Language Variation
Task B - our answer to question 4
Sentence 1: Way a wee screwed up protestant face an' a head of black
hair a was born, in a state of original sin.
Graphology and Pronunciation
'Way' is a graphologically deviant of 'with', indicating a rough approximation
to Northern Ireland pronunciation. The same is true of 'a' instead of
'I'. 'And' without the final 'd' pronounced is common in many non-standard
dialects, including Northern Ireland English, and even of Standard English
in some circumstances.
Lexis
'Wee' is dialect form for 'little' in many Irish and Scots dialects.
Sentence 2: Me ma didn't like me, but who's te blame the poor woman,
sure a didn't look like a catholic wain atall.
Graphology and Pronunciation
Pronunciations associated with the graphologically deviant 'me' instead
of 'my' is typical of a number of non-standard dialects, including Northern
Irish. The same could be said of 'te' for 'to', as well as 'a' for 'I'.
The graphologically deviant omission of the space between 'at' and 'all'
suggests a dialect form because of this deviation, but in rapid speech
there are usually no spaces between words anyway, whatever the dialect
- the assumption that there are gaps between words in speech comes from
the mistaken idea that speech is always like writing.
Lexis
'Ma' instead of 'mother' or 'mum' is common in a variety of non-standard
dialects, including Northern Irish. 'Wain' instead of 'child'/'baby' is
common in Northern Irish.
Sentence 3: The state of original sin didn't last long.
No dialect markers at all in this sentence.
Sentence 4: That's wan good thing about me ma, she maybe didn't like
me but by god she done hir duty by me an' didn't lave me lyin' there in
the clutches of the divil.
Graphology and Pronunciation
There are a number of good graphological indicators to suggest a Northern
Irish accent here: 'wan' for 'one' (though the initial consonant is common
for all English pronunciations of this word), 'hir' for 'her', 'lave'
for 'leave' and 'divil' for 'devil'. 'Me' for 'my' is common to many dialects.
Grammar
'Done' is a Northern Irish variant of the auxiliary verb 'did'.
Sentence 5: That very day a was took te the chapel at the tap of the
town be me godmother, that me ma didn't like either, an' hir husband who
could have been me uncle if me ma hada married hes brother who was handsome
an' beautiful an' iverythin' me da wasn't.
We will not bother to mention those indicators which are repetitions
of indicators we have seen in previous sentences.
Graphology and Pronunciation
There are some extra graphological deviant indicators of dialect pronunciation,
though: 'tap' for 'top', 'hada' for 'had have', 'iverythin' for 'everything'
and 'da' for 'dad'.
Sentence 6: But me ma, on a point of principle, jilted him, an' he
went te England way a broken heart an' married an oul' woman an' made
a lot of money.
All of the dialect indicators in this sentence are repetitions of what
we have seen in previous sentences except for 'oul' as a representation
of 'old'. Omitting the final 'd' is a common way of indicating a dialect
pronunciation of this word, but the 'ou' vowel representation is much
more unusual. Whether it marks a specially Northern Irish vowel is not
so clear, however.
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