Irish English in the context of previous research

Abstract

The current chapter is intended as an overview of the main focus of research on Irish English to date. This variety has been well served by scholars in recent decades with a flourishing of interest stemming from various approaches to analysing English in Ireland. For the purpose of presentation, this chapter is divided into various sections each of which concerns itself with a particular subarea. After these introductory paragraphs, there is a section on the early history of the variety of Irish English (Section 2.). This is followed by a consideration of the main linguistic event in the history of Ireland, the shift from Irish to English for the great majority of the population (Section 3.). In keeping with new trends in Irish English scholarship (Hickey 1999a), shared features across the country as a whole are then reviewed (Section 4.). Following on from this, there is a section on the interpretation of features, considering in particular their possible sources (Section 5.). Such reflections are relevant to the question of whether language contact or retention of dialect input are the source for features of Irish English (Harris 1991; Hickey 1995, 2006). The last section looks at recent changes in Dublin English (Section 6.) which, because of the status of the capital in the Republic of Ireland, are having a profound influence on the course of non-local varieties of English in the south of the country (Hickey 1999b).

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