Analysis of sounds and spellings based on RP [i:] in the nineteenth-century Lancashire vernacular

Abstract

Northern dialects and the Lancashire vernacular have been substantially represented in literature. Regional literature is principally classified into dialect literature and literary dialect. The former is addressed to a limited readership as it comprises those novels, plays and poems that are entirely composed in a non-standard variety. The latter relates to the literary production which is for the most part written in standard English, except the characters’ dialogues that are marked with a particular variety. This last approach is considered to be a useful tool for linguists in dialect study. This paper analyses the sounds and spellings related to the FLEECE lexical set in the nineteenth-century Lancashire vernacular, according to Wells’s classification (1982) for words containing RP [i:]. To this end, several nineteenth-century literary dialect works were compiled and studied. In this endeavor, the deviant spellings associated with RP [i:] are gathered and attributed to their pronunciations in the dialect. The present paper examines the coexistence of sounds for FLEECE on the grounds of historical and sociolinguistic reasons.
 Keywords: Lancashire dialect; literary dialect; deviant spellings; dialect sounds; FLEECE lexical set