The Enregisterment of the Devonshire Dialect in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

[EN] The term enregisterment was introduced in Asif Agha’s pioneering article “The social life of cultural value” (2003), where he explores how a specific set of linguistic features became associated with particular social values, or how particular linguistic features are indexical of a particular lifestyle or mindset. This theory, which is framed within the third wave of sociolinguistics (Eckert 2012), has sparked much interest in research dealing with modern dialects, such as Pittsburghese in the USA (e.g. the groundbreaking work by Johnstone et al. (2006) and Johnstone (2013)), as well as with regard to historical contexts. In this respect, diachronic research of enregistered varieties in the North of England has proven largely successful, as shown in the works of Beal (2009a, 2012a, 2012b, 2016, 2020), Beal and Cooper (2015), Cooper (2013, 2016, 2020, 2023), and Ruano-García (2012, 2020a, 2021, 2023), who have explored non-standard renderings preserved in dialect writing as primary data sources. In this vein, varieties in the Midlands, such as those described by Asprey (2008, 2020) and Schintu (2020, 2022, 2023), have also shown how these dialects reflect processes of enregisterment over time. Indeed, all these works have concluded that inventories of indexicalised items were recognised as distinctive of these varieties by native and non-native speakers alike at the time they were represented, thus giving rise to “images of personhood” (Agha 2007: 177). This thesis aims to contribute to this growing field of investigation by demonstrating that the dialect of Devonshire was an enregistered variety during the nineteenth century. In pursuance of this goal, my aim is to: first, describe the socio-cultural circumstances of Devonshire during a period of change, rapid urban growth, and social mobility, while also to provide insight into the origin of Devonshire and its main linguistic characteristics. Second, to understand how this variety became enregistered, how it was used in literature, and how it became associated with a type of speaker, or rather a “personified image” (Silverstein 2003: 220). Third, to contribute to historical linguistic research into the West Country, whose (socio)linguistic background, though poorly investigated, could expand our historical knowledge of English dialect speech more generally. In order to accomplish these aims, the present thesis undertakes a twofold qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data documented in nineteenth-century literary representations of the Devonshire dialect, likewise considering metalinguistic commentary circulated in other contemporary works. The results indicate that the Devonshire dialect presented a definite set of linguistic patterns that comprise a number of salient phonological, morphological, and lexical features. Such forms were circulated and employed by local and non-native authors with clearly demarcated audiences, who understood the indexical links binding speaker and speech together. At the same time, the findings have also enabled us to observe dissimilarities in those patterns, which would demonstrate that language was employed agentively in accordance with the assumptions that local and non-local readers had about the dialect, and whose perceptions thus seem to have differed. In short, the present doctoral thesis reveals the Devonshire dialect was employed as a literary device to represent a distinct sort of speaker by means of a series of linguistic items drawing on well-established and recognised links between the language and the community of dialect speakers.