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Article published In:
English World-Wide
Vol. 40:3 (2019) ► pp.269–298

Gendered inanimates in Shetland dialect

Comparing pre-oil and contemporary speech

| Justus Liebig University Giessen

The use of gendered pronouns with inanimate noun referents, such as referring to line and pipe as she and to bag or lid as he, has been described as typical for Shetland dialect. In light of recent discussion on the shift from Shetland dialect to Standard English, presumably triggered by the sociodemographic changes brought on by the oil industry, this study investigates the gender system in both the pre-oil and post-oil speech of the variety. Using a database of over 368,000 words of oral history material and a sample of elicited contemporary speech, it is shown that the choice of gender correlates with a number of linguistic and social variables. Furthermore, the study shows that the use of gendered pronouns with inanimate nouns is a robust and stable feature of contemporary Shetland dialect.

Keywords: apparent time study, change, endangered variety, grammatical gender, grammaticality judgements, high contact variety, Scots, Shetland dialect, variation, variety of English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data material
  • 3.Evidence of gendered inanimates in Shetland dialect
  • 4.Gender systems in English and Scots
    • 4.1Defining types of gender systems
    • 4.2Gender systems in English
    • 4.3Gender systems in Scots
  • 5.Investigating the Shetland dialect gender system
    • 5.1Coding the oral history material
    • 5.2Collecting and coding the contemporary material
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1The oral history material
      • 6.1.1Overview of the oral history material
      • 6.1.2Testing for distance
      • 6.1.3Testing the oral history material by noun type
      • 6.1.4Testing for the linguistic parameter of role
    • 6.2The contemporary material
      • 6.2.1Testing for possible indications of a shift to Standard English
      • 6.2.2Testing for social parameters
      • 6.2.3Testing for responses by noun type
      • 6.2.4Participant observation
  • 7.Summary and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 September 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.00032.vel
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