Journal of English Linguistics OnlineFirst, published on March 31, 2009 as doi:10.1177/0075424209334026

A Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England

Journal of English Linguistics Volume XX Number X Month XXXX xx-xx © 2009 Sage Publications 10.1177/0075424209334026 http://eng.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

Michael Pearce University of Sunderland, United Kingdom

This study presents perceptual dialect maps derived from a questionnaire completed by almost 1,600 people across North East England. Respondents were given the names of fifty-one locations and asked to provide numerical judgments on the “similarity” or “difference” of the dialect of speakers from these locations compared to speakers from the respondents’ hometowns. The questionnaire also invited respondents to comment on accents and dialects in the region. The numerical data are mapped, revealing a perceptual landscape consisting of three broad areas further subdivided into smaller perceptual zones. These perceptual areas are described and discussed in relation to salient geographical, social, and cultural factors. The article concludes by placing this research in the context of dialectological and variationist studies of English in the North East. Keywords:  North East England; folk linguistics; perceptual dialectology; language attitudes; regional identity

T

he present article’s attempt to map the linguistic landscape of North East England from the perspective of people living there is a contribution to the sociolinguistic discipline of perceptual dialectology (PD), a branch of folk linguistics—the study of what ordinary people (i.e., nonlinguists) know, think, and feel about language. Dennis Preston, one of the discipline’s major proponents (Wales 2006a:57), calls PD the “dialectologist’s-sociolinguist’s-variationist’s interest in folk linguistics,” and he asks a series of questions that he suggests it is the perceptual dialectologist’s job to answer: “What do non-specialists have to say about variation? Where do they believe it comes from? Where do they believe it exists? What do they believe is its function?” (Preston 1999:xxv). The focus of this article is mainly on the third question: where do people believe linguistic variation exists? Trying to answer this question is of course interesting and worthwhile for its own sake—not least as a contribution to the ethnography and cultural anthropology of the area under scrutiny (Preston 1999:xxiv). But Preston (2003:123) also argues that “language ideologies and folk beliefs” are “important considerations in the general study of language variation and change.”1 This is because language attitudes, which comprise people’s beliefs and feelings about features of language, will predispose them to act in certain ways. In other words, what people believe about variation and change might have a bearing on “actual” variation and change; this idea is taken up later in the article.

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Table 1 Counties and Districts in North East England County

Districts

Northumberland Blyth Valley, Wansbeck, Castle Morpeth, Tynedale, Alnwick,   Berwick-upon-Tweed Tyne and Wear Gateshead, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North Tyneside,   South Tyneside, Sunderland County Durham City of Durham, Easington, Sedgefield, Teesdale, Wear Valley,   Derwentside, Chester-Le-Street, Hartlepool, Darlington,   Stockton-on-Tees (north of the River Tees) North Yorkshire (part only) Stockton-on-Tees (south of the River Tees),   Redcar and Cleveland, Middlesbrough

The setting for this study is North East England. In human geography, the term region is generally applied to “a more or less bounded area possessing some sort of unity or organizing principle(s) that distinguish it from other regions” (Gregory 2000:687). The territory contained within the “bounded area” of North East England can vary depending on who is defining it and for what ends. But in this article, when the terms North East England and the North East are used, they should be understood as referring to the official administrative counties and districts given in Table 1. These areas make up “the North East,” one of the nine Government Office Regions of England. In comparison with other English regions, the population is quite low (approximately 2.5 million in 2001) and spread over a large area (850,000 hectares). Most people live in three conurbations centered on the cities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (which from now on is referred to as Newcastle), Sunderland, and Middlesbrough. To the south and north of Tyneside lie the coalfields of County Durham and southeastern Northumberland, with their ex-mining towns and villages, while the rest of the region consists of wild moor-covered uplands and rich agricultural lowlands (Aalen 2006; Vigar 2006). This region has played an important role in British history. For example, in the seventh and eighth centuries it was at the heart of the largest and most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which stretched from north of the River Humber into what is now southeastern Scotland. It was also one of the most important centers of learning in western Europe, with its intellectual and religious life based at the monasteries and scriptoria of Lindisfarne, Jarrow, and Wearmouth. A thousand years later, as a consequence of the increasing exploitation of indigenous coal reserves in the eighteenth century, North East England became one of the first European regions to industrialize (Benneworth & Charles 2007). A particularly significant industrial development—the railway—arose from the need to transport coal rapidly and efficiently from the collieries in West Durham and Darlington to the port at Stockton on the River Tees (MacRaild & Purdue 2006; Muir 2006). Later, the region was at the vanguard of developments in shipbuilding technology, armaments, and electrical

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turbine generation, “all of which fuelled the growth of industry in the region” (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] 2006:38). This rapid industrial growth meant that workers in the North East were some of the earliest to organize themselves for their mutual advantage. Yet in spite of its importance in English cultural, economic, and social history, the North East of England does not usually loom large in the mental maps of people from outside the region, particularly those from London and the South East, who inhabit what is widely perceived as the cultural, political, and economic “centre of national gravity” (Wales 2006b:1) and who therefore perhaps have a disproportionate role in shaping what Russell (2004) calls the “national imagination.” Indeed, to many southerners, much of England north of Birmingham, in particular the North East, is Terra Septentrionalis Incognita. It is not a prime internal tourist destination: in 2007 only 3.6 percent of tourist trips by U.K. citizens to U.K. destinations were to the North East of England, compared with 20.0 percent to destinations in the South West and 27.5 percent to London and the South East (VisitBritain 2007). Nor is it much of a target for inter-regional migration—according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS 2007) for the year ending September 2007, just 3.6 percent of the 110,750 internal migrants in England moved to the North East (the smallest proportion of all the English regions), compared to 35.3 percent who went to London and the South East; and of the incomers to the North East, only 8,300 were from London and the South East (9,100 came from Yorkshire and the Humber, in spite of this region’s much smaller population). Such facts mean that outsiders’ perceptions of the North East are seldom derived from direct experience but rather from representations on television, in films, and in the national press. These representations often simplify and distort, in particular by focusing on the city of Newcastle and its inhabitants (commonly known as “Geordies”) to the exclusion of other places in the region.2 As a result, there is a tendency for outsiders to regard the whole of the North East, from Darlington to the Scottish border, as “Geordieland,” even though within the region the term has powerful associations with Tyneside and the city of Newcastle (see Beal 2004b). Many of the questionnaire respondents comment on this attitude (the hometown of the respondent is given in brackets):3 (1) Why do people always assume everyone in the North East speaks with a Geordie accent? Grrr. [Darlington] (2) I am a Wearsider through and through and I think my accent is totally different from the Geordie accent.4 However, people from outside the North East think we all sound the same and of course we’re all Geordies! [Sunderland] (3) I am so sick of people saying to me “Why aye man, Byker Grove” when I meet people from different areas of the country, when I am not from Newcastle and in fact have a Durham accent.5 [Durham]

The fact that the “incorrect” use of the label Geordie rankles with these respondents is probably a consequence of Newcastle’s perceived dominance in the region, a

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perception that has emerged in previous sociolinguistic studies of the North East and that has some basis in fact. For example, Burbano-Elizondo (2006:113) reports on “Sunderland people in particular,” complaining that “their city is regarded as Newcastle’s poor relation.” Llamas, in her study of the sociolinguistic implications of the “border town” status of Middlesbrough, located “in a transition zone between the extreme south of the North East and the extreme north of Yorkshire” (Llamas 2007:580), identifies “an ardent sense of rivalry and even hostility towards the Geordie accent” and “a resentment towards the perceived dominance of Newcastle in the North-East” (Llamas 2006:107). Indeed, in economic terms, Tyneside is dominant. A recent OECD report (2006) describes it as the “growth centre” of the North East, with 36.9 percent of the region’s “economic contribution.” Implicit in the respondents’ statements above is the belief—as an assertion of regional identity in the face of homogenizing external views that appear to reinforce Newcastle’s hegemony—that distinctive varieties of English are spoken in different parts of the region. And many of the respondents take up the theme of internal variation directly. (4) It’s amazing sometimes how big the differences in accents can be even with neighbouring towns. [South Shields] (5) People from the north of the region sound completely different to those from the south. Those from Teesside sound nothing like those from South West Durham. Darlington and Bishop Auckland sound similar, until you listen and then you can detect huge differences. [South Shields]

Such claims point to the linguistic element in what Burbano-Elizondo (2006:113) considers the “various strong and distinct local identities that distinguish the inhabitants of different North-Eastern localities.” This study explores these distinct identities at the level of perceived differences and similarities in speech. Its regional U.K. focus makes the study somewhat unusual since most sociolinguistic research with a PD element, especially in Anglophone contexts, has traditionally been concerned with what Preston (forthcoming) calls “broad, non-local assessment of dialect distinctions”, eliciting perceptions of dialectal variation for entire countries, in particular the United States (see, e.g., Preston 1986) and the United Kingdom (Inoue 1996/1999; Montgomery 2007). However, some recent studies, such as Benson’s (2003) in Ohio and Bucholtz et al.’s (2007, 2008) in California, have narrower foci, exploring the perceptual landscape of single U.S. states. Despite the fact that Ohio is approximately fifteen times bigger than North East England and California (a state that is larger than the whole of England and Wales) is nineteen times bigger, this study can be regarded as proportionately equivalent in its scope to these state-based studies. The method I employ to derive perceptual dialect areas and boundaries, which is described in the next section, is a modified version of the “little arrows” technique,

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which was used in the earliest perceptual studies carried out in the Low Countries. This was a method developed in the late nineteenth century by Willems in his study of the Low Franconian dialects (Goeman 1989/1999:138-139). The technique was also employed in a postal survey carried out in 1939 by the Department of Dialects of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Letters, which wrote to 1,500 people across the country, approximately half of whom were teachers (Daan 1970/1999:23). Correspondents were asked, “1. In which place(s) in your area does one speak the same or about the same dialect as you do? 2. In which place(s) in your area does one speak a definitely different dialect than you do? Can you mention any specific differences?” (Rensink 1955/1999:3). The results for the first question formed the basis of a series of maps, employing a method of cartographic representation first used in a map of North Brabant (Weijnen 1946) and later in maps of the entire country (e.g., Daan & Blok 1969). On these maps, arrows connect a respondent’s home area to another that the respondent says is linguistically similar, and “groupings of these connected areas . . . are then identified as ‘unities’ based on the dialect consciousness . . . of the respondents” (Preston 2002:57-58). This means that blank areas uncrossed by arrows are interpretable as dialect boundaries (Heeringa 2004:12).

Method Like the Dutch study, my main data collection tool was a questionnaire. Unlike that study, however, which surveyed one—usually older and generally middle class—male from each target location, the research reported here considers, in common with most current work in PD (e.g., Bucholtz et al. 2007, 2008), the responses of multiple subjects, of both genders, and of a diverse range of ages and social backgrounds. The questionnaire was publicized in the local media, and e-mail invitations were also sent out to all current staff and students of the University of Sunderland. People were encouraged to complete the questionnaire online (a link was provided to a Web site set up for the purpose), but a hard copy was also made available for those preferring pen and paper.6 In the main part of the questionnaire, respondents were asked to consider fiftyone locations across the North East of England (see Figure 1). These locations were chosen either because they are large centers of population (and are therefore likely to be reasonably well known to people) or because they have local salience in relation to possible perceptual boundaries. Participants were invited to think about the speech of people in each of these places, assessing the extent of its similarity to or difference from the speech of people in their own hometown. The wording here is important. At the start of the questionnaire, respondents were asked to give their hometowns. The request was accompanied by a note explaining that this is “probably the place you grew up in.

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Figure 1 Survey Locations

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It’s also probably the answer you give when someone from the North East asks you ‘Where are you from?’” This wording, rather than alternatives such as “Where do you live?” or “Where are you from?” was used because it reduces the potential confusion that might be experienced by someone who has lived in several different places and who might be unsure about which of these places to choose (although a majority of respondents—53.6 percent—did indicate that they had lived all or most of their lives in their given hometown locations). The wording also exploits the powerful connotations of the word home. Home, as Cresswell (2004:24) points out, “is an exemplary kind of place where people feel a sense of attachment and rootedness,” and by making such a center of meaning the point of origin for judgments of similarity and difference in speech, the respondents’ commitment to the task is perhaps more fully secured than it might otherwise have been.7 The responses of each participant for each location were scored. A judgment that people in location A speak “the same” as people from the respondent’s hometown were scored 1, while judgments that their speech is “very similar” or “quite similar” were scored 2 and 3, respectively. Judgments of difference were scored 4 (“a bit different”), 5 (“very different”) and 6 (“completely different”). There was also an option that read, “I’ve never heard of this place, or I’ve never met anyone from there so I don’t know what they speak like” (this response was treated as missing data and was not scored). This method, a version of which is also used in Benson’s (2003) study of dialect boundaries in Ohio, leads to a more nuanced and variegated account of dialect perceptions than the one used in the 1939 Dutch Survey, which conflated into a single question the wordings “the same” and “about the same,” leaving no option for the respondent to consider degrees of difference. To convert the scores into a map, completed questionnaires were grouped according to the hometowns of the respondents. Then, for each of the hometown locations with five or more respondents,8 the median judgment score for each of the fifty other questionnaire locations was calculated: a low score indicates that, as a whole, respondents from location A view the speech of people from location B as “close” to their own; a high score indicates “distance.” For example, respondents from Newcastle give a median score of 5.00 for speakers from Sunderland (“very different”) and 2.00 for Gateshead (“very similar”). Once the judgment scores were obtained, they were converted into arrows. Because the questionnaire allowed for up to three similarity judgments to be made (“the same,” “very similar,” and “quite similar”), the relationship between locations at different levels of similarity can be shown. Perceptual dialect areas—Weijnen’s “unities”—were mapped by drawing lines around interlinked locations. The adoption of the “little arrows” technique contrasts with much recent work in PD (e.g., Bucholtz et al. 2007), which, following Preston (e.g., 1981), asks respondents to annotate outline maps, mainly by drawing “lines around areas where they believe regional speech zones exist” and labeling these zones “with names of the area, of the dialect, of typical speakers from them and/or representative examples of speech for

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each” (Preston, forthcoming). Such an approach was discounted in this study for two main reasons. First, to ensure as wide an uptake as possible, much of the data gathering was done online, and it is difficult to collect map data electronically. Second, map-drawing tasks risk amplifying the effect of cartographical ignorance. People have a richly developed sense of their local environment, but they might not necessarily have an understanding of where locations are in relation to each other in “map space.” The method of data collection used here is practical and efficient, but it also has potential weaknesses. Gathering volunteers through appeals on a university e-mail list and in local newspapers is quick and cheap, but since only 54 percent of households in North East England have Internet access (ONS 2008a), and given that the vast majority of questionnaires were completed online rather than on paper (at a ratio of 15:1), the sample is arguably skewed toward the upper end of the social scale (since members of U.K. universities and confident Internet users tend to come from this segment of society). Because of this, I make no strong claims for the representativeness of the results: the perceptual boundaries and areas derived from the data reflect the pooled judgments of the respondents and are not generalizable to some larger population (e.g., everyone in North East England). However, it is worth stressing that the relatively high number of respondents makes the study less representationally questionable than some previous research in PD (in particular the early Dutch work). And as I report in the next section, the respondents were in fact from a wider range of social backgrounds than might have been expected, given how the data were collected.

Overview of Findings Tables 2 and 3 give a breakdown of the questionnaire respondents by gender, age, and location.9 Some of the apparent biases here might be related to the uptake of the questionnaire. For example, the fact that there are twice as many female respondents as males could have something to do with the large contingent of university students who took part as a result of my e-mail invitation: in common with most other U.K. universities, there are more female students at Sunderland than male students. The bias toward the 18 to 29 age group might have a similar origin; it could also be related to the fact that younger people are perhaps happier to work online than older people, although anyone who expressed a preference for a paper copy was sent one. Furthermore, hometown locations are not proportionately represented. As one might expect, the two largest cities in the region (Sunderland and Newcastle) have the highest number of respondents, but the third largest (Middlesbrough) is underrepresented, given its large population. And the disproportionately high uptake from South Shields is probably because of the prominence given to my research in an article in the local newspaper.

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Table 2 Demographics of the Questionnaire Respondents

n

%

Gender   Male 490   Female 1,058   Not given 13   Total 1,561 Age   11–17 69   18–29 873   30–45 352   40–59 184   60–69 55   70 or older 24   Not given 4   Total 1,561

31.4 67.8 0.8

4.4 55.9 22.5 11.8 3.5 1.5 0.3

Table 3 Top Fifteen Hometowns of Questionnaire Respondents Location Number

Location

46 Sunderland 32 Newcastle-upon-Tyne 42 South Shields 16 Durham 20 Gateshead 22 Hartlepool 48 Washington 29 Middlesbrough 39 Seaham 26 Houghton-Le-Spring 15 Darlington 35 Peterlee 27 Jarrow 45 Stockton-on-Tees 51 Whitley Bay Total

Number of Respondents 389 124 107 78 61 54 48 43 34 33 31 30 26 23 21 1,102

An indication of the social background of respondents is given in Table 4. On the questionnaire, respondents were asked to supply the postcode of the “house in the place you grew up in/consider as your home town,” and 74.8 percent did so. Using ONS (2008b) data (see Noble et al. 2008), the levels of income deprivation (which are based on the proportion of people living in low income families within a neighborhood) were extracted for each respondent’s postcode.

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Table 4 Levels of Income Deprivation Associated with Respondents’ Home Locations Deprivation Index 1 2 3 4 5 Total

Number of Respondents

%

318 289 211 144 221 1,183

26.9 24.4 17.8 12.2 18.7

A deprivation index of 1 indicates that a respondent’s postcode lies within the top 20 percent of the most income-deprived neighborhoods in the United Kingdom; an index of 5 indicates that the postcode belongs to the 20 percent least incomedeprived neighborhoods (a neighborhood, of which there are 32,482 in the country, contains approximately 1,500 people). Of those respondents who supplied postcodes, the highest proportion (26.9 percent) have affiliations with locations in the top 20 percent most income-deprived neighborhoods, and 18.7 percent are from the 20 percent least income-deprived neighborhoods. In North East England, approximately 32.0 percent of neighborhoods are in the top 20 percent of deprived areas nationally and approximately 5.0 percent in the least deprived 20 percent of neighborhoods. These figures suggest a slight skewing toward the higher end of the social scale amongst respondents but also reveal reasonable penetration into some of the more deprived areas. We can infer from this that the people completing the questionnaire are far from socially homogenous. Figure 2 shows the perceptual relationships among the questionnaire locations. The thickest arrows represent what might be termed “first-level” perceptual similarity since they are drawn between locations with a median judgment of 1.00 to 1.5, indicating that, on the whole, respondents see people from the linked location as speaking “the same” as people from their hometowns. For example, respondents in location 6 (Blyth) judge that people from location 13 (Cramlington) speak “the same” as people from Blyth. If there is a reciprocal link, the arrow is two way, as in the case of location 4 (Bishop Auckland) and location 43 (Spennymoor). The thinner arrows show links at the level of 2.00 to 2.5 (“very similar”): this is “second-level” similarity. Nonsymmetrical links, where the reciprocal judgments are at different levels, such as location 2 (Billingham) and location 45 (Stockton), are marked with twin-headed arrows.

Discussion of Findings Figure 3 shows “perceptual areas” (corresponding to Weijnen’s “unities”) derived from the network of arrows. Lines are drawn at the boundaries between areas

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Figure 2 Little Arrows

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containing locations linked by at least second-level similarity. This results in the emergence of three “sectors” (northern, central, and southern). Symbols are used to mark locations linked by first-level similarity within these sectors, resulting in the emergence of seven “zones.” Like all cartographic representations, this map should be treated with caution. The precise and clean-cut appearance of a map can lend it a persuasive—but possibly misleading—air of scientific authority (Wright 1966, quoted in Pickles 2004:36). The lines and symbols point to the approximate position of a perceptual boundary (based, of course, on the aggregated judgments of this particular set of questionnaire respondents); and, like isoglosses, they certainly do not mark an identifiable “line” on the ground (Kirk, Sanderson & Widdowson 1985:9, quoted in Wales 2006a:61). In the description of the sectors that follows, links are made between perceptual areas and extralinguistic factors that might play a role in people’s formation of cognitive “landscapes” of regions and dialect areas (Wales 2006a:58-59). Indeed, it is important to emphasize here that social, cultural, and geographical factors are potentially as important (and perhaps for some respondents more important) in shaping perceptions than are factors principally related to language, hence the weight given to these in the descriptions of the sectors and their boundaries. I conclude my discussion of findings by looking at the relationship between the extent and shape of these perceptual areas and “actual” linguistic variation in space by drawing on research from both dialec­ tological and variationist studies.

The Northern Sector This sector contains the southeastern Northumberland coastal plain, together with the entirety of Tyneside, a conurbation of some 880,000 people, with Newcastle at its heart. The aggregated judgments of respondents result in a perceptual linguistic area corresponding closely to the borders of “Geordieland,” as popularly understood. Beal (2004b:34), for instance, in her discussion of “where ‘Geordies’ consider their homeland to be,” claims that, beyond Newcastle, “Geordies can be found throughout Northumberland and even in the northern part of the old County Durham, at least in Gateshead and South Shields.” The Tyne seems to be of particular significance in popular conceptions of Geordie territory, and some respondents comment on the river’s role. Some see it as a barrier, others as a carrier of influence: (6) North side of the Tyne is fairly uniform. [South Shields] (7) The river Tyne has a common centre of gravity in terms of how similarly people speak on both sides of the river. [Wallsend] (8) Along the banks of the Tyne the accent is very similar, both north and south of the river. [South Shields] (9) I think the dialects differ depending on which side of the River Tyne you live. [Newcastle]

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Figure 3 Perceptual Areas: Three “Sectors” and Seven “Zones”

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The quantitative findings appear to confirm the Tyne’s centrality. Of the twenty-one locations in the northern sector, sixteen lie within 5 kilometers of the river’s urban reaches. But it is noteworthy that there are fewer northern sector locations south of the Tyne than north of it, suggesting that Geordie territory remains more strongly associated with “old” Northumberland than it does with “old” County Durham. There is also some correlation between the shape and extent of the northern sector and current political boundaries. All the locations in the sector either lie within Northumberland or the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear. Indeed, of the five metropolitan boroughs constituting Tyne and Wear (see Table 1), only Sunderland lies outside the northern sector, and it is the only one that is not contiguous with the River Tyne. Turning to the first-level perceptual zones, if the northern sector is broadly “Geordieland,” then zone B is its heartland. Interestingly, although all locations within 5 kilometers of the Tyne at Newcastle are in this zone, together with the two locations at the mouth of the river on the north bank (North Shields and Tynemouth), there is a cluster of locations toward the river mouth on the south bank (Hebburn, Jarrow, and South Shields) that forms part of a separate zone (C). This is perhaps a further indication of the salience of the River Tyne when it comes to people’s perceptual maps. On Tyneside, the river is traversed by several bridges—with seven of these crossings (three road, three rail, one pedestrian) spanning a 1.5-kilometer stretch of the river between Gateshead and Newcastle. Downstream, the next crossings are nearly 10 kilometers away in the form of road and pedestrian tunnels between Jarrow and Howden. There is also a passenger ferry between North and South Shields. Perhaps the multiple bridges at Gateshead serve to link these south of the river locations physically and perceptually with Newcastle, but the comparatively poorer and less prominent links toward the river mouth—together with the distance from the “heartland”—serve to “distance” Hebburn, Jarrow, and South Shields. People’s dynamic interactions might also have a role to play in influencing the shape and extent of perceptual areas. Mooney and Carling (2006:5), in their analysis of regional economic flows associated with work, shopping, and leisure, report that Tyneside’s “catchment areas . . . tend to stretch a long way to the north, but rather less far to the south.” Furthermore, they maintain that the River Tyne acts as a barrier for all types of flows, singling out the limited interaction “between South Tyneside and North Tyneside, despite their obvious geographical proximity” (at its narrowest, the river is 200 meters wide between North and South Shields). The economic “catchment” of Tyneside described by Mooney and Carling corresponds quite closely with the shape of the northern sector and also helps to explain the “peripheral” nature of zone C within it.

The Central Sector This sector is roughly coterminous with County Durham and the Wear portion of Tyne and Wear (the metropolitan borough of Sunderland). In the east is the Durham

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limestone plateau, a low upland area containing most of the East Durham coalfield. It is roughly triangular in shape with its apex on the coast near South Shields and its base running from Darlington to Hartlepool (Aalen & Muir 2006:213). In the west, bordering on the Pennines, is the Durham coalfield Pennine fringe. Between them is a narrow area of low-lying land that contains the north–south stretch of the River Wear and also carries the main north–south transport links in the region (the A1(M) road and the high-speed railway link between Edinburgh and London). As with the northern sector, there is a correspondence between the sector’s shape and political areas. This is especially so in the south where the perceptual boundary follows quite closely the border between County Durham and Tees Valley. The sector is made up of three first-level perceptual zones. Zone D consists of eleven linked locations, mainly on the Sunderland and Durham coast but extending inland as far as Houghton-Le-Spring. Nearly all of these locations lie on the east Durham plateau. Indeed, the western boundary of the zone corresponds roughly with the plateau’s prominent western escarpment. All the locations, with the exception of Washington, lie to the east and south of the Wear and to the east of the A1(M). The locations share a common industrial heritage. The influence of coal mining on both the physical and internal mental landscapes of County Durham has been enormous. By 1911 there were 152,000 miners in County Durham—30 percent of the total employment (McCord 1979:117). Several respondents from locations in zone D comment on the relationship between coal mining and their perceptions of dialect: (10) I would group the East Durham coalfield areas together in terms of the way they speak. [Seaham] (11) It is noticeable if someone comes from a mining background. A lot of the pit villages have or had a distinctive accent in common. [Sunderland] (12) I find people who are from a village or a colliery have a different twang than those who live in the town centre a couple of miles from these pit villages. [Easington]

Respondents sometimes use the term Pitmatic to refer to the dialect of the coal mining areas in the North East (particularly those in County Durham): (13) People in Durham villages are Pitmatic and the “Townies” in Sunderland speak a different version to this. [Durham] (14) Both my Grandas were miners and I tend to speak slightly more “Pitmatic” than my cousins who only have one Granda who was a miner. [Peterlee] (15) I talk Pitmatic: “thoo,” “tha nars,” “thine.” [Easington]

Pitmatic was coined in the nineteenth century to describe the craft and technicalities of coal mining and by extension was applied to the forms of speech (particularly the specialist vocabulary) of colliery workers (Griffiths 2007:10). But, as the comments above imply, the term is also used more generally to describe the broad local vernacular of people living in areas where coal was once mined (Wales 2006b:124). The

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fact that a commonly used term for the local variety began as a word for the technical vocabulary of colliery workers speaks of mining’s centrality in the consciousness of people in the North East. Traditionally, mining settlements were tightly knit, with most facilities close to hand. Mooney and Carling (2006:5) suggest that, despite the last mine in east Durham closing in 1994, the self-contained and somewhat insular nature of these communities persists, resulting in limited economic flows outside of the area. This insularity is perhaps reflected in respondents’ perceptions of dialect (note the dense network of arrows linking locations in zone D). The other two zones in the central sector—E (in the north of the Durham coalfield Pennine fringe containing the towns of Consett and Stanley) and F (centered on four locations in the south of County Durham)—lie to the west of the Tyne and Wear lowlands and the A1(M) corridor. As far as zone E is concerned, the first-level perceptual link between these two towns is possibly a consequence of proximity, shared geography, and industrial heritage as well as relative isolation. The towns occupy densely settled ridgetop locations above the coalfield valleys and are only nine kilometers apart. The nearest other survey location to Consett is Whickham, over fourteen kilometers away. Finally, all four locations in zone F lie to the west of the A1(M) corridor and all share a mining heritage. The locations are also relatively isolated, generally being closer to each other than they are to other locations in the sector.

The Southern Sector This sector is divided from the central sector by a boundary that roughly follows the political border dividing the unitary authorities of Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Darlington from County Durham. The five locations in this sector are situated in the Tees lowlands, a broad plain through which the River Tees meanders. The Tees is often regarded by dialectologists as of significance in delimiting dialect areas in the north (Wales 2006b:17, 42), and historically the river formed the boundary between County Durham and Yorkshire. Some respondents from the southern sector refer to the Yorkshire element in their perceptions of dialect: (16) People south of Middlesbrough in places like Brotton and Loftus sound proper Yorkshire types and are easier on the ear than industrial Teessiders. [Hartlepool] (17) In south Durham we get a bit influenced by Yorkshire. [Stockton] (18) Accents in Darlington are quite different even in the town between posh West End and not so posh, going from nearly Yorkshire to darkest Teesside. [Darlington] (19) I have often been told I sound more Yorkshire than north east even though I have lived here all my life. [Billingham]

It appears that these respondents see themselves as occupying a transitional area between the North East and Yorkshire, and this is reflected in their perceptions of

Pearce / Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England   17

dialect. Such perceptions are probably being reinforced by patterns of economic flow: Mooney and Carling (2006:27) identify “clear links between parts of the south of the region and North Yorkshire.” There is only one first-level zone within the southern sector, formed by the link between Billingham and Stockton-on-Tees. That these locations should be so closely linked perceptually is probably a consequence of their proximity, their position north of the Tees in the Stockton unitary authority, and a shared heritage of heavy industry (which is now in decline).

Perception, Production, Variation, and Change Once perceptual dialect areas have been uncovered, a logical next step is to investigate what Preston (forthcoming) characterizes as the relationship between perception (people’s beliefs about the distribution and character of linguistic objects in space) and production (the facts of such distribution): in other words, we can add to our understanding of a region’s ethnography of language by considering the extent to which folk wisdom corresponds with the findings of linguists. In the context of this research, the task of comparing production and perception areas is not straightforward. This is due mainly to a lack of up-to-date production maps for the North East. The Survey of English Dialects (SED)—brainchild of Harold Orton and Eugen Dieth—is still “the fullest, systematically-collected body of dialect material for all the English regions” (Upton & Widdowson 2006:2), and the interpretive maps based on the SED (e.g., Orton, Sanderson, & Widdowson 1978; Kolb et al. 1979; Viereck 1986a, 1986b; Viereck & Ramisch 1991, 1998; Upton & Widdowson 2006) are an inevitable starting point for comparisons of production and perception. But because the SED’s aim was “to record speech that was not greatly influenced by outside social pressures or by radio and television” (Upton & Widdowson 2006:2), the people surveyed were mainly rural, male, and born in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This means that interpretive works based on the SED data should be treated with caution when they are compared to the current perceptual landscape. Contemporary and urban sources are needed to represent more closely the present-day dialect-scape of the North East. Fortunately, such sources exist in the form of an SED-inspired project to make publicly available a set of interviews recorded in the late 1990s for the Millennium Memory Bank (MMB). This collaboration between BBC Local Radio and the British Library was intended to create “an archival snapshot of ‘ordinary’ Britons’ opinion and experience at the turn of the century” (Robinson 2005:5). The significance of such an archive for dialect studies was soon recognized, and, using the original network of SED locations as a geographical template (but with the addition of urban locations), 267 of these interviews were selected and linguistically annotated with information about phonology, lexis, and grammar and were presented

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Table 5 Locally Salient Phonological Features Vowel Variable

Recorded Variants

Occurrence

Goat [] [] [] Sunderland [ > ] Ellington, Stannington, Seghill,   Stamfordham, Byker [] All other locations [] Face [] [] [] [] Stannington [ > ] Seghill [] Byker, South Shields [ > ] Sunderland, Washington [ > ] Cockfield [ > ] Hartlepool, Middlesbrough [] All other locations [] Mouth [] [] [] [] Stannington [] Stamfordham [ ~  ~ ] Byker [ >  ~  ] Newcastle [] Sunderland [ ~ ] Nurse [] [] [] Stannington, Seghill, Stamfordham, Newcastle,   South Shields, Whickham, Sunderland [] Byker [] Hartlepool, Middlesbrough [] Start [] [] [] Stamfordham, Byker, South Shields,   Whickham, Consett [] Ellington, Stannington, Seghill, Newcastle [ ~ ] Wheatley Hill, Cockfield, Hartlepool, Billingham,   Middlesbrough [] Consonant Variable

Recorded variants

Occurrence

Initial /h/ + [] or - [] Sunderland, Butterknowle, Hartlepool,   Middlesbrough - [h] All other locations + [] Note: > = first variant more frequent; ~ = as frequent.

alongside excerpts from some of the original SED recordings held in the British Library Sound Archive (Robinson 2005:4-7). Forty-two recordings of people from within my survey area are available, and from these I have selected all those in which the subject uses at least one of six locally salient phonological features: the vowels in goat, face, mouth, nurse, start and the initial // (see Table 5). Where more than one recording for a single location exists, I have chosen the interview with the youngest subject (the mean year of birth for all subjects is 1948). In Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7, these features have been mapped onto the perceptual dialect areas.

Pearce / Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England   19

Figure 4 Perception and Production Areas: The Goat Vowel

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Figure 5 Perception and Production Areas: The Face Vowel

Pearce / Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England   21

Figure 6 Perception and Production Areas: The Mouth, Nurse, and Start Vowels

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Figure 7 Perception and Production Areas: /h/-Dropping

Pearce / Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England   23

The goat vowel [] is a “mainstream” northern variant (Watt 2002:47), and it is the most common one in the MMB data set. Figure 4 shows that [] is associated mainly with the southern and central perceptual sectors. The centralized monophthong [], on the other hand, is preferred by speakers mainly in the north of the northern sector. The picture for face is more complicated (Figure 5), with the mainstream northern variant [] widespread in the region but also with a more open vowel [] associated with parts of the southern perceptual sector and the southwest of the central sector. In addition, two diphthongized variants of the face vowel occur: [] and []. These are associated particularly with the east of the northern sector. The spatial distribution of variants in the mouth, nurse, and start vowels is mapped in Figure 6. The monophthong [] in mouth, a pronunciation reflected in vernacular spellings such as (‘town’), (‘about’), and (‘down’), is widely regarded as a “traditional Tyneside pronunciation” (Beal 2000:348), associated with some locations in the northern perceptual sector, while elsewhere the diphthongs [], [], and [] are prevalent. In nurse, there appears to be a regional north–south divide, with [] occurring mainly in the northern sector and [] in the southern. A third variant [] is associated with the broadest Geordie accents (Wells 1982:374), and it occurs only in the speech of the interviewee from Byker in Newcastle. There is also a north–south divide in relation to the start vowel, with speakers in northern locations having an unrounded back vowel [] or a rounded back vowel [], while [] is preferred in southern locations. The final feature from the MMB data to be mapped here is perhaps the most perceptually salient. So-called “h-dropping” has been described by Wells (1982:254) as the “single most powerful pronunciation shibboleth in England,” and zero /h/ at the start of a stressed syllable with in the spelling has traditionally been regarded as “vulgar” and “uneducated” (see Beal 2004a:180-183). Hughes, Trudgill, and Watt (2005:66) claim that “most urban regional accents of England and Wales do not have /h/ or are at least variable in its usage.” They go on to point out, however, that initial /h/ is “retained in accents of the North East of England such as that of Newcastle, although it disappears quickly as one travels southwards: /h/-dropping is reported for Sunderland, and it is virtually categorical in Middlesbrough and other parts of Teesside.” This makes the region unique, in that there appears to be variability in /h/-retention among vernacular speakers in closely neighboring urban areas. Beal (2000:352) even suggests that “h-dropping is a shibboleth of Makkem speech.”10 Some of the respondents comment specifically on this variable: (20) People from and around Sunderland often drop their Hs. [Washington] (21) Sunderland accents where they drop the H’s. [South Shields] (22) Have you noticed Teessiders say “owee” not “howay”? [Middlesbrough]

The isogloss in Figure 7 shows /h/-dropping is limited to the south of the region and a narrow coastal strip extending as far north as Sunderland, making it a feature associated only with the central and southern perceptual sectors.

24   Journal of English Linguistics

Some recent variationist studies also suggest intraregional spatial variation, again pointing to a north–south divide. For example, Llamas (2007) looks at the realization of the plosives (p), (t), and (k) in word-medial position among thirty-two speakers from Middlesbrough. She compares her results with speakers from Tyneside—as reported in Docherty et al. (1997)—and finds in Middlesbrough a “substantially lower” use of the glottalized variants [p], [t] and [k] (Llamas 2007:588). Furthermore, in the Middlesbrough data, the glottaled [] is the preferred realization of (t), compared to a relatively low use in Tyneside. In a note in the same article, Llamas mentions finding [] realizations of (k) among young speakers and points out that this is a feature usually associated with Merseyside, a metropolitan county in North West England some 230 kilometers from Middlesbrough (2007, 602).11 Such realizations have not been reported elsewhere in the region. The production evidence presented here suggests that within the North East there is real linguistic variation in space, to which the questionnaire respondents are potentially sensitive. As might be predicted, there is no clear-cut correlation between the distribution of production features and the perceptual areas, but the evidence does at least point to a north–south divide, with some variants limited to, or at least more common in, the speech of people in the northern sector (e.g., diphthongs in the face vowel, rounded vowels in nurse and start, glottalized plosives) and other features associated with parts of the central and southern sectors (e.g., /h/-dropping, [] realizations of (k)). In addition to uncovering folk insights into the distribution of linguistic objects in space, PD research can provide an additional perspective on language change. A sensitivity to change is revealed in the following comments: (23) I’ve lived in Newcastle, South Shields, and Sunderland and the accents are becoming more similar within Tyne and Wear. [Sunderland] (24) Lots of old Geordie words and sayings are dying out. [South Shields] (25) They are not as defined as they used to be years ago. I think our accents are dying out. [Durham] (26) There seems to be a loss in the Geordie accent—it seems to be becoming “softer.” [Middlesbrough] (27) As a young Makem fifteen-year-old there was a bewildering array of dialects in our class from within a very small area. Sadly with the demise of the coal mining industry and communities increasing in size but lacking the spirit, these dialects are on the wane. [Sunderland]

These respondents perceive a reduction in variation, characterized in particular by lexical/phonological attrition and a general homogenization of speech across the region; and in comment 27 some sociocultural determinants of language change are proposed. The folk observations support claims made by sociolinguists about what happens when speakers of different dialects come into contact as a consequence of urbanization, industrialization, and sociogeographical mobility: “Differences between

Pearce / Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England   25

regional varieties are reduced, features which make varieties distinctive disappear, and new features emerge and are adopted by speakers over a wide geographical area” (Williams & Kerswill 1999:149). This process of dialect leveling is “thought to centre on large urban areas . . . from which new features diffuse, and within whose reach high degrees of contact and mobility may lead to linguistic homogenisation” (Kerswill 2007b:50). Additional sites of leveling are “new towns”—planned urban centers designed to provide employment and housing that are generally characterized by high levels of in-migration (Foulkes 2006). The perceptual data gathered in this research point to new towns as sites of language change in the region (for an overview of Kerswill & Williams’s research on dialect contact in Milton Keynes, see Kerswill 2007a). Three new towns lie within the survey area: Newton Aycliffe and Peterlee (designated in 1947 and 1948) and Washington (designated in 1964). Washington attracts the most interest, with some respondents alert to the progress and consequences of dialect contact: (28) Washington is a bit of a strange place with regards to accent. It seems to very much depend on where your parents are from as to what your accent is like. I do not speak like a lot of my friends from Washington because my parents are from Gateshead and Newcastle, whereas theirs are from Sunderland. This seems to make a big difference to our accents. [Washington] (29) Someone in Washington may have a Sunderland accent, whereas their neighbour may have a Tyneside accent. [Sunderland] (30) Some people living in Washington have a mixture of both Sunderland (Mackem) and Tyneside accents. [Sunderland] (31) A Washington accent is a hybrid of a Sunderland/Newcastle accent, taking features of each. [Washington] (32) Washington seems to have a mixture of Sunderland, Newcastle, and Gateshead accents! Nobody ever seems to know where we’re from! [Washington] (33) The Washington accent is new for the generation that grew up in the town. Most of the parents moved to Washington from other places such as Sunderland etc. [Washington] (34) I think Washington has a very different accent to Sunderland and Newcastle. We are Washington people, not Geordie or Mackem. [Washington]

These remarks reveal contrasting perceptions of dialect contact in action. Comments 28 and 29 seem to emphasize the initial stages of contact, in which “newcomers” import their original dialect to Washington. The perception here is that these original dialects are maintained and transmitted more or less unaltered down the generations, resulting in a population “split” in relation to language, mainly between Tyneside and Wearside dialects. Contrastingly, in examples 30 to 34, the respondents seem to be suggesting that dialect leveling is taking place, resulting in the formation of a new, distinctive Washington dialect; as one of the respondents writes, “We are Washington people, not Geordie or Mackem.” In example 33, the respondent identifies a generational contrast:

26   Journal of English Linguistics

people who moved to Washington as adults, on the whole, preserve their original accents, whereas “the Washington accent is new for the generation that grew up in the town”—a perception that corresponds with Kerswill and Williams’s findings on the leading role played by children in the development of a new Milton Keynes dialect. It is interesting to consider the possible influence of folk beliefs such as these on the progress of dialect leveling. For example, the respondent in example 34 implies a strong attachment to a separate Washington identity that is presumably reflected in her (leveled) dialect; in contrast, in the case of the respondent in example 28, we might speculate that her consciously held belief that she has “inherited” a Tyneside accent from her parents (which, presumably, she identifies strongly with) might have a retarding effect on leveling in her own speech. Another potential brake on leveling evident in the data is a widespread identification with and celebration of diversity: (35) In one or two parts of the region accents can be completely different from one street to the next. [Jarrow] (36) The variation of accents across the region is enormous. [South Shields] (37) I would say that there is a different accent and dialect every five miles or so. [Durham] (38) The accents vary massively between the different areas in the questionnaire. I love that there is such variation in such a small geographical area. [South Gosforth]

Perceptions of local diversity such as these could affect processes of variation and change. People with strong positive evaluations of dialect diversity might be more likely to preserve variation in their own speech and value it in the speech of others, thereby acting as a brake on leveling. A further possible influence on leveling uncovered by this research lies in the relationship among the three large urban areas in the region. The maps emerging from the quantitative data place Newcastle, Sunderland, and Middlesbrough in separate perceptual sectors; the mutual “difference” scores of respondents in these locations are high: Table 6 shows the percentage of respondents from each of these large urban locations who identify speakers from the other urban areas as “very different” and “completely different.” Both findings point to the cities’ distinctiveness in the minds of respondents. Most discussions of dialect leveling in the North East suggest that Newcastle is the locus from which new features have diffused and will diffuse in the future (e.g., Watt 2002), but given these perceptual findings it seems reasonable to suggest that Sunderland and Middlesbrough also have a role to play, perhaps with their own distinct leveled forms spreading into their hinterlands. More research is certainly needed on the interaction of these three cities (on the relationship between Middlesbrough and Newcastle and between Sunderland and Newcastle, respectively, see Llamas 2007; Burbano-Elizondo 2006).

Pearce / Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England   27

Table 6 Comparing Percentages of “Difference” Scores for Middlesbrough, Newcastle, and Sunderland Middlesbrough   respondents Newcastle   respondents Sunderland   respondents

Middlesbrough

Newcastle

Sunderland

Very Different (%)

Completely Different (%)

Very Different (%)

Completely Different (%)

Very Different (%)

Completely Different (%)

—

—

48.8

46.5

65.1

18.6

43.5

27.4

—

—

35.5

21.8

39.6

26.7

40.9

30.1

—

—

Conclusion In this article, I have applied a methodology designed to uncover what might be called “common folk knowledge” in relation to linguistic variation in space in North East England. I have shown how the numerical data derived from a degree-ofsimilarity task can be used to make maps that reveal a nuanced perceptual landscape. The article has described emergent perceptual sectors and their constituent zones and proposed unifying factors such as landscape type, industrial heritage, and economic flows. I also explored the relationship between perception and production by comparing the perceptual areas with spatial data from dialectological and variationist studies, finding evidence to suggest that informants are potentially responding to “real” linguistic variation in their judgments of similarity and difference and not simply basing their assessments on broader nonlinguistic perceptions, such as geographical or cultural proximity. In addition to exploring criteria that might be “important to the folk in defining dialect regions” (Benson 2003:307), I also employed the findings to add a perceptual dimension to the consideration of language change, showing how folk wisdom can invoke some of the causes and processes of linguistic change recognized by professional linguists and how it can potentially alert the researcher to sites of further sociolinguistic inquiry. Additional questions about the PD of North East England remain, of course. For example, in this article I do not take into account the gender, age, socioeconomic status, or local affiliations of the survey respondents, but given the fact that numerous sociolinguistic studies have shown the significance of these factors in shaping ways of using language, it seems reasonable to assume that these social variables will also shape people’s perceptions of language variation. It is hoped that the method of data

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collection used in this research will allow me in the future to produce perceptual maps for men, women, different age groups, and so on, leading to a more socially variegated account of the perceptual landscape of the North East. Questions also need to be asked about the “micro-perceptual” landscape: the specific localized particularities of perceptual areas and their boundaries. One line of inquiry here is related to the way in which local government and citizens, while acknowledging the existence of a broad North East identity, will often maintain strong allegiances to individual settlements (OECD 2006; Vigar 2006). For many people, these allegiances and the rivalries (and animosities) emerging from them form an important part of their identity, and given the intimate relationship between issues of identity and language, a consideration of borders, particularly in relation to the cities of Newcastle and Sunderland,12 will provide an additional vantage point from which to view the perceptual dialectology of North East England.

Notes 1. For a recent historical overview of perceptual dialectology, see Preston (forthcoming). 2. A search of the 2008 U.K. news archive on The Guardian Web site brings up 409 hits for “Newcastle,” compared with 106 for “Sunderland” and 77 for “Middlesbrough,” suggesting that Newcastle is referred to four times more than Sunderland and five times more than Middlesbrough in the Guardian. 3. The respondents’ comments throughout this article have been lightly edited for ease of reading. 4. The River Wear flows into the North Sea at Sunderland, so citizens of this city sometimes refer to themselves as Wearsiders. 5. Byker Grove was a long-running BBC children’s television series set in and around a youth club in the Byker area of Newcastle. 6. QuestionPro software was used for the online element of the survey (http://www.questionpro .com/). The following newspapers kindly publicized the research: South Shields Gazette, Sunderland Echo, Northern Echo, Morpeth Herald, News Post Leader and News Guardian, and Hartlepool Mail. 7. The questionnaire was also designed to collect material that could be transformed into indices pointing to an individual’s level of “embeddedness” and loyalty to his or her hometown. In addition, material on respondents’ personality traits (e.g., level of extraversion) was also collected. 8. To ensure less chance of the results being affected by one or two “rogue” respondents, only locations with five or more “hometown” respondents were included (thirty-two locations). 9. The figures in the tables do not include partial and incomplete responses, which were not included in the analysis. 10. Beal’s spelling of is unusual. Among the survey respondents, is the most common choice, occurring fifty-five times. Alternative spellings include (ten occurrences) and (six occurrences). 11. Some respondents comment on the “Liverpool” element in accents in the southeast of the region: “A strong Middlesbrough accent can sound like a weak Liverpudlian accent” (Newcastle); “I travelled six miles or so away from my home and was asked if I was from Liverpool!” (Middlesbrough); “People from Stockton/Middlesbrough have a different twang altogether. It reminds me of a Liverpool accent when I hear them speak” (Bishop Auckland); “Teesside semi-Scouse” (Peterlee); “Although I feel accents in Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees and Billingham are practically the same, I have heard others mention [and have noticed myself] that some ‘rougher’ sounding accents in this area are similar to ‘Scouse’” (Billingham).

Pearce / Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England   29

12. The rivalry between these cities manifests itself in different ways, most obviously at the level of football (Sunderland AFC vs. Newcastle United). However, like Colls and Lancaster (2005:ix), many (if not most) inhabitants of the North East seem to regard such divisions as “tensions within ‘the family’ rather than the expression of uberparochialism,” a sentiment supported by some of the respondents, one of whom writes, “People from the region do tend to forget their petty differences and flock together when circumstances dictate that they work in far-away places like London.”

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