The Performance and

Enregisterment of dialect

features in Mersea Island

English

Jenny Amos

Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex

jamos@essex.ac.uk

Sociolinguist Essex 2010

What is Dialect Performance and

Enregisterment?

Performance

Schilling-Estes (1998:53) defines performance speech as “that register associated with speakers attempting to display for others a certain language or language variety, whether their

own or that of another speech community”

Wolfram and Schilling-Estes (2006, for example) note that a dialect performance is where speakers enhance the vernacular for demonstration purposes and that performance phrases are

specific rote phrases which highlight a number of dialect features.

These practiced phrases act as preservers of certain salient dialect features for native speakers and, thus, will help to

preserve certain forms within these specific contexts

Enregisterment

The link between certain linguistic structures

and encoded social values

Enregisterment - Based on Johnson et al 20061st Order Indexicality:

The frequency of regional

variants can be correlated

with being from a

particular region.

But for socially non-mobile

speakers in dense,

multiplex social networks,

these correlations are not

noticeable, because

“everybody speaks that

way.”

2nd order indexicality:

Speakers start to notice and

attribute meaning to regional

variants and shift styles in

their own speech.

The meaning of these forms

is shaped mainly by

ideologies about class and

correctness, though regional

forms can also be linked with

locality by people who have

had the “localness” of these

forms called to attention.

3rd order indexicality:

Natives and non-natives

of a region use regional

forms drawn from highly

codified lists to perform

local identity, often in

ironic, semiserious ways.

Enregisterment takes place - the speech unit has become associated

with a style of speech and can be used to create a context for that style.

The Data

The DataThe data consist of 2942 tokens of (au), 3620 tokens of (aI) and 286 tokens of

(OI) which were extracted from 28 speakers across three age groups and both

genders:

47--Females

575Male

Young (18-25)Old (59-75)Museum

The tokens from the old and young speakers were extracted from informal

sociolinguistic interviews conducted between 2006 and 2007.

The recordings analysed from the local museum’s archives were all from

1979 and were informal interviews of local people conducted at the local

council offices.

A quick review of the results:

1) Change over time: (aU) (OI) (aI)

2) Canadian Raising:

MOUTH - (aU)

PRICE - (aI)

3) Centralisation of BOY:

CHOICE - (OI)

4) Monophthongisation of ‘Island’:

PRICE - (aI)

1) Change over time

MOUTH (aU)

[EU] [aU]

PRICE (aI)

[OI] [aI]

CHOICE (aI)

[∏I] [OI]

2) Canadian Raising – MOUTH and PRICE

Both (aU) and (aI) diphthongs show a

preference for raised variants before voiceless

consonants while lower nuclei correlate with

voiced and word final environments

For example:

out loud tight tide

[EUt] [laUd] [tOIt] [taId]

3) Centralisation of (OI)

The data for preceding manner and place show that

preceding labial stops are a favourable environment for the preservation of the traditional [∏I] variant.

The following graphs show a comparison of BOY

tokens compared to all other tokens

4) Monophthongisation of ‘Island’

The following data set compares the distribution of

variants according to whether the following /l/ is tautosyllabic with (aI) (i.e. it is in the coda) or not

(i.e. it is the onset of the following syllable).

Coda /l/ - e.g. child, childhood, while, fragile

Non Coda /l/ - e.g. Island, highland, pilot

On the surface, there seems little

difference between the influence of /l/

when each phonological position is

compared. However, when the 107

tokens of ‘Island’ are separated from the

‘Non-Coda L’ data, a different pattern

emerges……

The data now demonstrate how, with the extraction of ‘Island’, Non-Coda L

does not exhibit any smoothed and backed variants. Instead, ‘Island’

appears to pattern with the tokens which have a following /l/ in the coda

(such as while and tile), particularly with respect to the use of the backed monophthong [A].

How these patterns can be related

to enregisterment

/ai/ and /au/ RaisingOcracoke (e.g.Schilling-Estes 1998)

Ocracoke - variation of /aI/ is openly discussed as a feature of Ocracoke

English by native Islanders but not variation relating to /aU/. This suggests

that it is the former which is enregistered for these speakers and not the latter and so /aI/ raising and backing is open for manipulation in

performance speech

‘Rex’ - performed variation of /ai/ but did not perform the variable qualities of

/au/ in the phrases such as ‘It’s a high tide on the sound side’

- he also emulated the linguistic patterning of the variable (aI) with

respect to linguistic context

This indicates that aspects of phonological conditioning of

this variable must also be enregistered for this speaker

Raising in MIE

When both Islanders and outsiders comment on their speech and use rote phrases, they use raised /aI/ and /aU/ nuclei consistently across phonological contexts and do not accommodate the Canadian Raising rule

during any performance or dialect comment.

Therefore, it could be suggested that it is only the raised nuclei of these diphthongs which is enregistered or associated with this dialect and not any type of

contextual phonological raising rule.

However, even though there seems to be no

phonological raising rule embedded in the performance of /aI/ and /aU/, according to

following context, there seems to a

possibility of interacting phonological and

lexical conditioning applying to BOY and

‘Island’

BOY - “my boy”

Schilling-Estes (1998:61) notes that the prominence of the raised /aI/

nucleus in pre-voiced consonant position is enhanced by its

frequency in this context within performance phrases compared to

the frequency of pre-voiceless consonant positions.

The same could be said for /b + OI/ sequences, and derived BOY

forms were the most frequent lexical items with a preceding /b/

The MIE data show that, for all age groups, the preceding /b/

segment promotes more non-standard, centralised variants in

natural, non-performance speech and is the variant of choice in

the ‘my boy’ performance phrase.

This [∏I] variant is also widely commented upon as a MIE

feature suggesting that it is enregistered as a dialect

feature

Therefore, there are two possibilities:

1. If it is the phonological rule which has been encoded (i.e. /OI/ is fronted following /b/) we would expect to find the

fronted centralised variant ‘performed’ after a /b/ even

when it is not in the context of the ‘my boy’ phrase.

2. Conversely, if the phonological rule has not been

encoded, the fronted centralised variant would not be

realised outside the context of the lexical item boy

Unfortunately, the data doesn’t hold the answer as there are no /b/ + /OI/ contexts in other performance sequences

‘Island’ monophthongisation

The word ‘Island’ does not feature in any performance phrase and monophthongisation in this word (or any coda /l/ words) doesn’t feature in any comments of the

dialect by the speakers who were interviewed.

Therefore, in contrast to the others, the monophthongisation of /aI/ in the lexical item ‘Island’does not appear to be an enregistered feature of MIE.

As a result, it can’t be considered as either a linguistic or a social marker of MIE

Concluding Observations

The enregisterment of dialect features can be

demonstrated and observed through the structure of

linguistic performance and overt social comment.

The use of established performance phrases can help

preserve traditional dialect features through either

general rules or through the encoding of contextual

phonological rules

The data from MIE show that while the raising of PRICE and

MOUTH diphthongs appear to be enregistered, specific

contextual raising constraints are not.

The centralisation of BOY also appears to be enregistered,

though it is unclear as to whether it is general rule which is

enregistered or a context specific centralisation rule.

In contrast, the monophthongisation of Island is not open to

overt social comment and does not feature in performance

phrases suggesting that this feature is not enregistered.

Therefore, the application of enregisterment and performance

analyses can help interpret certain patterns which are

uncovered in variationist data