SotA Anthology 2015-16 | Page 104

that there are ‘ languages of social groups ’. The dialect of Lancashire , and in this case , the particularly nuanced version representing the form spoken in the Wigan area can therefore not only be attributed to the location where it is spoken , but also to the social class that speaks it – namely the workingclass . Peter Wright in his book Lanky Twang touches upon this characteristic of the Lancashire dialect , when he says that ‘ every Lanky town and village has its own dialect , the towns having more a mixture of the surrounding country dialects and Standard English ’.
Wright also notes that the characteristics of ‘ the Lanky ’ ( as in , a person from Lancashire ) are likely to make one believe that ‘ Lancashire is a county to avoid ’. Yet , as he goes on to comment , “ The Lancashire dialect is rich in proverbs and sayings , both humorous and pointing a moral ” ( 1991 , p . 5 ). The people of Lancashire , therefore , do seem aware of their ‘ otherness ’, and have reclaimed this by creating humour , whereby they can poke fun at themselves and the situations they find themselves in through their use of dialect literature , as the following analysis hopes to illustrate .
Beginning , then , with ‘ Posh Visiters ’ ( see extract on page XX ), the first signifier that the poem is employing the use of dialect is what Jane Hodson ( 2014 , p . 94 ) describes as the
SotA Anthology 2015-16
phonetically transparent respelling of ‘ visiters ’. In Standard English , or RP , visitors would be pronounced / ˈvɪzɪtəs /, however , in this case , Unsworth is attempting through phonetic respelling to convey the way a Wiganer would pronounce it as / ˈvɪzɪtɘz /. This immediately distances any reader that does not speak Wigan dialect , or more broadly perhaps , northern English dialect , from the poem as it highlights a difference in pronunciation between Standard English and Wigan dialect . The use of the word ‘ posh ’ preceding it also contributes to this effect , as the implication is made that if the reader does not pronounce visitors as / ˈvɪzɪtɘz /, then they might be seen as one of the posh outsiders too . This immediately shows the distance working-class Wiganers would traditionally place between themselves and anyone they viewed as a ‘ posh ’ outsider .
The first example of the use of eye-dialect ( Hodson , 2014 , p . 95 ) can be seen in the opening line of the poem where the narrator of the poem , a young man named Jeffrey , quotes his mother as saying ‘ were ’ instead of ‘ we ’ re ’, without the apostrophe included . Eye-dialect , according to Hodson , signifies visually that the speech of the speaker is non-standard , even though that particular word may not have been uttered in a specifically nonstandard way . Jane Walpole explains the reason for writers ’ use of eye-dialect when she says : “ If a character is at all socially acceptable , then - whether he be a Harvard professor or a Seattle car salesman - his dialogue , though having dictional variations , will be written with grammatical and orthographic correctness . But if the character is from an inferior social class , if he is of an ethnic minority , if he is foreign , rustic , or ill-educated … his dialogue becomes branded as substandard by the use of colloquialisms , solecisms , and eye dialect .”
By using eye dialect , Unsworth indicates to the reader that the speakers in this poem are from a family that have a low social status , and therefore likely a low level of education . Lancashire dialect does not tend to concern itself with the lives of the upper or middle classes , but rather is written in dialect as a way of preserving the dialect for those to which it belongs : the working Lancashire , or Wigan , people .
The first stanza then goes on to present numerous phonetic respellings of words , for example : ‘ goo ’ int av cump ’ ny ’, ‘ neaw ’, ‘ yo ’, ‘ towd ’, ‘ burr ’, ‘ wa ’ ant ’, ‘ abeawt ’, and ‘ gowd ’. These phonetic respellings cover both of the forms of semi-phonetic respelling Hodson ( 2014 ) discusses – phonetically transparent respellings , and those which she describes as making it ‘ difficult to be