Aw’m Lancashire, Owd Cock, and Gradely Hearty : Enregistered Lancashire Voices in the Nineteenth-Century Theatre

Abstract

This paper places theatrical performances of the Lancashire dialect into the context of enregisterment, dialect stylisation, and the sociolinguistics of performance. I examine a selection of plays represented in Manchester and London in the late nineteenth century, including pantomimes, drolleries, comic sketches, and melodramas. The Lancashire dialect is analysed here to determine, on the one hand, the repertoire of linguistic features that were voiced on stage. On the other, I aim to ascertain whether such a repertoire varied on account of the target audience and the fact that the text of the performance was aimed for publication. The argument is made that stylisation of the Lancashire dialect in the nineteenth-century theatre shows variation as regards the set of enregistered features, which were drawn from more or less localised inventories that different audiences linked with social types that took different forms.