Middlesbrough

1
Middlesbrough

• Barbara Fennell
• Mark J. Jones
• Carmen Llamas

2
Overview

• Background
• 19C Middlesbrough
• Contact situations
• An Irish legacy?
• Thematic analysis of found dataset
• Phonetic/phonological analysis of elicited
  dataset
• NURSE
• Frication of /t/
• Preliminary conclusions and directions for future

3
The infant Hercules

• Arrival of railway 1830
• Middlesbrough Iron Works 1841
• Discovery of iron ore 1850
• Within 40 years, biggest producer of pig-iron in
  the world
• Growth in industry necessitates growth in
  workforce
• Hamlet 1831
• Metropolitan Borough 1853
• Major town - 1871

4
Population growth 19C
5
Population growth 20C
6
Migrants

• Rural hinterland
• Further afield -Durham, Staffordshire, South
  Wales, Scotland and Ireland
• 1861 - 73.2 born Yorkshire, 1871 - 50.1
• 1840s ? growing Irish migration
• 1851-1871 - large-scale Welsh migration
• Limited employment opportunities for women
• Compared with frontier towns
• rapid growth, the heterogeneous composition of
  its population, and the preponderance of the male
  sex, recall features generally credited only to
  towns of the American West (Ravenstein in Briggs
  1996)

7
Irish migration -1851 Census

• Numbers
• 324 Irish reported - 4.4 of population (national
  average 2.9)
• Place of residence
• present in all enumerators districts
• it can be stated with confidence that in 1851,
  there were no specifically Irish quarters in
  Middlesbrough (Willis 200320)
• Lodging
• no aversion to Irish lodgers by the non-Irish
  can be discerned in 1851 Middlesbrough (Willis
  200324)

8
Irish migration -1851 Census

• Employment
• 127 male workers (55.4) employed in nascent iron
  industry
• Marital data
• 25 mixed marriages in all 8 enumerators districts
  
• 29 of all marriages (25/86) mixed
• suggesting that the Irish were integrated into
  the other communities within Middlesbrough
  (Willis 200323)

9
Irish migration -1861 Census

• Irish presence increased from 6.3 in 1851 to
  15.6 by 1861 - Irish born grew from 324-1793
  (553.4)
• Irish formed the largest immigrant group
• the Irish in 1861 Middlesbrough show areas of
  concentration that are significant but are not a
  sufficient measure of segregation (Willis
  200328)
• on the basis of the 1851 and 1861 enumerators
  returns, mixed marriages were reducing but were
  still high enough to suggest integration rather
  than segregation (Willis 200331)

10
Irish migration 1870s ?

• By 1870s, the Irish were outnumbering the Welsh
  by three to one
• 1 in 5 adult males Irish
• Middlesbrough second only to Liverpool in terms
  of the size of its Irish population
• 1878 - Middlesbrough became a Roman Catholic
  bishopric
• In contradiction to occasional claims in the
  press, there is little if any evidence for a
  distinctively Irish quarter or ghetto in
  Middlesbrough (Chase 19956)

11
Media representations of Irish in 19C

• No overt hostility towards Irish displayed
• Dialect features
• yur
• dursnt
• I gits
• furst, sur
• ivver, nivver
• ov
• onykind, ony
• hev
• jist
• meself

12
Integration or segregation?

• Intermarriage
• Mixed lodgings
• No Irish quarters
• No hostile stereotyping in press
• Particular migration experience
• it may well be that because Middlesbrough was an
  immigrant town, prejudices that existed against
  the Irish elsewhere in mainland Britain were
  absent
• (Willis 200323)
• in Middlesbrough celebrating otherness was
  general to all of the immigrants and an integral
  part of its melting pot culture (Willis 200346)

13
The melting pot

• Koineisation a dramatic form of dialect contact
  following mass settlement of a relatively
  sparsely populated area
• the stabilized result of mixing of linguistic
  subsystems such as regional or literary dialects.
  It usually serves as a lingua franca among
  speakers of the different contributing varieties
  and is characterized by a mixture of features of
  these varieties and most often by reduction or
  simplification in comparison (Siegel 1985 363)
• Levelling
• Focussing

14
An Irish legacy?

• Current perceptions
• Influence of the Irish
• Recent folk perceptions experiment found
  Middlesbrough accent commonly identified as
  Liverpool (Kerswill Williams 2000)
• Salient features of MbE
• NURSE/SQUARE

15
Manpower Services Database

• Database found in Middlesbrough Archives and in
  local libraries
• Recordings of recollections of Middlesbrough and
  surrounding areas from 1980s
• Several informants over 100 years of age
• Concentrated on 15 Middlesbrough recordings for
  this project, but there are narratives from
  outlying areas

16
Three Aspects of Projects

• To provide narrative information on history and
  development of Middlesbrough as background to
  Llamass Boro dialect project
• To plug gaps in holdings on local history of
  NEEHI universities
• To evaluate the possibility of using this
  database for acoustic analysis

17
Thematic Analysis23 themes

• Language, dialect
• Ethnic concentrations
• Streets and landmarks
• Religion, religious practices
• Prejudice
• Holidays and customs
• World of work
• Steel works occupation titles work routines
  company names ethnically marked occupations
• Childrens experiences
• Family life
• Locations
• The Irish
• The Scots
• The Welsh

• Other ethnicities/groups
• e.g. Germans, Jews
• Historical events
• Local characters
• Social conditions
• E.g. workhouse, public relief
• Organisations
• World Wars
• Transport, bridges
• Migration and movement
• Politics
• Social class divisions
• Education

18
Irish

• I think it was McAlpine that brought them over
  from Belfast. Course they were Irish navvies,
  they could do the work. The finest Irish
  immigrants that ever come into Middlesbrough was
  in the early 1900s and they all settles in what
  they call Foxheads. That was at the top of Marsh
  Street and they had to cut down by the bridge
  where they could go over to the works. They were
  puddlers.
• Most of the Irish lived in Lawson Street and on
  St Patricks Day it used to be fun. They were
  Northern Irish but of course some were what they
  called Orange Men and those people would have
  their tissue paper orange colour, in the window,
  and the Irish Catholics would have the green.
• Cannon St area the police wouldnt send anyone
  patrolling there alone in case theyd have to
  fight some big hefty Irishman or whatever
• we had an Irish teacher called PaddyI forget
  his name, Paddy, he was a little short dumpy man.
  Andhe ruled you with a rod of iron.

19
Scottish and Welsh

• The Scottish Teals café and shop in Albert Rd,
  serving scotch tea rolls.
• the schools Inspector, who I think was a hot
  dog on this business, and if you didnt do that
  (arts and crafts), God help you sort your
  business. He was a little bullying Welshman, Ill
  be quite truthful, he was, and he simply went
  into schools and if these, this wasnt done he
  threatened to cut the grant off them
• quite a lot of Welsh families were
  ironmasters

20
Relgious/Ethnic/Political/ClassConcentrations

• Cannon Ward/Socialists
• The finest Irish immigrants that ever come to
  Middlesbrough was in the early 1900s and they
  all settles in what they called Foxheads at the
  top of Marsh St most Northern Irish living in
  Lawson St (both RC protestant).
• Tokyo Avenue was Marton Road cause the right
  hand side coming down from Corporation Road to
  the station was Japanese, and in one window used
  to be the Rising Sun.
• St Marys Catholic grammar school in Linthorpe,
  up Eastbourne Rd.

21
Religious/Ethnic/Political/ClassConcentrations

• Born in the town centre, lived on Poplar St until
  21/22, house backed on to the public library
  These streets Im talking about ran from Russell
  St up to Grange Rd. And Russell St of course ran
  from the Town Hall frontage up to St. Johns
  Church () It was a nice area, it became a slum
  eventually but was quite a nice area at that
  time. Respectable people. Working class people.
  
• Salvation Army meetings outside the Central, a
  pub at the corner of Richardson St (was maybe
  called the River Boat at the time of the
  interview).
• Methodist church on West Terrace (?) where some
  of Smeaton St Schools classes where held due to
  lack of space in the school house.

22
Religious/Ethnic/Political/ClassConcentrations

• Denmark St/Cannon St area as the real rough part
  of Middlesbrough
• LB (a Catholic) had a house built in Park Rd
  South, facing the Albert Park, in 1939 before
  that rented a house in Stanhope Grove, near the
  cricket field.
• Cannon St area had some some real characters
  down there.
• A Wesleyan Chapel called the Park Wesley near
  Albert Park.

23
Settlement of Irish
24
Settlement of Irish
25
Linguistic Features

• Past Participles
• I could have went
• Simple Past
• He wasnt before a lot come
• All his customers come for the pork at Christmas
• The people who done it were daft, you know
• There used to be a railway come up here from
  Linthorpe
• He run that carnival and they raffled a house
• Me for my
• Me mother died when I was eleven years old
• Preposition and adverb choice
• That was a letter that Mrs G was sent off a
  William C.
• He had his farm up Acklam
• Down when we lived in Lord Street there was a
  bakery

26
Linguistic Features

• Lack of plural after numbers in time, length and
  quantity expressions
• Hes only in for three year
• I was born inWalkdon, about six mile from Bolton
• There was for there were
• There was no houses
• There was some houses but there wasnt a lot of
  houses
• If there was no seats for you, you walked
• Negation of main verb have
• We hadnt a garden
• No, I hadnt to do anything like that when I was
  a young un
• No, I hadnt it cut till
• Subject verb agreement
• If you did you was off that table.
• Even them that was sat on the floor

27
Linguistic Features

• Demonstrative plural
• All them windows inside
• Them days teachers were teachers
• Them days there was no widows pension
• Learnt for taught
• They learnt them the traditions of Erimus
• Owt for anything
• No, they never made me do owt
• Ive never seen owt like it
• I wasnt badly off or owt like that
• BUT possible result of normalisation of
  transcripts and needs further investigation

28
What next

• Need to complete thematic analysis with a view to
  mapping settlement patterns.
• Need to do a more systematic linguistic analysis.
• Need to test whether we can use the tapes for a
  qualitative analysis.
• Need to marry the products of this analysis with
  new field research on variation in East and West
  Middlesbrough

29
Irish English Influence and Middlesbrough
Fricated /t/

• Mark J. Jones Carmen Llamas

30
Contact

• Irish in-migration into Middlesbrough
• Linguistic consequences in Liverpool - very
  significant
• Middlesbrough might show similar effects
• Middlesbrough accent popularly misidentified as
  Scouse.

31
Contact

• Irish (English) features in Middlesbrough?
• Occurrence of film as ???????
• Clear /l/ - neighbouring accents have dark /l/
• NURSE vowel - occurs fronted as ??????
• /t/ realised as fricative

32
Contact

• Differences
• Irish English varieties tend to be rhotic -
  Middlesbrough is non-rhotic

33
NURSE vowel

• Occurs fronted to ???? in many Irish English
  varieties
• Occurs fronted to ???? in Liverpool
• Occurs fronted to ???? in Middlesbrough
• Is this a contact feature?

34
NURSE vowel

• Irish English different reflexes for NURSE set
  based on Middle English vowels
• NURSE ??????
• GIRL ??????
• Not paralleled in Middlesbrough.

35
NURSE vowel

• NURSE vowel also reported as ?? ?? in
  north-east (auditory similarity/Wenglish?)
• ???? could be parallel development via a process
  of unrounding from ?? ?? reported in
  north-east

36
NURSE vowel

• No lexical patterning like GIRL vs. NURSE
• Possible parallel development via unrounding of
  local ?? ??
• No unambiguous evidence for contact.

37
Fricated /t/

• Word final pre-vocalic /t/ realisation as
  fricative recorded for Irish English and in
  north-east (Middlesbrough, Newcastle).
• Identified as possible Irish English influence in
  Liverpool, Australian English (Tollfree 2001).
• Watt and Allen (2003) similarity between Irish
  English and Newcastle fricated /t/.

38
Fricated /t/

• Tollfree (2001)
• The assumption that AusE /t/ frication is Irish
  in origin fails to explain the phonetically
  similar variants of /t/ in regions of, for
  example, Britain, which have no special history
  of Irish immigration such as Tyneside
• Historically, this is not true, but is it a
  contact feature?

39
Fricated /t/

• May be parallel development - cross-linguistically
  common
• Frication/assibilation/affrication of voiceless
  plosives not unknown, e.g.
• High German Wasser vs. English water
• Ancient Greek, Turkana, Finnish, Korean too

40
Fricated /t/

• Phonological difference
• not in intervocalic word-medial position in
  Middlesbrough, e.g.
• water ???????/????????
• Social difference
• ascribed to females only in Middlesbrough.

41
Fricatives

• Produced by turbulent airstream in vocal tract
• Phonetic quality shaped mainly by cavity forward
  of noise source
• Still much we do not know about fricative
  production and perception - no parallel acoustic
  measure to formant frequencies for vowels.

42
Fricated /t/

• No obvious phonetic space in which to map
  fricatives.
• Compare fricated /t/ with /s/ and /?/ in each
  accent.
• Place fricated /t/ in some kind of fricative
  space for comparison
• Potential information on contrasts between
  phonetic fricatives.

43
Data elicitation

• Five repetitions of /t/, /s/ and /?/ elicited
• Environment v__ (v)
• Carrier phrases
• Say mat again
• Say mass again
• Say mash again

44
Sample

• 12 speakers recorded in Dublin (5 male, 7 female)
• 10 speakers recorded in Middlesbrough (4 male, 6
  female)
• Purposes of this paper 6 speakers analysed

45
Example of Dublin slit-/t/
0 - 7000 Hz
Say mat again
46
Example of Mbro fricated-/t/
0 - 7000 Hz
Say mat ???? again
47
Fricatives

• Measured duration
• Measured frequency of onset of frication
  (low-frequency cut-off)
• Measured frequency of amplitude peak in spectrum
• Measured amplitude of that peak
• Range - slice of energy within 12 dB of the peak
  amplitude

48
Fricatives
49
Fricatives
50
Variation

• Considerable variation apparent in the data
• 5 speakers showed consistent use of one variant
• Two most frequently used variants per speaker
  group
• Dublin females ???
• Dublin males ? ??
• Mbro females ??? ?????
• Mbro males ????? ??/???

51
Dublin F4 Peak vs. cut-off
52
Dublin F5 Peak vs. cut-off
53
Dublin F6 Peak vs. cut-off
54
Dublin F4 - range
55
Dublin F5 - range
56
Dublin F6 - range
57
Dublin - duration
58
Mbro F4 Peak vs. cut-off
59
Mbro F6 Peak vs. cut-off
60
Mbro M4 Peak vs. cut-off
61
Mbro F4 - range
62
Mbro F6 - range
63
Mbro M4 - range
64
Mbro Results - duration
65
Comparison

• DUBLIN
• Duration
• ? lt ? lt ??
• Cut-off vs peak
• ??, ? vs. ???
• Range
• ??, ? vs. ???

• MIDDLESBROUGH
• Duration
• ??? lt ?/??
• Cut-of vs peak
• ??? vs. ??, ???
• Range
• ??? vs. ??, ???

66
Phonetic gradience

• Lack of clear burst in MdbF4 mat

67
Phonetic gradience

• MdbF6 heavily fricated mat showing incomplete
  closure throughout

68
Phonetic gradience

• MdbM4 fricated /t/ in mat

69
Phonetic gradience

• Not seen in Dublin data
• Suggests that slit-/t/ is more phonological
  than fricated /t/.
• Patterns may be speaker-specific.

70
Conclusions

• Phonetically dissimilar - Middlesbrough shows
  similarities with /s/ more in keeping with
  cross-linguistic patterns.
• Variation
• Middlesbrough - gradience between pre-aspirated,
  pre-affricated and fricated.
• Dublin - more categorical - plosive or fricative.

71
Conclusions

• Caution required in attributing
  cross-linguistically common features to contact
• Phonetically fine-grained study shows patterns of
  variation missed by impressionistic analysis
• More work needed on gradience, and on perception.