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The Sociophonetics of Dublin English
Phonetic realisation and sociopragmatic variation
e-Book – Open Access 
ISBN 9789027249548
The Sociophonetics of Dublin English shows how social inequalities and language are connected by the stances speakers take in interaction. It is based on an instrumental phonetic analysis of recorded interviews and broadcasting data and a detailed qualitative account of the same data as well as the socio-cultural context in Ireland. The analysis not only considers macro-social categories but also pragmatic norms and situational, more fluid aspects of communication. Contemporary social meanings and associated phonetic realisations are described and explained as the result of diachronic developments. Since the independence of Ireland local pronunciations have been re-evaluated and realisations connected with the former coloniser have fallen out of use even in formal and powerful domains. This investigation thus highlights the importance of diachronic data to understand contemporary sociolinguistic variation.
[Studies in Language Variation, 30] 2023. xii, 172 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 18 August 2023
Published online on 18 August 2023
© John Benjamins
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Table of Contents
- List of tables | pp. vii–viii
- List of figures | pp. ix–xi
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–8
- Chapter 2. Sociolinguistics of Dublin English | pp. 9–34
- Chapter 3. Pragmatics of Irish English | pp. 35–44
- Chapter 4. Sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and phonetic variation | pp. 45–51
- Chapter 5. Data and methodology | pp. 52–68
- Chapter 6. Vowel variation: /ai/ in Dublin English | pp. 69–109
- Chapter 7. Consonantal variation: Word-final /t/ in Dublin English | pp. 110–142
- Chapter 8. Discussion and conclusion | pp. 143–153
- Appendix. Auditory Analysis of RTÉ Archives: File Name (Year) | pp. 155–156
- References | pp. 157–170
- Index | pp. 171–172
“[A] valuable addition to the research vault of Irish English, sociolinguistics, sociophonetics, sociopragmatics, World Englishes scholars and more. Fine-grained phonetic distinctions relating to the localisation of global patterns are coherently related to pragmatic positions adopted by the interviewees”
Fergus O’Dwyer, Marino Institute of Education, in English Language and Linguistics 2025.
“This well-structured book offers an interdisciplinary study of two sociophonetic variables in Dublin English [...]. In so doing, it contributes to a growing body of third-wave sociolinguistic research by investigating the relationship between the social factors of gender, residence, and occupation and the more dynamic aspect of stance-taking in interaction. [...] Even though Schulte concentrates on Dublin English, she discusses her findings in light of World Englishes and global language ideologies, which makes her study interesting for researchers in dialectal variation”
Sara Díaz-Sierra, Universidad de Extremadura, Language in Society 54:2 (2025)