Irish English, Research and Developments

Abstract

The current chapter is intended as an overview of the main focus of research on Irish English to date. This variety has been well served by scholars in recent decades with a flourishing of interest stemming from various approaches to analysing English in Ireland. After an introduction, there is a section on the early history of the variety of Irish English (Section 2). This is followed by a consideration of the main linguistic event in the history of Ireland, the shift from Irish to English for the great majority of the population 3) . In keeping with new trends in Irish English scholarship, shared features across the country as a whole are then reviewed (Section 4) . Following on from this, there is a section on the interpretation of features, considering in particular their possible sources (Section 5). Such reflections are relevant to the question of whether language contact or retention of dialect input are the source for features of Irish English. The last section looks at recent changes in Dublin English (Section 7) which are having a profound influence on the course of non-local varieties of English in the south of the country. A summarises these developments and points to other areas of interest in the field of language studies and English in Ireland.