Scilly Voices: Language Variation and Distinctiveness on the Isles of Scilly

This project will investigate the variety of English spoken by the population of the Isles of Scilly (a group of islands 28 miles off Land's End, Cornwall). Census data shows considerable continuity in the original Scillonian population from the nineteenth century onwards, however, it also shows a steady flow of immigration, with incomers accounting for approximately one fifth of the local population. These population shifts have occurred alongside significant changes to the local economy: once sustained by fishing and farming industries, the islands' predominant industry is now tourism. These economic and demographic shifts make Scilly a fruitful environment in which to examine the processes involved in language variation. In particular, the islands' location permits us to examine the nature of insular communities and the influence of complex social structures. This will not only enhance our understanding of 'a lesser-known variety of English' (Trudgill 2002: 29), it will also help us to further understand the correlation between social networks, traditional practices, family ties, heritage and language change.

The historical trajectory of Scilly's variety of English will be documented by first seeking to establish the variety's genealogy. Recordings held in the Isles of Scilly Museum's Oral History Archive suggest that there are similarities between Scillonian English and Cornish English, but these connections were not observed in historical accounts of the dialect (including an academic account of Scillonian English written in 1979 by Charles Thomas). In order to examine this apparent language change, the interaction between language production and what individuals perceive about the variety and its historical associations will be considered. The demographic and diachronic distribution of language features will be considered, and the folklinguistic ways in which these features are perceived will be studied. The analysis will use recordings of elderly speakers held in the Oral History Archive, and compare these with present-day interviews recorded with speakers of different generations from the same Scillonian family. Attitudes to the dialect will be considered via on-line tests where locals, tourists and those who have never been to Scilly are asked to evaluate the localities and social attributes associated with the voice samples they hear. In taking these approaches, this project will demonstrate methods for combining production and perception-based studies of language variation.

This project builds upon previous collaborations between the principal investigator and the Isles of Scilly Museum, the Council of the Isles of Scilly, the Five Islands School and the Isles of Scilly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership. As such, it innovatively embeds the research in a history of knowledge exchange. This relationship will be key to fully understanding how language features correlate with the social life of speech communities. The AONB Management Plan (2010-2014: 28) highlights the importance of consultation and notes that 'Scilly has rich and varied cultural associations that span politics, religion, art, literature, folklore, local tradition and lifestyles.' By combining ethnographic insights into the community, engaging community members (via archive recordings and community collaboration) and gaining access to the historical documentation relating to Scilly held by on the islands, this project will achieve a comprehensive understanding of Scilly's sociolinguistic context and serve as an exemplar of publicly engaged sociolinguistic research.

The direct beneficiary of this project will be the Scillonian community it studies. The Isles of Scilly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Unit are responsible for protecting Scilly's environment whilst supporting an environmentally sustainable economy. This is no easy task, given the need to preserve heritage in an environment which is maintained by a resource-hungry, tourism-based economy. Their Management Plan (2010-2014: 28) notes that, 'The national significance of the Islands lies not only in their exceptional physical qualities but also in the cultural associations that have propelled Scilly to a prominent position on the national stage'. Ensuring Scilly's sustainability requires coherent datasets, which monitor cultural factors and measure actual or potential change. The language variation analysed in this project will serve as a measure of the stability of Scilly's population. In particular, in correlating language use and social factors such as migration, education and tourism, this project will provide a dataset useful for future planning on the islands. This is important, given the relationship between the AONB and Scilly's unitary authority, the Council of the Isles of Scilly (statutory responsibility for care of the AONB designation resides with the Council).

The project will also help to promote social inclusion on the islands. There is sometimes a perception expressed by islanders that institutional bodies on the islands make decisions without fully consulting the local population (see, for instance, this debate reported in the national press: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-battle-of-hell-bay-690722.html). This leads to the perception that the normal citizen is excluded from the decisions which often govern how they live their lives on a day-to-day basis. By engaging a representative sample of the population as interviewees, and drawing upon the insights of locals, this project will effectively provide the opportunity for the people of Scilly to represent themselves in their own words. In this way, where policy is informed by this piece of research, it will be based upon the experience of individuals from the local population. Furthermore, copies of the recordings obtained as part of this project will be held at the Isles of Scilly Museum, thus ensuring that the primary data stays within the community as a historical and informative resource. As the fieldworker employed on the project is a local, this will also ensure that the skills s/he acquires in the course of the data collection also stay within the community. Finally, the website will remain as a resource after the completion of the project and will continue to generate interest and inform in line with the collaborative aims of the project.

Whilst the immediate beneficiaries of this research are the local population of Scilly, the methods employed in this study could be adapted for future sociolinguistic research in any community, as discussed further in the Pathways to Impact statement. Consequently, this project has the potential to impact far beyond the Scillonian community. In particular, the project illustrates the ways in which sociolinguistic research can directly inform aspects of public policy, particularly where policy decisions are based upon social, historical or cultural change within a community. The project also provides a template for activities which help to foster community cohesion via knowledge exchange. In particular, it will demonstrate how digital and electronic resources can be used to involve community members, and rapidly and accessibly disseminate research findings. Finally, the project will also demonstrate how by-products of the research process (in this case, interviews) can be usefully redeployed as community resources. This project will serve to model these activities which could be made integral