ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the concept of indexicality, understood as the social meaning of particular ways of speaking, is explored in relation to how it is evidenced in the Irish Radio Advertisement Corpus (IRAC). We examine how corpus linguistics tools facilitate the investigation of how the strategy of juxtaposing variety at both inter-varietal (in relation to Standard Southern British English [SSBE] and Irish English [IrE]) and intra-varietal (in relation to vernacular and ‘prestige’ varieties of IrE) levels is exploited in IRAC across the decades of the corpus. We see how this strategy can strengthen the indexical associations of these (sub) varieties through highlighting the contrast in their associations. The investigation is facilitated by the tagging of the ads to indicate use of accent and dialect (sub) varieties, which allows for the systematic retrieval of ads exploiting particular (sub) varieties. The more in-depth qualitative analysis reveals how accent and dialect can be indexical of, for example, class, expertise, youth culture and traditional and contemporary contexts. The way in which changing orders of indexicality in relation to language variety can be indicative of sociolinguistic change is discussed. We also look at the indexicality of varieties other than SSBE and IrE in the corpus. Finally, the way in which corpus linguistics tools can be used in the examination of pragmatic markers, and how these markers can do indexical work, is explored.
