Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 569

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

“It’s not like anywhere else”: Language and distinctiveness on the Isles of Scilly

Authors: Moore, Emma
Submitted by: Moore, Emma (University of Sheffield, United Kingdom)

This paper will explore how an ideology of ‘distinctiveness’ has influenced the scholarly and popular descriptions of the dialect spoken on the Isles of Scilly, a group of islands off the south-west coast of England. The only published linguistic account characterises Scillonian English as “an isolated pocket of early Modern English” (Thomas 1979, 142) and rejects the existence of any major influence from the two closest neighbouring varieties: the Cornish language and Cornish English. Historical metalinguistic commentary supports this characterisation: Scillonians are described as “speaking remarkably good English” (Borlase 1756, 116), and having “a purity of accent, and intelligent discrimination of diction” (Lewes 1860, 205). Ellis considered the islands’ accent to be so standardised that he believed “no attention … need be paid to them” (Ellis 1890, 41).

However, this account of Scillonian English is not easily reconciled with long-term Cornish dialect contact and the linguistic data available in the Scilly Voices oral history archive (www.hrionline.ac.uk/scillyvoices). Whereas Thomas (1979, 109) stresses Scilly’s distinctiveness, archive data (from the same period) exhibits a number of features also present in West Cornish English. Most strikingly, whereas Thomas (1979, 139) notes “the virtual absence of ‘r-coloured vowels’ among older Scillonians”, rhoticity is frequent in the archive. There are also similarities in the PRICE and CHOICE lexical sets for Scilly and those in West Cornwall, as catalogued during the Survey of English Dialects (Orton and Wakelin 1968).

By combining production and perception data, this paper will argue that an ideology of Scillonian ‘distinctiveness’ has influenced the perception of Scillonian English. Metalinguistic commentary and language attitude data will be used to show that fluctuations in the perception of Scillonian and Cornish similarities are the consequence of changes to the local economy and the reordering of indexical links (a process seen elsewhere, e.g. Llamas 2007; Johnstone and Kiesling 2008). For Scillonians working in the twentieth century tourist industry, ‘Cornish’ features now serve as a distinctive resource (especially given that many of these features are in decline in Cornwall itself).

References

Borlase, William. 1756. Observations on the Ancient and Present State of the Isles of Scilly and their Importance to the Trade of Great-Britain. In a Letter to the Reverend Charles Lyttelton, LL.D. Dean of Exeter, and F.R.S. Oxford: W. Jackson.

Ellis, Alexander J. 1890. English Dialects - Their Sounds and Homes. London: The English Dialect Society.

Johnstone, Barbara, and Scott Kiesling. 2008. “Indexicality and experience: exploring the meanings of /aw/-monophthongization in Pittsburgh.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 12 (1): 5-33.

Lewes, George Henry. 1860. Sea-Side Studies at Ilfracombe, Tenby, the Scilly Isles, and Jersey. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons.

Llamas, Carmen. 2007. “‘A place between places’: Language and identities in a border town.” Language in Society 36: 579-604.

Orton, Harold, and Martyn F. Wakelin, eds. 1968. Survey of English Dialects (B) The Basic Materials. Volume IV The Southern Counties. Leeds: E. J. Arnold & Sons Ltd.

Thomas, Charles. 1979. “A glossary of spoken English in the Isles of Scilly.” Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall: 109-147.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

“It’s not like anywhere else”: Language and distinctiveness on the Isles of Scilly