with supporters of Sunderland as they are with supporters of Newcastle. How- ever, forms with [dɪ] and [diː] occur proportionately eight times more frequently on the Sunderland board, supporting the perception that these forms are less likely to be heard in the speech of people from Newcastle. (e) Although the positive response form aye sometimes gets associated with Newcastle, the SED shows aye forms (particularly [aɪ]) as widespread across the region (Orton & Halliday 1963: 965–66), and it also occurs in transcripts of recordings Burbano-Elizondo made of her Sunderland respondents (2008: 162-63). A greater variety of negative response forms are mentioned by respondents, with some respellings associated with Newcastle (e.g. ‹na›, ‹ner›, ‹nor›) and some with Sunderland (e.g. ‹nar›). Some respondents associate howay with Newcastle and haway (or ha’way) with Sunderland, and the Newcastle United and Sunderland A.F.C. message boards would seem to provide evidence to confirm this association (ninety- six percent of instances of howay/haway/ha’way on the Newcastle board are howay, while in contrast haway/ha’way makes up almost exactly the same percentage on the Sunderland board). The term has a wide variety of meanings and functions depending on context, the most common probably being an exclamatory exhortation to act (where Standard English has ‘come on!’) The respellings point to a different vowel quality in the first syllable.13 A contrast is also claimed in relation to the greeting/response form ‘all right’, with alreet associated with Newcastle, and areet/a’reet associated with Sunderland. In both versions, the vowel in the stressed syllable is the pre-GVS [i:], rather than a diphthong, and the distinguishing feature is the presence or absence of [l]. (f) Some respondents associate particular terms of address/endearments with the two cities. Sunderland has kiddar, marrow/marra (spelled ‹kidda›, ‹marra› and ‹marrah›); Newcastle has mate and pet. Production evidence points to a wider distribution for these terms, with SED showing both marrow and mate (the latter being a widespread colloquial term in British Eng- lish) in locations in both counties, and the term kiddar also widely found (Griffiths 2005: 99). Evidence from the football message boards suggests that in relation to kidda and marra, Newcastle supporters prefer the former while Sunderland supporters prefer the latter. ______13 This distinction is captured in the title of a football book by Alan Candlish (2006): Ha’way/howay the lads: A history of the rivalry between Newcastle United and Sunder- land. Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 17

(g), (h) Of the remaining lexical items in Table 2 associated with Sunder- land and Newcastle there is evidence to suggest, once again, a wider distribution than is being claimed by respondents. For example, the SED records variants of claes (clothes) in all locations in Northumberland and County Durham; and yem (home) – pronounced [jɛm] or occasionally [jam]) – is also generally found. Kets (sweets, particularly cheap ones) and doll off (play truant) are described by Burbano-Elizondo as possible localized variants “distinguishing Sunderland English from Tyneside English” (2008: 164). Neither is present in the SED, although ket meaning rubbish is recorded for Northumberland and County Durham (Orton & Halliday 1963: 472). Peyet (‘pate’) for head is recorded in EDD and distributed widely across northern England, but the diphthongized pronunciation is associated with Northumberland. Gan is recorded for Scotland and the north of Eng- land in EDD. Its present-day distribution is, in England, limited to the North East (but within the region it is quite widespread – see Griffiths 2005: 65). Some respondents claim that the verb gan (equivalent to Standard English go) is a Newcastle variant. But SED shows gan as the universally preferred form in Northumberland and County Durham, and there is more recent evidence from the MMB recordings to suggest that it remains widespread across the North East, including in Sunderland. Forms of the verb listed by respondents (with SE equivalents) include ‹gannin›, ‹ganin›, ‹gannen›, ‹gannin’› (going); ‹ganna› (going to/gonna). Similarly, EDD records plodge in Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Yorkshire. Griffiths records this as being “in common use” in the North East (2005: 133). There is some support for the survey respondents’ perceptions on the football message boards. For example, both kets and plodge are proportionately far more pervasive on the Sunderland board than on the Newcastle one.

2.3. Prosodic and paralinguistic features

As well as describing perceived phonological, grammatical and lexical differences between the speech of people from Newcastle and Sunderland, respondents sometimes offered brief, summative descriptions of their overall perceptions. Often, these comments appear to refer to prosodic or paralinguistic features (in particular intonation, volume, tempo, rhythm, and voice quality), as in the following: (6) Sunderland accents appear to sound more nasal. (7) The Sunderland tone is softer and clearer, and not as clipped as Newcas- tle sounds. (8) Newcastle speakers sound more melodic to me. (9) The Sunderland accent sounds softer and very rhythmic whereas the Newcastle accent is a little more harsh and stronger. 18 Michael Pearce

(10) The Geordie accent to me sounds a bit more ‘sing-song’ like, if that makes sense! (11) I think the Newcastle accent is more harsh than a Sunderland accent. It is perhaps not surprising that such descriptions occur in the data, given that “varieties of languages are marked not only by their vowels and consonants but also by their prosody” (Nolan 2006: 447), and that prosody is such a “readily distinctive” marker of “regional origin” (Wales 2006: 201). Indeed, experiments have shown that people are capable of discrimi- nating between dialects on the basis of prosodic cues alone (Leeman & Sie- benhaar 2008). As Wales points out, English in the north of England “has a rich array” of such cues, which are “frequently commented on by the lay- public” and present “obvious signs or emblems of regional and social identification”, although they have been “quite seriously under-researched” (2006: 201). Despite this neglect, the prosody of the North East looms large in popular and folk accounts. An early reference to the distinctiveness of North East prosodic features appears in a set of letters written by an anonymous ‘English commercial traveller’ as he journeyed from London to Scotland in the summer of 1815. In his seventh letter, adopting a rather su- percilious manner typical of the entire book, the author describes his experience of encountering people in County Durham who manage to com- bine “indistinct singing and drawling” (reminding him of “the Scots”) with “a high tone of voice, a sort of falsetto, which, with the other peculiarities, has, to me, a ludicrous effect” (Anon. 1817: 54–55). The salience of prosody in perceptions of North East speech continues to the present day, and is reflected in the adjectives used by survey respondents which suggest a range of prosodic features: for example, pitch (deeper, high, higher, piercing, squealy); tempo (fast, faster, clipped); intonation (melodic, flat, flatter, sing-song). Paralinguistic features such as voice quality are also evoked (harsh, harsher, rough, rougher, hard, harder, rounded, smooth, softer). In Figures 2 and 3 the size of the font gives a broad indication of the frequency with which each adjective was used by respondents in their descriptions of the speech of each city. Al- though some of these adjectives are applied to both locations (e.g. clipped, flat, flatter, harsh, harsher) there is a tendency for the speech of Newcastle to be associated with ‘musical’ intonation, quicker tempo, and harsh voice quality, while Sunderland speech has a narrower intonational range and is ‘softer’ in terms of voice quality. Is there any production evidence to support these perceptions?

Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 19

Figure 2: Adjectives used to describe the accent of Newcastle

Figure 3: Adjectives used to describe the accent of Sunderland

Research on suprasegmental features of English dialects is somewhat limited, although where it has been undertaken, Newcastle English has at- tracted the attention of linguists, probably because, amongst English cities Newcastle – like Liverpool and Birmingham – has a particularly characteristic intonation type (Wells 1984: 55–56). The fullest accounts of Newcastle intonation are contained in a series of publications based on the Intonational Variation in English (IViE) corpus (see Grabe et al. 2008 for a summary). Amongst the findings for Tyneside is the presence of a rise-plateau ‘tune’ in declarative sentences, described impressionistically by Wells (1982: 376) as “a low-to-high rise, with high level tail, in certain contexts where RP would have a high fall.” This might contribute to the perception of Newcastle speech as musical. In the words of one respondent “a Geordie speaker will almost sing the words.” There has, of yet, been no research which compares the intonation of Newcastle speakers with those of Sunderland. What about tempo? Some respondents perceived Newcastle speech as ‘faster’ than Sunderland speech. Although ‘the folk’ often claim that there are speech tempo differences between different dialects, the production evidence for speech tempo as a factor distinguishing dialects is not as convinc- ing as it is for intonation (although in the context of English there do seem to be subtle speech rate differences between ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ varieties 20 Michael Pearce in the USA – see Jacewicz et al. 2009).14 Speech rate is mainly a performance factor reflecting contextual conditions, such as the emotional state of the speaker, their auditor, or the type of speech event they are engaged in. Finally, Newcastle speech was generally perceived as ‘harsher’ than the ‘softer’ Sunderland speech. Speakers routinely alter aspects of their voice quality (either strategically or unconsciously) to signal pragmatic meaning, attitude, and emotion. For example, a speaker might use ‘harsh’ voice – in which speech sounds are produced with a constricted laryngeal cavity, resulting in an audibly rough voice quality (Laver 1994: 420) – to convey anger. In this respect, voice quality is – like speech rate – a performance factor. However, “there is also some evidence that varieties of English have habitual settings for voice quality: that is, speakers belonging to certain sociolinguistic groups share a common voice quality” (Ogden 2009: 50). Knowles, for example, has described the particular articulatory settings which give ‘Scouse’ (the dialect of Liverpool) its distinctively ‘adenoidal’ quality (1978: 98). Research carried out in Scotland suggests that particular voice qualities are associated with different socioeconomic groups. Esling’s (1978) Edinburgh study links harsh voice, protruded jaw and a range of settings associated with pharyngeal tension with working class speakers in the city; similarly, Stuart-Smith (1999) finds use of open jaw, raised and backed tongue body and more whisperiness amongst working class speakers in Glasgow (cited in Mackenzie Beck 2005: 304). So far, serious research on the sociolinguistics of voice quality in varieties of English in England has been limited. This means that there is no production evidence against which to compare the perceptions of respondents in the survey. However, the evidence from urban Scottish varieties (with which urban varieties of North East England have certain commonalities) would suggest that particular articulatory settings might also index social class in the North East. The question of whether or not voice quality might mark speakers’ geographical location within the region has yet to be researched.

3. Folk evaluations of dialect differences

Figures 1 and 2 also indicate a tendency for Newcastle speech to be perceived as ‘broad(er)’ than Sunderland speech. This adjective is used frequently in folk accounts of accent and dialect. Unlike the other adjectives discussed in the previous section, which seem to be used by respondents to describe prosodic and paralinguistic features, ‘broad(er)’ is a more general ______14 Some speech-rate differences have also been claimed for dialects of Swiss German (Leeman & Siebenhaar 2008). Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 21 term. If a speaker is described as having a ‘broad’ accent or dialect, then this indicates that he or she is perceived as using more distinctively vernacular or ‘basilectal’ features than a less ‘broad’ speaker from the same place. Interest- ingly, the way respondents use this adjective suggests a degree of sensitivity towards the sociolinguistic distribution of vernacular variables: (12) Some working class in high unemployment areas still very distinct and broad. (13) The West End of Newcastle is much broader and people from Gosforth and Jesmond speak posher. (14) The broader dialects tend to be those with lower incomes. (15) People from the rougher areas tend to use slang, as if broadening their accent makes them territorial in some way. (16) I have found office workers seem to speak in a very similar tone and dialect while builders (for example) tend to have a more broader accent typified by their area. (17) People in communication jobs will speak their local accent but in clear English whereas the lads down the coal yard, or the pub barmaid are much broader and more traditional if you like. Here respondents are acknowledging a sociolinguistic universal: the “in- verse relation between class level and the local distinctiveness of speech” which means that “working class speakers have the most locally distinct speech while the upper middle class have a speech pattern which transcends the local and even the regional” (Eckert 2010: 170). ‘Broad(er)’ is an evaluative term, suggesting a continuum with neutral or unmarked speech at one end and maximally local speech at the other. Even though evaluations were not explicitly solicited in the survey, they frequently appear in respondents’ descriptions of the differences between Newcastle and Sunderland speech. For example, the terms used for voice quality considered in the previous section are embedded in a discourse of evaluation. When the adjective ‘harsh’ is used in scientific descriptions of articulatory setting, it does not carry evaluative meaning. But in everyday language, ‘harsh’ is generally used to describe unpleasant sounds, and a ‘soft’ sound is usually pleasant. To characterize one accent as ‘harsh’ and another as ‘soft’ is usually to judge the latter positively in comparison to the former. When such terms as ‘harsh’ and ‘sharp’ are applied to an accent, there is almost always an implied negative evaluation, whereas ‘soft’ and ‘round’ have positive connotations (compare ‘she has a lovely soft accent’ with the highly unlikely ‘she has a lovely harsh accent’). It is at this point worth noting that in the survey, respondents were asked to state which of the two cities in Tyne and Wear they felt the stronger af- 22 Michael Pearce filiation with.15 When these emotional and personal ties are taken into consideration, a pattern of ‘them’ and ‘us’ often emerges. For example, in relation to the harsh-soft conceptual metaphor, amongst the seventy respondents affiliating themselves with Newcastle, none of them used ‘harsh(er)’ (or ‘harshness’) in their descriptions of either accent. But those affiliated with Sunderland used these words six times more often to describe Newcas- tle speech than Sunderland speech. Likewise, some respondents affiliated with Newcastle used somewhat pejorative terms to describe Sunderland speech: “The Wearside accent tends to be a lot higher and sometimes squealy”; “The Sunderland accent has a much more piercing tone”. This tendency to judge ‘our’ speech positively and ‘their’ speech nega- tively sometimes extends to contexts where evaluations are expressed in a more direct and unequivocal manner: (18) Sunderland is an awful accent and can never be endearing: the way ‘pound’ is pronounced makes me cringe. [Newcastle affiliation] (19) I’ve always felt that the Newcastle accent is much rougher than the Sunderland one. [Sunderland affiliation] (20) Sunderland is quite a pleasant dialect. [Sunderland affiliation] Some comments overtly conflate linguistic and social evaluations: (21) The people from Newcastle speak very differently to those in Sunder- land and they are not as friendly in Newcastle either. [Sunderland affiliation] (22) When I go into Sunderland town centre a lot of the people sound rough. [Newcastle affiliation] (23) I think that the Sunderland accent is actually quite harsh and feels threatening, whereas I think the Geordie accent is more linked to less educated members of society and someone who is a bit stupid. [Sun- derland affiliation] Here, characteristics such as education, intelligence, friendliness and ag- gression are indexed by perceived linguistic performance. Remarks such as these echo robust findings in studies of language attitudes in which evaluations of speech are seen to reflect wider social attitudes (see, for example, Coupland & Bishop 2007). Given the cultural context of civic rivalry in Tyne and Wear (Pearce 2011: 18–19), it is perhaps not surprising to find some overtly negative evaluations in the survey responses. However, by no means all evaluations of ‘the other’ are negative: ______15 The question was: “If you had to choose, which city would you say you felt emo- tionally and personally closer to?” Eighty-one respondents chose Sunderland, while seventy chose Newcastle. The remainder did not answer the question. Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 23

(24) There is more of a rhythm to the way people speak in Newcastle, which makes the accent more attractive than Mackem. [Sunderland affiliation] (25) Newcastle tend to be clearer than Sunderland. [Sunderland affiliation] (26) Both dialects are attractive and easy on the ear. [Newcastle affiliation] (27) The Sunderland tone is softer and clearer. [Newcastle affiliation] (28) I think the Sunderland accent is softer and has more melody. [Newcastle affiliation] These positive evaluations of ‘the other’ suggest that the mutual antagonism often present in representations of the relationship between the people of Sunderland and Newcastle – reflected in popular publications such as Ian Black’s Geordies Vs Mackems: Why Tyneside is Better Than Wearside & Why Wearside is Better Than Tyneside – is a simplification of a more complex picture, in which apparent ill-feelings are often mitigated by a gruff sort of tolerance, bordering on respect. In the words of one of the respondents, the relationship is “probably more friendly than either we Makems or the Geordies would have you believe.”

4. Conclusion

This article has shown that, when given the opportunity to write at length, ‘the folk’ are capable of producing nuanced and detailed descriptions of linguistic variation. Using respelling, together with impressionistic – but nevertheless evocative – descriptions to convey the sound-experience of speech, and illustrating their perceptions of lexical and grammatical variation with lively and engaging examples, respondents make fine-grained dis- tinctions at all the linguistic levels traditionally recognized by linguists as salient in differentiating dialects. In addition, they sometimes suggest that suprasegmental features such as speech rate and voice quality – under- explored area in the dialectology of the British Isles – can be used to distin- guish speakers from different locations, perhaps pointing out a research route for future dialectological studies to take. In many cases, descriptions of perceived contrasts and similarities between the speech of Newcastle and Sunderland are combined with evaluations, which are often linked to the cultural loyalties and affiliations of ‘the folk’ of Tyne and Wear. Taken together, these descriptions and evaluations present a high-resolution picture of the linguistic ecology of this part of North East England.

24 Michael Pearce

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Meyerhoff, Miriam. 2006. Introducing sociolinguistics. London: Routledge. Montgomery, Chris & Joan Beal. 2011. Perceptual dialectology. In Warren Maguire & April Macmahon (eds) Analysing variation in English, 121–148. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nolan, Frances. 2006. Intonation. In Bas Aarts & April McMahon (eds) The Handbook of English Linguistics, 433–458. Oxford: Blackwell. Nygaard, Lynne C. 2005. Perceptual integration of linguistic and non-linguistic properties of speech. In David B. Pisoni & Robert E. Ramez (eds) The handbook of speech perception, 390–414. Oxford: Blackwell. O’Brien, Sean. 2011. November. London: Picador. Ogden, Richard. 2009. An introduction to English phonetics. Edinburgh: Edin- burgh University Press. Orton, Harold & Wilfred J. Halliday. 1963. Survey of English dialects (B) The basic material. Vol. 1: The six northern counties and the Isle of Man, parts 2 and 3. Leeds: E.J. Arnold & Son. Pearce, Michael. 2009. A perceptual dialect map of North East England. Journal of English Linguistics 37, 162–192. Pearce, Michael. 2011. Exploring a perceptual dialect boundary in North East England. Dialectologia et Geolinguistica 19: 3–22. Preston, Dennis. 2010. Perceptual dialectology in the 21st century. In Christina Anders, Markus Hundt & Alexander Lasch (eds) Perceptual dialectology: neue Wege der Dialektologie, 1–30. Berlin: De Gruyter. Røsstad, Rune. 2009. Foundations of language perceptions and the role of external factors: a Norwegian case. Language Awareness 18, 96–112. Wales, Katie. 2006. Northern English: A cultural and social history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wells, John. 1982. Accents of English 2: The British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wells, John. 1984. English accents in England. In Peter Trudgill (ed) Language in the British Isles, 55–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Wright, Joseph. 1900. 1905. The English dialect dictionary, vol. 2 D–G. vol. 4 M– Q. London: Henry Frowde.

Michael Pearce • University of Sunderland • [email protected]

DiG 20 (2011), 26–36 DOI 10.1515/dialect-2012-0002

Expressing local identity through radio discourse∗

Alenka Valh Lopert and Mihaela Koletnik

Abstract

This article presents the linguistic analysis of a humorous program broadcast on the Maribor commercial radio station Radio City. The program is deliberately recorded in the Maribor colloquial language variety and as such reflects the diver- sification of media language. The aim of our present research is to confirm the stratification of media speech as a manifestation of the need for identification with the speech of the environment, i.e. the intended public, and at the same time point out the need of public speech as a national language for the achievement and reflection of a collective identity. We believe that in the realization of the multilin- gual strategy in the integrational and globalizational processes in Europe, the preservation of such linguistic and cultural diversity should present a source of strength rather than a weakness.

1. Introduction

The empirical section of the paper analyses the Reporter Milan show, a humorous broadcast on the commercial radio station, Radio City in Mari- bor. The producers of this and similar shows have made the conscious deci- sion to use non-standard regional language, enabling the programmes to fit into the environment in which they are broadcast and connect more easily with their audience. The system of language represents a communication system that applies to a particular social community, and is common to all its members. The importance of the Slovene language was strengthened by its being ap- pointed the official language of the country after Slovenia declared inde- pendence (1991), and also by Slovenia’s entry into the European Union (2004). A. Vidovič-Muha (2003: 10) notes that the national language acts not only as an official language, but, at the same time, performs the role of state representative. As a communicative tool, it is used in all situations, while in terms of social and political status the official language of the ______

∗ This article was written as part of the research project J6-2238 Slovenski jezik v stiku evropskega podonavskega in alpskega prostora (The Slovene Language in Contact within the European Danube and Alpine Regions), funded by the Slovenian Research Agency. The project leader is Prof. Marko Jesenšek, Ph.D.

Expressing local identity through radio discourse 27 country is also the first language. She stresses that the concept of official language is broader than that of national language because it is also the language of formal speech situations.

2. Expressing identity through language

Language is becoming an increasingly important element of a nation’s ex- pression of identity, and even more so for individuals as Gibson (2004: 1, 4) also says. The concept of identity is also defined in the SSKJ (Dictionary of Slovene Standard Language) as ‘compliance, data matching with real facts, evidence, identity’, in SP (Slovene orthography) as an ‘identity, sameness’, in E-S (English-Slovene Dictionary) as the ‘identity, unity, equality’, and in N-S (German-Slovene Dictionary) as ‘identity’. In the linguistic context this means the identification of the individual with the primary language of their own environment (family, place of birth). For the majority of Slovenes therefore, dialect is the first or native language; we are born into it, while standard language is taught in schools to enable communication between different dialectal speakers. We should point out here that Slovene is the most dialectally heterogeneous in the Slavic language group (Logar 1993: 5). Each dialect or colloquial speech is of immeasurable value, and the loss of dialects is certainly equally important to that of language extinction (Ka- pović 2006: 378). Regional languages and dialects should not be considered as inferior to the national (standard) language in terms of their unifying capacity, but as the first language of most speakers they should actually help in the acquisition of the standard language. Many speakers use their local language as a reflection of their identities, and do not even want to use the standard (Škarić 2000: 173). The impact of local speech is widely recognised, even among professional speakers – professors, journalists, and cultural workers. Although many linguists speak about a conflation of dialects with standard, or even about the disappearance of dialects because of the disappearance of rural culture, it appears that many speakers not only maintain their linguistic structure, but even consciously improve and cultivate it (Kenda Jež 2004: 263–276). Sociolinguists, anthropologists and cultural theorists explore the phe- nomenon of language crossing/switching (although the definition is not yet standardized) in order to understand how and why individuals use language elements of other language registers. Communication in particular is a spe- cial form of human behaviour, in which at least two communication part- ners meet for the specific purpose of exchanging messages with the help of linguistic or non-linguistic signs. It is important to realize that communica-

28 Alenka Valh Lopert and Mihaela Koletnik tion is not automatic but contains the specific purpose of the speaker, i.e. to influence the recipient/addressee.

3. Language register in media

The focus of our research is on public communication in particular, which – as opposed to private – is under constant social control. We assume that standard language is used in public communication; however, the choice of register depends on the social situation or communication circumstances. In this way, we are able to demonstrate that standard language is not a prereq- uisite for public communication: rather, the key factor is the so called language competence skill of the speaker, i.e. the ability to choose the most appropriate register. Intra- and extra linguistic circumstances significantly affect the choice of language register, regardless of the speaker’s linguistic competence.

4. Standard and non-standard in Slovene

In recent years, we have witnessed major language democratization and liberalization, which have brought research into the area of language use after years of solely focusing on written language resources. Slovene today is divided into several varieties, known as registers, i.e. social, functional, temporal or historical etc. (Toporišič 2000: 13). Social categories are divided into two groups: standard language in both a strict literary and less strict non-literary version, meant for use in communication over the entire area of Slovenia, which also occupies the role of national representative, and non-standard language, which is divided into geographical dialects and regional languages. The great dialectal diversity of the Slovene language and the creation of urban varieties have led to research of the Slovene language in the field of urban dialectology.

5. Maribor urban colloquia on radio broadcasting

Maribor colloquial language is also known as urban colloquial. It stems mainly from the dialects of major cities; its individuality lies largely in lexes, syntax, phonological accent and the overall auditory impression. It is a social non-standard category, which is heavily influenced by standard language in the cities.

Expressing local identity through radio discourse 29

The media in particular are important contributors to speech culture and wide differences can be seen in this area between local commercial and national radio stations. Journalists, announcers and presenters on commercial stations are unsure as to which language to use, as they are constantly under pressure to be market efficient. They usually come to the conclusion that the more spontaneous and natural the language is, the better the contact is between the interlocutors. The culture of speech on the radio, therefore, depends on the speaker’s communicative competence (both professional and non-professional). Changes in the speakers’ register (standard-colloquial- dialect) occur as a result of conscious or unconscious switching and depend largely on purpose and circumstance (target audience); derogation from standard language is therefore much more commonplace on commercial than on national radio, especially on the phonological and lexical level. In addition, radio is a factor that affects the language in the environment in which it is broadcast, especially within certain groups of individuals; this helps to preserve dialects, enhances the feeling of belonging to the region and the influence on language gradually leads to the changing of language norms. The local commercial radio station on which we base our research is Radio City, which was founded in 1995 and remains the most listened to radio station in north-eastern Slovenia, despite the proliferation of new radio stations in recent years. Ratings for commercial radio stations are ex- tremely important and the listening figures confirm that (source: Institute for Media Research Mediana). Based on audience figures from November 2010, Radio City is listened to by 41.7% of listeners in the category of listeners aged 10–59, and 51.1% of listeners aged 30–50 years.

6. Analyses of local commercial radio station language

The analysis focuses on 30 humorous shows on the local commercial radio station – Radio City, broadcast between November 2009 and February 2010. The content of the show mostly consists of ironic updates on issues affecting the city, and often also on broader (political, economic, social, ecological ...) themes. The show is recorded in the Maribor colloquial, i.e. non-standard north-eastern regional colloquial variety which is used in order to maximize the impact upon listeners. The Maribor colloquial variety has been formed at the direct intersection of the Styrian and Pannonian dialect groups; the speech of Reporter Milan displays the combined influences of the Styrian and Pannonian dialect of Slovenske Gorice. The following phonological elements feature in the spoken realisation of dialogues:

30 Alenka Valh Lopert and Mihaela Koletnik

(1) Recent accent shifts which are a result of (a) removals from old circum- flexed length or shortness: blágo, lépo, prêveč, záčne1 for standard blagó, lepó, prevèč, začnè (cloth, nice, too much/many, begins, (b) a significant tendency towards analogical generalization of stress to all or most forms of the same words: sóset sóseda sósedu, próso -la -lo for standard sôsed so- séda -u, prôsil prosíla prosílo (neighbour, ask); and two accents in com- pounds: kólodvór, kválificíran, Máribór, nêsposób, sámomór (terminal, qualified, Maribor, incompetent, suicide). (2) The loss of quantity oppositions; after toneme opposition, the quantity opposition in Maribor colloquial was lost, as well as in the surrounding dialects. All Proto-Slavic vowels and vowels with a new acute accent in the position before last, last or the only syllable, which has remained short in standard Slovene until the present day, have been prolonged in Maribor colloquial, so short vowels are no longer heard níč, tú, dét, vêč, kmêt, nóš, brát, pês for standard nìč, tù, dèd, vèč, kmèt, nòž, bràt, pəs (nothing, here, grand- father, more, farmer, knife, brother, dog). (3) Change in the quality of stressed vowels; the recent stress shift of stressed e and o, which are wide in standard Slovene and the dialects surrounding Maribor, remain markedly narrow in Maribor colloquial: séstra, téta, dóbro, róka, vóda, in comparison to standard sêstra, têta, dôbro, rôka, vôda (sister, aunt, good, hand, water). Long and wide e is a rare phoneme, occurring only as a narrow allophone of e in the groups: -er, -ej in -e: fčêraj, hčêrka, prevêrit; povêj; mê, pê, začê (yesterday, daughter, check, tell, have, sing, begin). (4) Monophthongization of diphthongs; the dialects in the Maribor surroundings belong to original southern Slovene dialects as regards the diph- thongization of Proto-Slavic yat (ě) into e: and always long o into o:. Both diphthongs survived in the Styrian, Pannonian and Dolenjska dialects; on the other hand, they became monophthongs in standard Slovene as well as in the Maribor colloquial, i.e. long and narrow e and o: snék, méšam,

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1 Words are marked with symbols denoting place of stress: the acute ( ´ ), grave ( ` ) and circumflex ( ˆ ) are used in Slovene literary language. The acute is used to lengthen and narrow e and o, the grave to shorten and widen e and o; the roof is used to lengthen and widen e and o. The vowel nature of l and n is marked with a small circle underneath; a semi-circle under i and u (,  denotes their consonant pronunciation, while the semi vowel is marked with ә.

Expressing local identity through radio discourse 31 vém, bók, móst, nós (snow, mix, know, God, bridge, nose). Thus, the Mari- bor colloquial vowel system consists only of monophthongs.2 (5) The vocalization of the Proto-Slavic old acuted, the lengthening and vocalization of vowels with new acuted and the shift of the stressed Proto- Slavic semivowel (schwa) in all word syllables into a, is the same in Mari- bor colloquial as it is in standard Slovene dán, lán, vás (day, flax, village). However, in all north-eastern Slovenian dialects, the long schwa is reflected as e. The same reflection, namely a, is heard for the new acute semivowel not in the last syllable of words: máša, snáha (mass, daughter-in-law). While shifted and new acute schwa vowels in the last syllable of the word is realised as e: pês, dêš (dog, rain), as in all the surrounding dialects. Modern vowel reduction is a feature of Reporter Milan’s pronunciation, mostly with infinitive and near consonants, less at the beginning or at the end of the word, resulting in the syllable-forming phenomena  and : (mórš) délat, (záčni) písat; blá, glédla, materjál, nardím, povédli; bógi, méla; dóst, drugáč, ták; ponós, s, zbirát ([have] to work, [start] to write; was, watched, material, do, tell; poor, had; enough, different, like this; proud, (I) am, collector). The initial u is also pronounced as o: ogotoví, omәr (to address, to die/pass away), while the consonant distribution system displays the following features: palatal l’ has been developed in central l: lúba, múl, podálšo (love, mule, prolong), n’ is also losing its palatal element, but the components sometimes switch places: górna, kníga, lúkna, svíja; kójn, zastójn (upper, book, hole, pig; horse, free). A sonant v in the position before voiceless consonants and at the end of the word is pronounced as f, as usually occurs in the northern Styria and Pannonian dialects fčásih, fprášat, f pétek, bәrf, vərf (sometimes, ask, on Friday, wooden footbridge, rope), otherwise as v: víno, gláva, (wine, head), less frequently as : áto, gláni (car, principal/in charge). The final -l is pronounced as - in the accented syllable: dá, kadí, sedê (gave, smoked, sat) otherwise as -o: délo, réko, hóto, próso (gave, said, wanted, asked), the sonant r is losing its palatal element with inflec- tion: krompíra, papíra (paper, potatoes (both in Gen. Pl.), šč is reduced into š: íšem, tíšat (seak, press), dn changed into gn: gnár (money); d and b, the situation between the vowels is lost: príi (< pridi, come), poglêat (< pogle- dat, take a look), víiš (< vidiš, see); trêa (< treba, need to), nêoš (< ne boš, will not), dám (< da bom, that I will). Feminisation of the neuter form is a very frequent occurrence, even of plural nouns: dréva, jápka; jétre, vráte (tree, apple; liver, door), generaliza- ______

2 Redjko states (1992) that the two diphthongs e:  and o:  are still present in the Studence suburb on the right bank of the Drava river.

32 Alenka Valh Lopert and Mihaela Koletnik tion of feminine a-endings, masculine -o ending in the dative and locative singular and the genitive plural for the standard ending -u and -ov: k bráto, v/f žêpo; pét dédov/of, (to the brother, in a pocket; five grandfathers); just short infinitives: (s hóto) dól požágat, (ne smém) hódit ((I wanted) to burn, (I must not) walk), use of -ma with verbs for the first person dual instead of the standard -va: gréma, čákama, známa (we go, we wait, we know), expressing willingness/intention with verbs denoting possibility (must for can/be able to): mórem délat ʻmoram delati’ (can work for must work), ví mórete vêet ‘vi morate vedeti’ (you can know for you have to know), bi móglo bít fêrtik ‘bi moralo biti gotovo’ (it could be finished for it should be finished), generalization of thematic conjugation for athematic verbs: bóte (dóbli) ‘boste dobili’ (will get), véte (tó) ‘veste’ (you know), reduplication of demonstrative pronouns: tóti, tóta ‘ta’, tóto ‘to’ (this) and negative particles: ne ne > nêna > nêa (no, not), replacement of reflexive pronouns kar/ki (which/that) with the interrogative kaj (what): Fsê, káj je še žívo /.../, Tóti Máribórčani, káj so /.../ (Everything that is alive. The Maribor citizens, that are /…/ , or with the conjunction ko (when): Óni, ko je pê /.../, (The one who sang /…/) and frequent use of regional variants of adverbs and particles, e.g.: bék ‘stran’ (away), nót ‘noter’ (in), pól ‘potem’ (then), pәrvo ‘najprej’ (the first place), vún ‘ven’ (out); kúj ‘kar’ (as soon as possible). All morphological patterns of Maribor colloquial follow the current spoken Slovene, i.e. repetitions: Dáj, dáj, dáj, saj tó níma fúrma. Míja snéške zbírama, snéške. (Come on, this is of no use. We collect (snow)mushrooms, (snow)mushrooms.); omissions, additions: Z mêsom délajo, na hládnem. (They work with meat, in the cold.); exposures: Máribórski delfín, tó je kráp. (Maribor dolphin, ie. carp.); establishing contact with the partner: Já, glêjte, tó je ták idr. (Yes, look, that’s it etc.) Simple one-clause sentences have the same structure as those in standard Slovene, but some word order idiosyncrasies could also be found: (1) exchange of theme and rheme, also of transition: Kónc agústa s jo kúpo. Zakáj me za róko dəržíš? (I bought it at the end of August. Why do you hold my hand?); (2) auxiliary verb could be placed at the beginning of the sentence as well: Sêm si sáma kúpla éno jákco, (I bought this jacket by myself.) the adverb is put at the end: Míja mórma posvétit tú. Káj ste ví nóri málo? (We have to light here. Are you out of your mind?); (3) cohesive particle pa follows the Present form of non-lexical verb ‘‘to be’’: Káj je pa têbi? (What’s wrong with you?); (4) emphatic particle is used in unexpected positions: Sáj vam velá še. Káj sta víja splóh. Tó ti právim glíh. (It’s still valid. What actually are you? That’s what I tell you exactly.); (5) word- order of enclitics is changed, so: (a) verbal enclitic is situated in front of non-reflexive pronominal dative form: Jás bom te ták fséko. (I will punch you so much.); (b) conditional of auxiliary “to be” is placed after the reflex-

Expressing local identity through radio discourse 33 ive pronoun se: /.../ če se mu bi káj zgódlo, pa bi jás slábo vést méla. (/…/ if anything happens to him I would fell guilty); (c) enclitic of personal pronoun is placed between elements of compound verbal form: /.../ boš me málo potégno s strójčekom dól /.../ (/…/ you will trim with the machine a little bit (hear); or at the end of the sentence: Pәrvo s ga obvládo, s ga pa tút shráno si (I mastered it first, but I put it in safe as well.); (d) particle naj is used after conditional auxiliary “to be”: No, ne vém záj, káj bi drúga naj. (Well, I do not know what else shall I do.) The use of personal pronouns in places where standard Slovene, owing to stylistic markedness, uses zero pronoun: Káj tí nêa razúmeš? Náj ón príde lépo na stól. (Well, it is you who doesn’t understand? Let him come to this chair.), addition of cohesive particles and/or adverbs in the positions redundant in standard Slovene: Káj te máš v žêpo? Jás bom ták fprášo tó župána (What do you have in your pocket? I will ask the major, indeed.) and position of (a) adverbial adjective to the right of the antecedent: soséda górna, vәrf nosílna, pálce éne (upper neighbour, carrying rope, one stick) and (b) noun qualifier (attribute) nominal attribute to the left of the antecedent: ot sína žéna (the son’s wife). In the vocabulary of Reporter Milan the words of Slavonic origin mostly belong to standard Slovene, but there are also many Germanisms and calques since a significant number of the citizens in Maribor were German until the First World War. Many words of Slavonic origin are nowadays denoted as colloquial: dopasti se ‘biti všeč’ (for: to please), lower colloquial: trotelj ‘omejen, neumen človek’ (idiot), šlatati ‘otipavati’ (to touch), northeastern dialectal: ded ‘moški’ (man), pejorative: baba ‘ženska’ (wom- an), butelj ‘omejen, neumen človek’ (idiot), požeruh ‘kdor rad veliko je’ (greedy-guts), lower: tele ‘neumen človek’ (idiot), žreti ‘jesti’ (to devour) or vulgar: zajebavati ‘dražiti koga, norčevati se iz koga’ (make fun of someone), drek ‘kar je malo vredno, nepomembno’ (shit, smth. less or not important), two words have expressive markers: gnjaviti ‘vsiljivo nadlegovati’ (to annoy) and razkuriti ‘razjeziti’ (infuriate). The oldest German borrowed words originated in old high German (7th– 10th century) or in the Alpine Slovene period and are – from a standard Slo- vene perspective – stylistically unmarked: basati ‘s silo polniti, tlačiti’ (to stuff; to fill) ← OHG. fazzōn3 ‘držati, vsebovati, nalagati’ (to contain, to hold, to fill) or colloquial: žlahta ‘sorodstvo’ (relationship) ← OHG. slahta ‘pokolenje, pleme, rod, izvor’ (family, origin). Middle High German (until 13th century) and later borrowed words, especially from Bavarian German, were accepted into standard Slovene as stylistically unmarked: ceker ‘pletena

______

3 For etymology, we used Bezlaj 1976–2005; Snoj 2003; H. Striedter-Temps 1963.

34 Alenka Valh Lopert and Mihaela Koletnik ožja košara z dvema ročajema’ (narrow, two-handled bag, usually of straw), procent ‘odstotek’ (percent), sortirati ‘ločevati, prebirati’ (to sort), colloquial: jaga ‘lov’ (hunt), jakna ‘žensko vrhnje oblačilo, ki pokriva zgornji del telesa in se spredaj zapenja’ (jacket, a short coat, that is hip-length and has a front opening and sleeves), kikla ‘krilo’ ← MHG. kittel (žensko ali moško) vrhnje, srajci podobno oblačilo’ (skirt, a garment hanging from the waist and worn by women or men), lower colloquial: froc ‘otrok’ (child, kid), gas ‘plin’ (gas), kelner ‘natakar’ (waiter), lojtra ‘lestev’ (ladder) ← Bav. MHG. lǫiter ‘lestev’ (ladder), plac ‘prostor, kraj’ (place, area) ← MHG. pla(t)z ‘(odprt) prostor’ (place), probati ‘poskusiti’ (to try), šank ‘točilna miza’ (bar desk), šintar ‘konjederec’ (knacker), špilati ‘igrati’ (to play) ← MHG. spielen ‘igrati’ (to play), štant ‘stojnica’ (stand), štima ‘glas’ (voice), dialectal Styrian: pubec ‘fant, deček’ (boy, youngster, guy) ← Bav. MHG. puobe ‘fant’ (boy), pejorative: taca ‘roka, noga’ (hand, leg) ← MHG. tatze ‘taca, šapa’ (paw, hand/leg), mostly used in Maribor colloquial only: bek ‘stran’ (away), cajt ‘čas’ (time), fajn ‘fin, kakovosten’ (fine), faliti ‘manjkati’ (to lack), fertik ‘gotov’ (finished, done), flek ‘madež’ (stain, spot; soil), glih ‘enak, raven’ (equal, even) ← MHG. gelīch, glīch ‘enak’ (the same, equal), hakelj ‘kavelj, kljuka’ (hook), kiclati ‘ščegetati’ (to tickle), luft ‘zrak’ (air), mantel ‘plašč’ (coat), perajt ‘pripravljen’ (be ready), pucati ‘čistiti’ (to clean), rikverc ‘vzvratno’ (backward), rosfraj ‘nerjeveč’ (rustless), ziher ‘gotov’ (certain, sure), servus ‘pozdravljen’ (hello). The majority of Romanisms were borrowed through German, especially from Latin and some ordinal Greek borrowed-words in Latin. They are unmarked stylistically in contemporary standard Slovene: bajta ‘hiša’ (hut), gajba ‘zaboj’ (crate); muzika ‘glasba’ (music), komplicirati ‘delati kaj težavno, težje rešljivo, zapletati’ (to complicate), šef ‘ kdor vodi delo kake delovne enote’ (boss, one who makes decisions or exercises authority); colloquial: familija ‘družina’ (family), roba ‘izdelek, namenjen tržišču, blago’ (merchandise, commercial wares), šansa ‘možnost’ (chance), tarifa ‘seznam storitev z navedbo cen’ (tariff, a list of duties including prices); lower colloquial: direkt ‘neposredno, naravnost’ (direct), pejorative: amater ‘kdor nestrokovno, površno opravlja kako delo’ (amateur, a person who engages in an activity as a pastime rather than as a profession), one word with expressive notice/qualification: čik ‘cigareta’ (cigarette-butt). Among the selected terms we see some which are of Roman origin, but which were borrowed through German or contemporary European languages into standard Slovene and then subsequently into Maribor colloquial: avdicija, deponirati, poligon, totalen, vinjeta (audition, to deposit, polygon, total, vignette). There are also some borrowings from Croatian: blesav ‘prismojen, neumen’ (fool), budala ‘omejen, neumen človek’ (idiot), gužva ‘gneča’ (crush), gušiti ‘vztrajno, vsiljivo nadlegovati’ (to annoy), novinar (journalist) and

Expressing local identity through radio discourse 35 one borrowed from English (over German): štartati ‘začeti (kako dejavnost sploh)’ (to start). We can conclude that the texts of the humorous program Reporter Mi- lan, broadcast on the Maribor commercial radio station Radio City, are an exact copy of the Maribor colloquial which has formed at the intersection of the two main dialect bases – Styrian and Pannonian – at the level of phonology and terminology, traces of German can be seen. We should also point out that the current Maribor colloquial has been noticeably affected by standard Slovene.

7. Conclusion

The analysis shows that Radio City is connected both to its surroundings and its listeners. This serves as confirmation of the stratification of media speech as a manifestation of the need to identify with the speech of the environment, i.e. the intended public, and at the same time points out the need of public speech to act as a national language, in order to both achieve and reflect a collective identity. We believe that in the realization of the strategy of multilingualism in the integrational and globalizational processes in Europe, the preservation of such linguistic and cultural diversity should present a source of strength rather than a weakness, suggesting it is time to re- consider the role and status of national languages and dialects in this increasingly globalised world.

Abbreviations Bav. Bavarian SP Slovenski pravopis MHG. Middle High German A-S Grad, Anton: Veliki angleško- OHG. Old High German slovenski slovar SSKJ Slovar slovenskega knjižnega N-S Debenjak, Doris: Veliki nemško- jezika slovenski slovar

References Bezlaj, France. 1976‒2005. Etimološki slovar slovenskega jezika. [Etymological dictionary of Slovene language]. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. Debenjak, Doris. 2008. Veliki nemško-slovenski slovar. [German-Slovenian dictionary]. [CD-version]. Ljubljana: DZS. Gibson, Kari. 2004. English only court cases involving the U.S. workplace: the myths of language use and the homogenization of bilingual workers’ identities. http://www.hawaii.edu/sls/uhwpesl/22(2)/Gibson.pdf (accessed January 2011). Grad, Anton. 2009. Veliki angleško-slovenski slovar. [English-Slovenian dictionary]. [CD-version]. Ljubljana: DZS.

36 Expressing local identity through radio discourse

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Alenka Valh Lopert • University of Maribor • [email protected] Mihaela Koletnik • University of Maribor • [email protected]