ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 establishes the sociolinguistic background for the key variable in the study, the language variety of Irish English (IrE), by tracing the emergence of IrE as a variety. Previous research on IrE which exploits corpus linguistics methodologies is examined. The chapter discusses the features which differentiate IrE from the standard British variety, Standard Southern British English (SSBE), and goes on to describe the features of vernacular IrE with reference to different data sources. It considers the notion of prestige varieties of English in the Irish context and looks at research into the notion of a ‘standard’ IrE. The more general term of ‘non-local’ IrE to cover ‘standard’ or prestige varieties is established and particular categories of IrE which may fall under this umbrella term are identified and their salient features described. Finally, the basis for the classification of all the varieties in the corpus, in relation to accent and dialect, is established
