Interactions in Grammatical Systems: North-South Dialect Variation in England

The grammar of English has been characterised as less of a regional marker than accent. Nevertheless, even the most widespread grammatical features found in varieties of English around the world exhibit regional variation. For example, sociolinguists have identified certain grammatical phenomena that are reported to have North-South patterning within England in terms of their frequency and/or the linguistic factors that affect their use. These include negative concord (e.g. 'I didn't see nobody' meaning "I didn't see anybody") and 'ain't' (e.g. 'I ain't going') which are reportedly more commonly used in the south of England rather than further north. However, such features have typically been analysed in isolation, independently of one another. We do not know the degree to which these North-South patterns in the grammar of English dialects are the result of, or independent of, interactions between grammatical features themselves. For example, is there an interaction between the use of negative concord and the use of 'ain't', since they can co-occur in some contexts? Does this reflect a structural relationship between these phenomena within the linguistic systems of regional dialects? This fellowship project concerns both the regional distribution of grammatical forms and how phenomena interact structurally within dialect systems, focusing on negation, subject-verb agreement and the auxiliary system. The project combines methods that have traditionally been used in the fields of syntax and sociolinguistics respectively: (1) an online questionnaire, open to participants across England, which asks people how often they would hear particular sentence types in their local area; (2) sociolinguistic interviews with pairs of speakers in four English cities chosen for their North-South distribution, similar population sizes and distinctive dialects: Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Nottingham and Southampton. The methodology grants insights into both how people perceive the grammatical variation and their actual use of grammatical features in speech. Quantitative analysis and geographical mapping of the data will be undertaken to establish how frequently different grammatical constructions are used across regions of England, whether the dialects represented share the same underlying system of linguistic factors that influence their use and interactions, and whether there is evidence of language change.

The fellowship will allow the PI to develop their research capabilities in the integration of syntax and sociolinguistics for the analysis of grammatical variation. The insights gained into grammatical interactions and their geographical patterning will enhance our understanding of the underlying structure of English dialects, which has benefits for researchers working in sociolinguistics, language variation and change, dialectology and syntax. Research findings will be disseminated to scholars in these areas through publications and conferences. As dialect variation aligns with many components of the A-Level English Language curriculum, the project presents opportunities to engage with A-Level English Language teachers who will be invited to participate in the questionnaire stage of the research including the pilot testing process. The project will provide Continuing Professional Development opportunities for the teachers including a new case study on the York English Language Toolkit website and a webinar presenting the research findings. These pathways to impact will help increase the teachers' subject knowledge of grammatical variation/change and survey methodology that they can apply to their own teaching. The research will also help to raise public awareness of language diversity and combat negative stereotypes of non-standard language use, via a public lecture and a case study incorporated into a massive open online course in sociolinguistics which reaches a broad international audience.