Varieties presentation first draft

TYNESIDE ENGLISH
Aislinn Lefevre, Danny Norton, Joseph Butler & Ranmoor Tom

Newcastle
Upon Tyne
North
Tyneside
South
Tyneside
Gateshead
River Tyne

SPEAKING GEORDIEYoutub
e
Kick Off
it’s me baby cousin
HappY Tensing
/d z st /ɪ ɑː ɛ
Bairn
Champion
CrackNaebody
They says
Thirty year
ago
Divv’n

When germanic tribes settled in England
from C5 AD, and Northumberland was
established in 653 and the Danelaw was
established in 876 separating Anglo Saxon
Northumberland from areas of Danes
Influence of the Norman conquest was not
so influential due to the geographic
isolation of the North East therefore
Northumberland remained English
territory until…
Scottish language contact has had a
significant impact on the tyneside language.
THE HISTORY OF TYNESIDE

Running from Newcastle Upon Tyne across to the east Hadrian’s
Wall is an interesting historical factor in the history of the
Tyneside variety.
The wall was built to protect the roman empire but also to keep
the Scots out, they spoke a celtic variety of the english language
and so imagine what life would be like without the wall!

JOAN. C BEAL
bserved from the data between the use of lad/ lass and the
synonyms boy/ girl
● AND whether this variation correlates in any way with age;
gender and/ or social class
● The final RQ was to try to assess whether Glauser’s
prediction that lass would be lost before lad is correct.
Methods Used
● Beal and Elizondo gathered data on the North-eastern
dialect from other sources such as Milroy et al. (2007)
● They then adapted this further by comparing the data from
Milroy et al. with social factors to see if there was a correlation
between these social factors and the use of lad and lass.
● Plus they used SRN’s.
Conclusion
● Use of lad declining,slightly, however, lass is declining
more so.
● However! Lass going through a semantic shift in the
North east to mean ‘sexual partner.’
Joan Beal and Lourdes Burbano-Elizondo (2012). ‘All the Lads and Lasses’: lexical variation in
Tyne and Wear. English Today, 28, pp 10-22

DOMINIC WATT
Watt’s Research covered:
Variants of the ‘Face’ and ‘Goat’ vowels and which
members of the Newcastle public used which variant
Split into 3 types of variants:
● Type 1: Supralocal
● Type 2: Local
● Type 3: National
Watt measured these variants in a sociolinguistic
manner. E.g. He split the participants into: class, age and
gender.
Watt, D. (2002), ‘I don’t speak with a Geordie accent, I speak, like, the Northern accent’:
Contact-induced levelling in the Tyneside vowel system. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6: 44–63.

DOMINIC WATT
Watt, D. (2002), ‘I don’t speak with a Geordie accent, I speak, like, the Northern accent’:
Contact-induced levelling in the Tyneside vowel system. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6: 44–63.
SUPRALOCALSUPRALOCAL LOCALLOCAL NATIONALNATIONAL
NEED TO
COMPLETE

SOME MORE MATERIAL
• Rowe, C. (2007), He divn’t gan tiv a college
ti di that, man! A study of do (and to) in
Tyneside English Language sciences vol. 29
(2) pp.360-371.
• J. K. Local, J. Kelly and W. H. G.Wells (1986).
Towards a phonology of conversation: turn-
taking in Tyneside English. Journal of
Linguistics, 22, pp.411-437.
• Carmen Llamas (2007).“A place between
places”: Language and identities in a border
town. Language in Society, 36, pp 579-604.

WHERE DOES THE TERM
GEORDIE COME FROM?
One opinion is that the name was born in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, when the Jacobites bypassed Newcastle,
which, as well as favouring the Hanoverian King George, was also a well-guarded garrison.The Jacobites then said
that Newcastle and the surrounding areas were all "for George". Hence the name Geordies.
Another view of where ‘geordie’ originated is from the coal mines of Durham and Northumberland, for many
poems and songs written about and in the dialect of these two counties speak of the "Geordie".The Oxford
English Dictionary states that the word has two meanings: a guinea (which had the figure of St. George on it) and
a pitman.Whilst the name was applicable to coal-miners it later became applicable toTynesiders in general.
The third possible origin is from George Stephenson, who in 1815 invented the miners' lamp.The
Northumberland miners used this lamp in preference to that invented by Sir Humphrey Davy at the same time,
and the lamp, and eventually, the miners themselves became known as Geordies.
The last possible explanation also derives from George Stephenson. In 1826, he gave evidence to a Parliamentary
Commission on Railways at which his blunt speech and dialect drew contemptuous sneers. From that date, it is
said that Londoners began to call the Keelmen who carried coal from theTyne to theThames "Geordie".

WHO DOES THE TERM
‘GEORDIE’ APPLY TO?
Originally, it would appear that the name applied only to miners
(origin 2 and 3), Keelmen (origin 4) or inhabitants of Newcastle
(origin 1). Later it became applied to members of the Tyneside
Community at large. Nowadays, it would seem that anyone in
Northumberland, Co. Durham or Tyne and Wear can call
themselves “Geordie".

HOW HAS TYNESIDE ENGLISH
INFLUENCED POPULAR
CULTURE?
• Certain words from Tyneside English have been utilised in popular culture
• ‘Pet’ the quintessential Geordie address to females was popularised by the
character of Terry Collier in the television series The Likely Lads and the
programme title Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
• Although the use of dialect vocabulary in popular culture does not reflect
society completely it is still interesting to analyse as the way a dialect is
used in the media affects public perceptions of the dialect. In addition, it is
incredibly difficult to record dialect vocabulary naturally.The fact so many
local words are included below demonstrates a wealth of local vocabulary
is still used spontaneously by Geordies.

WHAT AFFECT DID HISTORICAL
INVASIONS HAVE ON TYNESIDE ENGLISH?
• Subsequent invasions left the North East increasingly linguistically isolated from
developments elsewhere in Northumbria.TheVikings, for instance, settled mainly south of
the River Tees and therefore had a lasting impact on the development of dialects in
Yorkshire, but not further north.
• Later still, the counties of Durham and Northumberland do not feature in the Domesday
Book in 1086 as both counties resisted Norman control for some time longer. Meanwhile
the border skirmishes that broke out sporadically during the Middle Ages meant the River
Tweed established itself as a significant northern barrier against Scottish influence.
• As a result, the North East has always maintained a strong sense of cultural identity and
resisted the centralising tendencies of both Edinburgh and London. Many contemporary
Geordie dialect words, such as gan (‘go’ – modern German gehen) and bairn (‘child’ -
modern Danish barn) can still trace their roots right back to the Angles

HOW HAVE HISTORICAL CHANGES
AFFECTED TYNESIDE ENGLISH?
• The only part of England where the original Anglo-Saxon language has survived to any great extent is of course
the North East. Here the old language survives in a number of varieties, the most notable of which are
Northumbrian and Geordie. It is from the ancient Germanic and Scandinavian language of the Angles that the
unique local dialects of Northumberland and Durham primarily owe their origins
• Geordie words should not therefore be seen as sloppy pronunciation or a poor use of language, as they are in
fact of great antiquity. Indeed many old words and phrases commonly used in the old works of Chaucer and
Shakespeare which are no longer used in other parts of Britain have survived as common usage in the North
East.
• In the previous year George I, a German protestant, had been appointed as King of England, Scotland andWales
despite the strong claims of the Catholic James Stuart, who was known as `The Old Pretender’.
• The claims of Stuart were strongly supported by a large army of Scottish and Northumbrian people called the
Jacobites who plotted a rising in Northumberland against the new king under the leadership of General Tom
Forster of Bamburgh. Recruits joinedTom Forster, from all parts of Northumberland and every town in the
county was visited by Forster's army.All the Northumbrian towns declared support for the Jacobites withthe one
major and very important exception of Newcastle on theTyne, which closed its gates to Forster's men.

HOW HAVE HISTORICAL CHANGES
AFFECTED TYNESIDE ENGLISH?
• Newcastle's trade and livelihood depended so vitally on royal approval that its merchants and gentry could
not risk becoming involved in a plot against the new king.There were some Jacobite sympathisers in the
town, especially among the working classes, but officially the Newcastle folk had to declare for King
`Geordie'. Newcastle's standing as a supporter of King Geordie angered the Jacobites who may well have
given the Newcastle people their famous nickname Newcastle people were Geordie's they were the
supporters of King George.
• The Jacobites were still nevertheless determined to oust the German king with or without the support of
the Newcastle Geordies;
• The rising of the `15 was a total disaster and Newcastle perhaps felt it had made the right decision in being
Geordie's supporters.
• A second rising took place in 1745 when Newcastle once again closed its gates to the Jacobites, who were
now supporting the claims of
• Bonnie Prince Charlie (TheYoung Pretender). Newcastle faithfully declared its support for King `Geordie'
the Second.

HOW HAVE RECENT SOCIAL DIFFERENCES
AFFECTED THE LEVEL OF SPOKEN TYNESIDE
ENGLISH?
• The main reason for the loss of old words is that Geordies aren't geographically isolated
any more.
• There's also been a greater influx of outsiders into the region.In the past the North East
was a much more insular place to live and work.Old tight-knit communities such as small
mining towns and villages based on coal and lead mines have largely died out.As a result
the dialect words associated with those industries have also been fading away
• Traditionally one of the reasons that the Geordie accent was preserved was the North
East's isolation from London and surrounding areas.
• But even modern day communications, the coming of television and radio, and
educationalists' railings against dialect in the classroom have not totally diminished its
power

CONTEMPORARY
RESEARCH INTOTHE
NORTH- EAST DIALECT
THE LOCATION OF
RESOURCES FOR
CURRENT STUDIES
INTO THISVARIETY
Further research and the resources used in
these studies

CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH
Most of the current research into theTyneside dialect is centred on levelling and diffusion of the variety
Levelling:
Researchers have approached this by looking at the differences between classes
One study of note was into monophthongization of FACE
Working Class Older Men - [ ] - 63.2%ɪə
Middle Class Older Men - [e:] - 78.3%
Working ClassYounger Men - [e:] - 61.5% -Watt (2000)
‘People in Newcastle are aware of “old” and “modern”’ -Kerswell (2003)
•
‘Considerable amount of levelling’ -Watt (2002)
‘The extent of homogenisation within the region is currently being assessed systematically
through the on going study by Llamas et al.’ -Beal (2010)
‘Recent studies which have compared the speech of young with that of older speakers in order infer change in progress’ -Beal (2010)

CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH
Diffusion:
• This has been studied by carrying out research into variation between older and younger speakers of
the dialect
• An example would be recent studies focusing on TH-fronting in Tyneside English in which there is a
distinction between older and younger speakers of the North-East dialect
• /f/ and /v/ >>> / / and /ð/ respectivelyθ
• TH-fronting is listed as feature of the Cockney dialect -Wells (1997)
• ‘The recent rapid diffusion of the form appears to be from the south of England northwards’ -Beal
(2012)
• Geographical diffusion,‘by which features spread out from a populous, economical and dominant centre’
-Kerswell (2003)

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER
RESEARCH
NECTE:
It is a collaboration of two corpora:A survey carried out in the 1960s and theTLS
It is made up of a collection of digitized audio, orthographic transcriptions and phonetic
transcription
Used multiple times in research in recent years:
Punctual Never - Cheshire et al. (1993)
‘He never dropped like a set... against anybody’ (NECTE)
•
Auxiliary contraction - Tagliamonte & Smith. (2002)
‘The teacher’ll not tell them’ (NECTE)
NECTE similarly acts as comparable reference to investigate the progression and change in the North-East dialect
variety.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Robinson, J. (2002) Sounds Familiar?. <http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html> [10.03.14]
Simpson, D. (2009) England’s North East. <http://www.englandsnortheast.co.uk/GeordieOrigins.html> [10.03.14]
Watt, D. (2002) ‘I don’t speak with a Geordie accent, I speak, like, the Northern accent’: Contact-induced levelling in theTyneside vowel
system. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6, 44–63
Beal, JC & Burbano-Elizondo, L (2012) ‘All the Lads and Lasses’: lexical variation in Tyne andWear. EnglishToday, 28, 10-22
Rowe, C. (2007) “He divn’t gan tiv a college ti di that, man!”:A study of do (and to).Tyneside English Language sciences, 29(2), 360-371
Local, JK, Kelly, J andWells,WHG. (1986)Towards a phonology of conversation: turn-taking in Tyneside English. Journal of Linguistics, 22,
411-437 Llamas, C. (2007) “A place between places”: Language and identities in a border town. Language in Society, 36, 579-604.
Beal, JC. (2010) An introduction to regional Englishes: dialect variation in England. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Beal, JC. (2012) Urban North-Eastern English:Tyneside toTeesside. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Wells, J. (1998)What is Estuary English?. English Teaching Professional, 3, 46-47
Tagliamonte, S & Smith, J. (2002) Either it isn’t or it’s not: negative auxiliary contractions in British dialects. English WorldWide, 23(2),
251-281
Kerswill, P. (2003) Dialect levelling and geographical diffusion in British English. In Britain, D & Cheshire, J. (ed) Social Dialectology: In
Honour of Peter Trudgill.Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Varieties presentation first draft

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