DiG 20 (2012), 5–25 DOI 10.1515/DIG.2012.001.

Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear

Michael Pearce

Abstract

This article explores folk-perceptions of dialect differences within Tyne and

Wear, North East England. It presents a qualitative analysis of responses to an
online survey in which participants offered their descriptions of linguistic varia-
tion. These richly detailed comments are used in the composition of a nuanced
picture of lay perceptions of linguistic variation in the region.

1. Introduction

My ongoing research into the perceptual dialectology1 of North East Eng-

land has shown how ‘the folk’ – that is, ordinary people with no linguistic
training – inhabit a complex landscape in which perceived differences in
speech map onto elements of the region’s static and dynamic geographies. I
have found that features such as roads, rivers, buildings and hills are identi-
fied by people as marking out, and sometimes even forming, cultural
boundaries, and that territories on opposite sides of these boundaries are
associated with different forms of speech (Pearce 2009 and 2011). Further-
more, when I compared these perceptual areas with ‘production’ areas
(based on locally salient linguistic features, see Pearce 2009: 178‒188) I
found that in North East England, people appear to possess high levels of
metalinguistic awareness about actual variation in space. In this article I
address the precise nature of this metalinguistic awareness by presenting
findings from an online survey completed by 165 people from Tyne and
Wear.2 Some of the questions (the answers to which were reported in
_________________________
1
Since Dennis Preston’s pioneering work in the 1980s and 90s, perceptual dialectol-
ogy (PD) is now a well-established approach in the study of ‘folk linguistics’ (a term used
to describe the beliefs and attitudes about language held by ordinary people). Most intro-
ductory works in sociolinguistics have something to say about PD. For example, Meyer-
hoff defines it as “the study of people’s subjectively held beliefs about different dialects
or linguistic varieties”, a study which “complements the regional dialectologists’ more
objective focus on the way people are recorded as speaking” (2006: 65). There are useful
overviews in Preston (2010) and Montgomery & Beal (2011).
2
Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in North East England, formed in 1974. It
consists mainly of the urban areas of Tyneside (centred on the city of Newcastle-upon-
6 Michael Pearce

Pearce 2011) focused on issues of cultural identity and affiliation in relation

to the two largest cities in the North East: Newcastle-upon-Tyne (hereafter
Newcastle) and Sunderland, and the nature of the ‘borderland’ between the
two. One question was designed to elicit respondents’ descriptions of the
speech of people in Tyne and Wear, in particular the differences between
the speech of people in the two cities, and it is the responses to this question
which I report on in this article.3
Since language is central to individual and group identity – acting as a
“psychosocial rallying-point” (Edwards 2009: 55) – it is not surprising that
the folk-picture of territoriality, ‘bordering’, division and rivalry uncovered
in my research (Pearce 2011) has a linguistic dimension. Only two respon-
dents who took the survey suggested that there are no differences between
Newcastle and Sunderland speech. The rest were prepared to describe and
evaluate differences at varying levels of specificity, citing a range of lin-
guistic features. In section 2, I provide an overview of folk descriptions of
the differences claimed by respondents, beginning with phonology, fol-
lowed by grammar and lexis, and concluding with prosodic and paralinguis-
tic features. In section 3, I consider folk evaluations of difference. In order
to place these perceptions in their dialectological context, where possible I
link them with production evidence of geographical distribution drawn from
a variety of sources, in particular the basic materials of the Survey of Eng-
lish Dialects (SED) and the associated Linguistic Atlas of England (LAE);
the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (DECTE); the Mil-
lennium Memory Bank archive (MMB) at the British Library, Joseph
Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (EDD) and Burbano-Elizondo 2008
(the most extensive study of Sunderland dialect so-far produced). Addi-
tional material, illustrating both ‘actual’ production and metalinguistic
awareness, is gleaned from publicly available postings on social network
sites and message boards.4
__________________________________________________________________

Tyne) and Wearside (centred on the city of Sunderland). Before the reorganization of
county boundaries in 1974, parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne were in the
county of Northumberland and parts south of the Tyne were in County Durham. Demo-
graphic details of the respondents are in Pearce (2011: 11).
3
The question was: “What are the differences between people from Sunderland and
Newcastle in the way they speak? Think about the way words are pronounced and dis-
tinctive words people use.”
4
DECTE is at the University of Newcastle ‹http://research.ncl.ac.uk/decte/›. MMB is
hosted by the British Library at ‹http://sounds.bl.uk/Browse.aspx?collection=Millenium-
memory-bank›. An online version of the English Dialect Dictionary has been developed
by researchers at the University of Innsbruck ‹www.uibk.ac.at/anglistik/projects/edd-
online/›. Examples of online discourse are taken from the social network sites MySpace
and Bebo, and the message boards of Tyne and Wear’s biggest football clubs: Sunderland
A.F.C. (www.readytogo.net) and Newcastle United F.C (www.newcastle-online.org).
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 7

Fig. 1. Map of Tyne and Wear (source: Wikipedia)

2. Folk descriptions of dialect differences

Perceptual dialectology has often been concerned with the examination of

attitudes towards and evaluations of linguistic variation, using methodolo-
gies which are good at capturing spontaneous reactions. But as Røsstad
points out “less weight has been given to informants’ responses that are
based on thoughtful consideration” (2009: 97). The tables in this section
indicate that when respondents are allowed the time and space for ‘thought-
ful consideration’, they often display a level of metalinguistic awareness
which might not have been anticipated, describing differences at the “mul-
tiple levels of linguistic structure” identified by professional linguists as
salient in differentiating dialects, including “syntactic construction, pro-
sodic or intonational contours, lexical inventory, and phonological realiza-
tion” (Nygaard 2005: 397).

2.1. Phonology

Table 1 records respondents’ perceived phonological contrasts between the

dialects of Newcastle and Sunderland in the form of their semiphonetic re-
spellings. This technique is widely used to represent ‘marked’ varieties of
spoken English in various written genres (particularly literature), so it is not
surprising to see it being used by people to express their perceptions of ac-
cent. In addition to respelling, some respondents gave more extended ac-
counts of their auditory perceptions, as in these examples:
8 Michael Pearce

(1) … with a longer ‘a’, extra vowel.

(2) I think the ‘ee’ sound is ‘higher’ the closer to Newcastle you get.
(3) … distinctive elongated vowels.
Generally speaking, respondents were imaginative and thoughtful in their
attempts to describe speech sounds, although some did express their frustra-
tion with the task:
(4) Can’t think how to write the Sunderland version.
(5) I can’t explain how it’s said.5

Table 1: Perceptions of phonological variables

Variable ‘Newcastle’ ‘Sunderland’

a. FOOT vowel in or-
thographic ‹-ook›
b. GOOSE vowel
c. MOUTH vowel
‹book› ‹boook› ‹boouk ‹bewk› ‹boeok› ‹booock›
‹buck› ‹buk› ‹boook› ‹boowk› ‹bouk›
‹buke› ‹buok› ‹buwk› ‹cewk›
‹lewk›
‹schoool› ‹skul› ‹skule› ‹schewl› ‹schooool ‹schuol›
‹skuul› ‹scuel› ‹skewel› ‹skewl›
‹skuil› ‹schewel› ‹skuool›
‹aboot› ‹hoose› ‹broon› ‹brown› ‹dawn› ‹down›
‹doon› ‹oot› ‹toon› ‹tuun› ‹tawn› ‹pouund› ‹town›
‹toooon›

d. Initial [h] ‹at› ‹ere› ‹howls› ‹oover›

‹ula oops›
e. The vowel in ‘make’ ‹maik› ‹taik› ‹mack› ‹mak› ‹tack› ‹tak›
and ‘take’ ‹myak›‹tyak›
f. FLEECE vowel ‹cappucceeno› ‹greeen› ‹cheasy› ‹cheys›
‹jeens› ‹cappucceino› ‹grein› ‹jeins›

g. LETTER and ‹Amaandaah› ‹compewter›

COMMA ‹borga› ‹computa›
‹Peetaah›
h. The vowel in the first ‹curry› ‹hurry› ‹kurri› ‹cerry› ‹herry› ‹kerry›
syllable of bi-syllabic ‹Murray› ‹herry› ‹Merry›
words rhyming with
‘curry’
i. GOAT vowel ‹herm› ‹lifeburt›
j. NURSE vowel ‹borga› ‹korb›

_________________________
5
Comments from the survey have been lightly edited for ease of reading.
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 9

What the respellings and the more extended descriptions reveal is people’s
willingness to engage with the details of phonological variation.
Table 1 presents perceived differences in order of saliency (the most re-
marked upon differences appear first). The first column lists the variable
and the second gives examples of respellings used by respondents to repre-
sent pronunciations associated with speakers from each city. I now describe
these phonological perceptions, linking them with production evidence of
geographical distribution drawn from a variety of sources.
(a) One of the most frequently mentioned differences was the FOOT
vowel in words ending in orthographic ‹-ook›. This is typically [ʊ] (e.g.
RP). But in some accents of the north of England, words which have ‹-ook›
in the spelling are pronounced with a long back vowel [uː]. The perceptual
consensus here associates the shortened vowel with Newcastle speakers and
the unshortened vowel with Sunderland, and there is some production evi-
dence to support this perception: [ʊ] is the more widespread vowel, but
some speakers (particularly to the south of the region) preserve the more
traditional [uː] in these words (see Llamas 2001, cited in Burbano-Elizondo
2008: 285).
(b) Some respondents also commented on the GOOSE vowel, often re-
flecting the perception that the ‘typical’ Newcastle pronunciation is the mo-
nophthong [uː] (or perhaps longer, as respellings such as ‹schoool› and
‹schoooool› suggest), whereas spellings such as ‹schewl› and ‹scuel› are
attempts to capture a contrasting realization believed to be characteristic of
Sunderland speech. One possible interpretation of these spellings is that this
vowel is perceived as realized in Sunderland as a diphthong. Burbano-
Elizondo (2008) reports on a categorical use of the monophthong [uː] in her
Tyneside sample from the DECTE corpus. A monophthong was also very
common amongst her Sunderland speakers (occurring 96.6% of the time in
GOOSE words), but it was “frequently more fronted”, approaching either
[ʉː] or [ʏ:] or very occasionally [ɵ:] (Burbano-Elizondo 2008: 292). Diph-
thongal realizations were very rare (3.4%), but interestingly 40% of these
occurred in the word ‘school’. It appears that there is some production evi-
dence to support the claim that a ‘non-[u:]’ vowel – particularly in the word
‘school’ – is a marker of Sunderland speech.
(c) One of the most well-known shibboleths of Newcastle speech is the
MOUTH vowel. The ‘traditional’ dialects of Scotland and the far north of
England preserved a pre-Great Vowel Shift monophthongal [uː] in words
belonging to this set. But this pronunciation has been receding throughout
the twentieth century, and only a small number of older, male, working-
class speakers tend to use it in North East England today. Contemporary
production evidence from the MMB suggests that the great majority of
speakers use the diphthongs [əʊ], [aʊ] or [ɛʊ] for most words in this set
10 Michael Pearce

(Pearce 2009: 179–184; Beal 2004: 124). Nevertheless, some respondents

associate this pronunciation in particular with Newcastle speech, offering
these respellings: ‹toon›, ‹tuun› and ‹toooon› for ‘town’; ‹broon›, ‹doon›,
‹aboot›, ‹hoose› for ‘brown’, ‘down’, ‘about’ and ‘house’. In contrast, stan-
dard spelling is generally used to show Sunderland pronunciations. Use of
standard spelling implies a diphthong, as might these semi-phonetic respell-
ings: ‹dawn›, ‹tawn›, ‹pouund› (‘down’, ‘town’, ‘pound’). It seems that
some respondents perceive Newcastle as a place where more conservative
pronunciations of the MOUTH vowel are preserved. The perceptual linking
of [uː] with Newcastle is probably related to the way in which this pronun-
ciation is prominent in a small set of words associated with Tyneside iden-
tity, where the [uː] pronunciation “has been lexicalised and reflected in the
spelling” (Beal 2004: 124). The most well-known of these is Toon – pro-
nounced [tuːn] – which is generally used not to refer to towns in general,
but usually occurs in the phrase ‘the Toon’ as an alternative label for New-
castle and as a nickname for Newcastle United F.C.6 Other items in this
group include brown (in relation to a brand of beer called Newcastle Brown
Ale which until recently was brewed in Gateshead), down, and out (because
people often go ‘doon the Toon’ on a night ‘oot on the Toon’ where they
might drink some ‘broons’).7 Some respondents, however, suggest that this
pronunciation occurs in words beyond these specific local contexts (e.g.
‘about’ and ‘house’), and there is some evidence from naturally occurring
online discourse to suggest that the [uː] vowel in MOUTH is not as fossil-
ized as it might seem to be: There was always somethin shifty aboot Mox ...
only turns out he’s an arsonist!; Me, at my new hoose; food flyin oot ya
mooth. But online evidence such as this needs to be treated with caution. Do
these spellings reflect the actual pronunciation of the posters in their every-
day speech, or are they simply a form of vernacular ‘display’ in the perfor-
mative context of online social networking?

_________________________
6
The distinction between toon and town is neatly captured on a sign on the local bus
service between South Shields and Newcastle, which reads ‘From Town [i.e. South
Shields] to Toon [i.e. Newcastle]’.
7
The saliency of Toon in North East culture was reflected in the most recent collec-
tion by the well-known Newcastle-based poet, Sean O’Brien. His November (2011) con-
cludes with a long Dantesque poem in which a “water-sprite, a river girl” guides the poet
on a phantasmagoric tour of the “secret Hell of Tyne”, which prompts him to reflect on
the region’s history and mythology, and anatomise what the river girl calls ‘Geordismo’,
a distinct variety of North East machismo epitomized in the poem by the “slabs of lard/In
dandruffed suits” watching in “unsmiling concentration” while “dog-headed dancing-
girls” perform in a nightclub guarded by a “triple-headed bouncer”. The title of this sa-
tiric-epic is ‘On the Toon’.
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 11

(d) The presence or absence of initial [h] was also an issue for some re-
spondents: “we in Sunderland tend to drop our H’s; Sunderland don’t seem
to pronounce the H.” Beal (2000: 352) suggests that “h-dropping is a shib-
boleth of Makkem speech,” and is salient mainly because Tyneside, unusu-
ally for an urban accent in England, is associated with [h] retention (Hughes
et al. 2005:66).8 There is some production evidence to support this. The
SED (as summarized by Burbano-Elizondo 2008) shows that County Dur-
ham was an area where [h] was variably dropped (although it was retained
in Northumberland), and MMB data associates ‘h-dropping’ with south
west County Durham and a narrow coastal strip extending as far north as
Sunderland (Pearce 2009: 183). Interestingly, Burbano-Elizondo’s own re-
search shows that despite its high perceptual salience, h-dropping appears
not to be as common in Sunderland as might be expected, although it is
more common than on Tyneside (2008: 215–16). There is some limited
evidence of [h] deletion online, particularly in the spelling of Hartlepool (a
coastal town in south-east County Durham) as ‹Artlepool› or ‹‘artlepool›.9
(e) The vowel in ‘make’ and ‘take’ was also frequently commented upon.
The prominence of these lexical items is due to familiarity with the phrase
‘We mak ‘em, you tak ‘em’ and its variants, which is widely believed to be
the origin of the term ‘Mackem’ for a person from Sunderland or Wearside.10
Throughout the north of England, the vowel in the FACE lexical set – to
which ‘make’ and ‘take’ belong – is [eː]. But respellings associate the vowel
[a] with Sunderland (‹mak›, ‹mack›, ‹tak›, ‹tack›, ‹makem›, ‹takem›,
‹mackem›, ‹tackem›). Spellings for Newcastle pronunciations include stan-
dard ‹make› and ‹take› (suggesting ‘mainstream’ [eː]), together with ‹maik›,
‹taik›, ‹myakem› and ‹tyakem›, perhaps pointing to a diphthongal realization
of the vowel. SED evidence suggests that traditionally [a] is more frequently
found in County Durham than it is in Northumberland, whereas diphthongal
realizations are more common in Northumberland (Orton & Halliday 1963:
1008–1011); MMB recordings also point to diphthongal realizations in Tyne-
side and south east Northumberland. Kerswill (1987: 29) gives the ‘Durham
vernacular’ pronunciation of ‘take’ and ‘make’ as [tak] and [mak]. Interest-

_________________________
8
A ‘Makkem’ is a native of Sunderland or Wearside. Beal’s spelling is unusual:
‹Mackem›, ‹Mackam› and ‹Makem› are more commonly found variants.
9
Interestingly, some respondents also suggested that ‘h-adding’ was a feature of Sunder-
land speech: “the addition of the letter ‘h’ to words such as ‘eggs’ making them ‘heggs’!”.
This form of hypercorrection occurs when speakers who perceive h-dropping to be stigma-
tized ‘over-compensate’ by inserting [h] in contexts where it is not normally found.
10
Griffiths suggests that the phrase is associated with the city’s industrial heyday:
“the shipyard workers ‘mak’ the ships, the crews ‘tak’ them to sea, and thus Mackems
and Tackems are (or were) two important and populous local groups” (2005: 112).
12 Michael Pearce

ingly, some respondents, while citing this difference suggested it might be

quite rare: “Mak and tak have become clichés. I can’t remember the last time
I actually heard a Wearsider use them.” Online evidence for this feature is
open to interpretation. When we find hes gana tak me on full time in a com-
ment by a teenager from Sunderland, does the spelling ‹tak› reflect his use of
the [a] in speech, is it a typo, or is it an example of the tendency when typing
rapidly online for some writers to reduce the number of keystrokes where
feasible (Crystal 2004: 87)?
(f) The mainstream vowel in the north of England in the FLEECE set is
/iː/. But some respondents perceive divergence from this pronunciation
(mainly in Sunderland but also in Newcastle). One respondent respells Sun-
derland versions of ‘green’, ‘cappuccino’ and ‘jeans’ as ‹grein›, ‹cappuc-
ceino› and ‹jeins› and Newcastle versions as ‹greeen›, ‹cappucceeno› and
‹jeens›. Another writes “there is the cheesy peas thing where they [speakers
from Sunderland] pronounce it cheasy peas (where both rhyme!).” Pre-
sumably, the ‹ei› and ‹ea› spellings suggest a diphthongal realization of the
vowel. Evidence from dialectology supports the idea of a diphthong associ-
ated with Sunderland speakers. In the LAE, maps record diphthongal reali-
zations (e.g. [ɛi]) for the vowel in ‘green’ and ‘cheese’, for locations in the
south east of County Durham.
(g) The quality of the unstressed vowel in the final syllable of words such
as ‘letter’ and ‘comma’ is regarded as a marker of Newcastle/Tyneside
speech by some respondents. Spellings such as ‹-aah› for the final syllable in
‘Peter’ and ‹-a› in ‘computer’ rather than ‹-er› are perhaps attempts to sug-
gest an open vowel, rather than the more close vowel which is found in most
non-rhotic varieties of English (RP has [ə], for example). Wells describes this
‘Geordie’ vowel as [ɑ~ɛ] (1982: 376). It is often represented orthographically
in online contexts; examples include afta, anutha, banta, betta, buskas,
eva, hanga, matta, otha, ova, ratha (‘after’, ‘another’, ‘banter’, ‘better’,
‘buskers’, ‘ever’, ‘hanger’, ‘matter’, ‘other’, ‘over’, ‘rather’). Here, two
forces are possibly involved in spelling choice: accent stylization and the
‘save a keystroke’ principle.
(h) The vowel in the first syllable of bi-syllabic words rhyming with
‘curry’, which is generally [ʊ] in northern England, is claimed by some re-
spondents – as reflected in respellings such as ‹kerry› – to be an open mid
[ɛ] in Sunderland. I have been unable to discover dialectological evidence
to support this lexical variable, but online metalinguistic commentary does
indicate that the pronunciation is a shibboleth of Sunderland speech. As this
Newcastle United supporter points out on the Sunderland message board:
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 13

anyone who pronounces curry ‘kerry’ is in no position to lecture anyone on

pronunciation.11
(i) Only two respondents imply that the vowel in the GOAT set might dis-
tinguish Newcastle/Northumberland speech from Sunderland speech. The
spellings ‹bert› for ‘boat’ and ‹herm› for ‘home’ suggest a centralized mo-
nophthong [ɵː]. The MMB evidence points to the presence of this variant
only in locations north of the Tyne, and there is some online evidence to sug-
gest that in contemporary dialect it is employed in a limited way with particu-
lar lexical items: The Fear is still lurking, am gannin herm. Elsewhere, the
‘mainstream’ northern variant [oː] is prevalent. A strand in current popular
metalinguistic discourse about variation in North East England particularly
associates the centralized variant with the town of Ashington in south east
Northumberland, as illustrated in the following joke news report from a so-
cial network site: A lorryload of terrapins on its way to Sea World has over-
turned in Ashington, local police described the scene as turtle mayhem.
(j) One respondent respells ‘curb’ ‹korb› and ‘burger’ ‹borga› to repre-
sent Newcastle pronunciations of the vowel in the NURSE set. This vowel
is generally [øː] in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, but [ɔː] – which
these respellings correspond to and which is very much a traditional, con-
servative pronunciation – is recorded in MMB for Byker in Newcastle. A
picture caption on MySpace represents both the [ɵː] in the GOAT vowel
and the [ɔː] in the NURSE vowel: Smerkin a tab in Mcdonnalds … Glad to
see its not Borga King.

2.2. Grammar and lexis

Fewer comments were made about grammatical and lexical variation. This
is possibly due to the fact that respondents find these levels of language
perceptually less salient in distinguishing ‘difference’: in other words
grammatical and lexical variables are perceived as being widespread across
the North East, and not associated with a particular city. Indeed, even when
respondents do identify a feature as ‘Newcastle’ or ‘Sunderland’, produc-
tion evidence often points to a wider distribution. Nevertheless, a number of
differences were claimed.

_________________________
11
An assertion which a Sunderland supporter counters with “Shurrup man!! you’s
can’t even pronounce Town!! what the fucking hells a Toon?”.
14 Michael Pearce

Table 2: Perceptions of grammatical and lexical variables

‘Newcastle’ ‘Sunderland’
a. Possessive wor (our) our
determiners

b. Object pronouns we, wer (us/me)

c. Wh-words whee, whey; weez,
wees, wheez, we’s
(who/whose)
d. Primary verbs doing deing (doing)
divent, divnt (don’t) dinnit, deent (don’t)
e. Inserts aye (yes)
na, ner, nor (no) nar (no)
alreet (all right) a’reet (all right)
howay (come on) haway, ha’way (come
on)
f. Terms of address / mate marra, marrah
endearments pet kiddar, kidda
g. Lexical nouns yem (home) peyet (head)
peeve (alcohol) clays, claes (clothes)
kets (sweets)
h. Lexical verbs gan (go); gannin, ganin, gawn, garn (going)
gannen, gannin’ (going);
ganna (gonna) doll off (play truant)
plodge (paddle/wade)

(a) There were several comments about perceived contrasting possessive

determiner use. Most commonly, wor is associated with Newcastle and our
(which is also the Standard English form) associated with Sunderland.
Wales calls wor “a characteristic feature of present-day urban Geordie”
(2006: 185). It is recorded for all the SED respondents in locations in
Northumberland, and there is use of wor in County Durham, Lancashire and
Yorkshire, suggesting that wor was once more widespread in the north of
England than it is now (Orton & Halliday 1963: 960–61). Contemporary
online evidence shows that it is still in use in North East England, but it
seems to be restricted to contexts where the speaker/writer is marking an
affective stance towards the referent in the following noun phrase, as in
these online examples: ayeeee wor soph had her prom on friday, she looked
lovely like; you ever guna come back to wor newcastle nd say
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Some online evidence does point to wor as occurring more
frequently in Newcastle than Sunderland. On the Newcastle United F.C
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 15

message board, wor occurs proportionately twice as often as a first person

plural possessive determiner than it does on the Sunderland A.F.C board.12
(b) A contrast is also claimed for second person object pronouns: “they
[Newcastle speakers] say ‘with wer’ instead of ‘with us’”; “‘With we’
(Newcastle and South Shields) instead of ‘with us/me’ (Sunderland).” Here,
pronoun exchange is regarded as a feature of Tyneside speech. Such an ex-
change is not evident in the SED materials for Northumberland or County
Durham, but the Tyneside Linguistic Survey (archived in DECTE), contains
several instances of pronoun exchange in this particular prepositional
phrase, for example: she still keeps in touch with we; there was the little one
in with we. Also, one respondent claims that the pronoun yous (as in ‘I’ll
clout yous both in a minute’) is more Sunderland. But this morphological
variant is in fact widespread across the North East and occurs frequently in
online discourse: i was there when yous played there and i seen yous at the
union in newcastle hahaha! fookin mint yous are lads!
(c) Contrasts are also claimed for contexts where Standard English has
who and whose. Sunderland was identified as a place associated with [wiː]
and [wiːz] (spelled variously ‹whee›, ‹whey›; ‹weez›, ‹wees›, ‹wheez›,
‹we’s›). The SED shows that [hwiː], [wiː], [hwiːz] and [wiːz] were histori-
cally widespread across the North East – but with a tendency towards aspi-
ration north of the Tyne (Orton & Halliday 1963: 1078-79). As with wor it
seems that a historically widespread form has become more limited in its
perceptual associations (but this time the older form is associated with Sun-
derland rather than Newcastle). Its saliency for respondents might be influ-
enced by a footballing ritual. In local derbies between Sunderland A.F.C.
and Newcastle United, the Newcastle fans will sometimes shake their keys
at Sunderland fans while chanting “weez keys are these keys?” (“whose
keys are these keys?”), in an attempt to provoke the opposition by aping
what is perceived to be a feature of the Sunderland dialect.
(d) Variation in the verb do is also noted, particularly when it occurs with
the negation clitic. Some respondents associated forms with [dɪv] with
Newcastle, and [dɪ] and [diː] with Sunderland. In the SED, when equiva-
lents of Standard English ‘I don’t know’ were elicited, v-forms such as
[dɪvənt] were recorded across Northumberland and the north of County
Durham, whereas [dɪnt] and [dɪnət] occurred in the rest of the county, sug-
gesting some correspondence between perceptual and production evidence.
In my examination of online discourse, I came upon several examples of
variation in do, with both positive and negative polarity: Am deein an engi-
_________________________
12
On the Newcastle board, wor = 5490; our = 36900 (13.04%). On the Sunderland
board, wor = 36500; our = 564000 (6.08%). These approximate figures were derived
using Google’s advanced search capabilities in January 2012.
16 Michael Pearce

neerin apprenticeship; divin’t lyk puttin 2 much abt is on these; Books r

shite dinnit need to use them the newspapers is alreet like; wat ya bin dein
like bud?; if a dint reply yana why; im in the house so divnt lock me in. The
football message boards suggest that forms with [dɪv] are as popular with
supporters of Sunderland as they are with supporters of Newcastle. How-
ever, forms with [dɪ] and [diː] occur proportionately eight times more fre-
quently on the Sunderland board, supporting the perception that these forms
are less likely to be heard in the speech of people from Newcastle.
(e) Although the positive response form aye sometimes gets associated
with Newcastle, the SED shows aye forms (particularly [aɪ]) as widespread
across the region (Orton & Halliday 1963: 965–66), and it also occurs in
transcripts of recordings Burbano-Elizondo made of her Sunderland re-
spondents (2008: 162-63). A greater variety of negative response forms are
mentioned by respondents, with some respellings associated with Newcastle
(e.g. ‹na›, ‹ner›, ‹nor›) and some with Sunderland (e.g. ‹nar›). Some re-
spondents associate howay with Newcastle and haway (or ha’way) with
Sunderland, and the Newcastle United and Sunderland A.F.C. message
boards would seem to provide evidence to confirm this association (ninety-
six percent of instances of howay/haway/ha’way on the Newcastle board
are howay, while in contrast haway/ha’way makes up almost exactly the
same percentage on the Sunderland board). The term has a wide variety of
meanings and functions depending on context, the most common probably
being an exclamatory exhortation to act (where Standard English has ‘come
on!’) The respellings point to a different vowel quality in the first syllable.13
A contrast is also claimed in relation to the greeting/response form ‘all
right’, with alreet associated with Newcastle, and areet/a’reet associated
with Sunderland. In both versions, the vowel in the stressed syllable is the
pre-GVS [i:], rather than a diphthong, and the distinguishing feature is the
presence or absence of [l].
(f) Some respondents associate particular terms of address/endearments
with the two cities. Sunderland has kiddar, marrow/marra (spelled ‹kidda›,
‹marra› and ‹marrah›); Newcastle has mate and pet. Production evidence
points to a wider distribution for these terms, with SED showing both mar-
row and mate (the latter being a widespread colloquial term in British Eng-
lish) in locations in both counties, and the term kiddar also widely found
(Griffiths 2005: 99). Evidence from the football message boards suggests
that in relation to kidda and marra, Newcastle supporters prefer the former
while Sunderland supporters prefer the latter.
_________________________
13
This distinction is captured in the title of a football book by Alan Candlish (2006):
Ha’way/howay the lads: A history of the rivalry between Newcastle United and Sunder-
land.
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 17

(g), (h) Of the remaining lexical items in Table 2 associated with Sunder-
land and Newcastle there is evidence to suggest, once again, a wider distri-
bution than is being claimed by respondents. For example, the SED records
variants of claes (clothes) in all locations in Northumberland and County
Durham; and yem (home) – pronounced [jɛm] or occasionally [jam]) – is
also generally found. Kets (sweets, particularly cheap ones) and doll off
(play truant) are described by Burbano-Elizondo as possible localized vari-
ants “distinguishing Sunderland English from Tyneside English” (2008:
164). Neither is present in the SED, although ket meaning rubbish is re-
corded for Northumberland and County Durham (Orton & Halliday 1963:
472). Peyet (‘pate’) for head is recorded in EDD and distributed widely
across northern England, but the diphthongized pronunciation is associated
with Northumberland. Gan is recorded for Scotland and the north of Eng-
land in EDD. Its present-day distribution is, in England, limited to the North
East (but within the region it is quite widespread – see Griffiths 2005: 65).
Some respondents claim that the verb gan (equivalent to Standard English
go) is a Newcastle variant. But SED shows gan as the universally preferred
form in Northumberland and County Durham, and there is more recent evi-
dence from the MMB recordings to suggest that it remains widespread
across the North East, including in Sunderland. Forms of the verb listed by
respondents (with SE equivalents) include ‹gannin›, ‹ganin›, ‹gannen›,
‹gannin’› (going); ‹ganna› (going to/gonna). Similarly, EDD records plodge
in Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Yorkshire. Griffiths records
this as being “in common use” in the North East (2005: 133).
There is some support for the survey respondents’ perceptions on the foot-
ball message boards. For example, both kets and plodge are proportionately
far more pervasive on the Sunderland board than on the Newcastle one.

2.3. Prosodic and paralinguistic features

As well as describing perceived phonological, grammatical and lexical dif-

ferences between the speech of people from Newcastle and Sunderland,
respondents sometimes offered brief, summative descriptions of their over-
all perceptions. Often, these comments appear to refer to prosodic or para-
linguistic features (in particular intonation, volume, tempo, rhythm, and
voice quality), as in the following:
(6) Sunderland accents appear to sound more nasal.
(7) The Sunderland tone is softer and clearer, and not as clipped as Newcas-
tle sounds.
(8) Newcastle speakers sound more melodic to me.
(9) The Sunderland accent sounds softer and very rhythmic whereas the
Newcastle accent is a little more harsh and stronger.
18 Michael Pearce

(10) The Geordie accent to me sounds a bit more ‘sing-song’ like, if that
makes sense!
(11) I think the Newcastle accent is more harsh than a Sunderland accent.
It is perhaps not surprising that such descriptions occur in the data, given
that “varieties of languages are marked not only by their vowels and
consonants but also by their prosody” (Nolan 2006: 447), and that prosody
is such a “readily distinctive” marker of “regional origin” (Wales 2006:
201). Indeed, experiments have shown that people are capable of discrimi-
nating between dialects on the basis of prosodic cues alone (Leeman & Sie-
benhaar 2008). As Wales points out, English in the north of England “has a
rich array” of such cues, which are “frequently commented on by the lay-
public” and present “obvious signs or emblems of regional and social iden-
tification”, although they have been “quite seriously under-researched”
(2006: 201). Despite this neglect, the prosody of the North East looms large
in popular and folk accounts. An early reference to the distinctiveness of
North East prosodic features appears in a set of letters written by an
anonymous ‘English commercial traveller’ as he journeyed from London to
Scotland in the summer of 1815. In his seventh letter, adopting a rather su-
percilious manner typical of the entire book, the author describes his ex-
perience of encountering people in County Durham who manage to com-
bine “indistinct singing and drawling” (reminding him of “the Scots”) with
“a high tone of voice, a sort of falsetto, which, with the other peculiarities,
has, to me, a ludicrous effect” (Anon. 1817: 54–55).
The salience of prosody in perceptions of North East speech continues to
the present day, and is reflected in the adjectives used by survey respon-
dents which suggest a range of prosodic features: for example, pitch
(deeper, high, higher, piercing, squealy); tempo (fast, faster, clipped); into-
nation (melodic, flat, flatter, sing-song). Paralinguistic features such as
voice quality are also evoked (harsh, harsher, rough, rougher, hard,
harder, rounded, smooth, softer). In Figures 2 and 3 the size of the font
gives a broad indication of the frequency with which each adjective was
used by respondents in their descriptions of the speech of each city. Al-
though some of these adjectives are applied to both locations (e.g. clipped,
flat, flatter, harsh, harsher) there is a tendency for the speech of Newcastle
to be associated with ‘musical’ intonation, quicker tempo, and harsh voice
quality, while Sunderland speech has a narrower intonational range and is
‘softer’ in terms of voice quality. Is there any production evidence to sup-
port these perceptions?
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 19

Figure 2: Adjectives used to describe the accent of Newcastle

Figure 3: Adjectives used to describe the accent of Sunderland

Research on suprasegmental features of English dialects is somewhat lim-

ited, although where it has been undertaken, Newcastle English has at-
tracted the attention of linguists, probably because, amongst English cities
Newcastle – like Liverpool and Birmingham – has a particularly character-
istic intonation type (Wells 1984: 55–56). The fullest accounts of Newcastle
intonation are contained in a series of publications based on the Intonational
Variation in English (IViE) corpus (see Grabe et al. 2008 for a summary).
Amongst the findings for Tyneside is the presence of a rise-plateau ‘tune’ in
declarative sentences, described impressionistically by Wells (1982: 376) as
“a low-to-high rise, with high level tail, in certain contexts where RP would
have a high fall.” This might contribute to the perception of Newcastle
speech as musical. In the words of one respondent “a Geordie speaker will
almost sing the words.” There has, of yet, been no research which compares
the intonation of Newcastle speakers with those of Sunderland.
What about tempo? Some respondents perceived Newcastle speech as
‘faster’ than Sunderland speech. Although ‘the folk’ often claim that there
are speech tempo differences between different dialects, the production evi-
dence for speech tempo as a factor distinguishing dialects is not as convinc-
ing as it is for intonation (although in the context of English there do seem to
be subtle speech rate differences between ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ varieties
20 Michael Pearce

in the USA – see Jacewicz et al. 2009).14 Speech rate is mainly a perform-
ance factor reflecting contextual conditions, such as the emotional state of the
speaker, their auditor, or the type of speech event they are engaged in.
Finally, Newcastle speech was generally perceived as ‘harsher’ than the
‘softer’ Sunderland speech. Speakers routinely alter aspects of their voice
quality (either strategically or unconsciously) to signal pragmatic meaning,
attitude, and emotion. For example, a speaker might use ‘harsh’ voice – in
which speech sounds are produced with a constricted laryngeal cavity, re-
sulting in an audibly rough voice quality (Laver 1994: 420) – to convey
anger. In this respect, voice quality is – like speech rate – a performance
factor. However, “there is also some evidence that varieties of English have
habitual settings for voice quality: that is, speakers belonging to cer-
tain sociolinguistic groups share a common voice quality” (Ogden 2009:
50). Knowles, for example, has described the particular articulatory settings
which give ‘Scouse’ (the dialect of Liverpool) its distinctively ‘adenoidal’
quality (1978: 98). Research carried out in Scotland suggests that particular
voice qualities are associated with different socioeconomic groups. Esling’s
(1978) Edinburgh study links harsh voice, protruded jaw and a range of set-
tings associated with pharyngeal tension with working class speakers in the
city; similarly, Stuart-Smith (1999) finds use of open jaw, raised and
backed tongue body and more whisperiness amongst working class speak-
ers in Glasgow (cited in Mackenzie Beck 2005: 304). So far, serious re-
search on the sociolinguistics of voice quality in varieties of English in
England has been limited. This means that there is no production evidence
against which to compare the perceptions of respondents in the survey.
However, the evidence from urban Scottish varieties (with which urban va-
rieties of North East England have certain commonalities) would suggest
that particular articulatory settings might also index social class in the North
East. The question of whether or not voice quality might mark speakers’
geographical location within the region has yet to be researched.

3. Folk evaluations of dialect differences

Figures 1 and 2 also indicate a tendency for Newcastle speech to be per-

ceived as ‘broad(er)’ than Sunderland speech. This adjective is used fre-
quently in folk accounts of accent and dialect. Unlike the other adjectives
discussed in the previous section, which seem to be used by respondents to
describe prosodic and paralinguistic features, ‘broad(er)’ is a more general
_________________________
14
Some speech-rate differences have also been claimed for dialects of Swiss German
(Leeman & Siebenhaar 2008).
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 21

term. If a speaker is described as having a ‘broad’ accent or dialect, then this

indicates that he or she is perceived as using more distinctively vernacular or
‘basilectal’ features than a less ‘broad’ speaker from the same place. Interest-
ingly, the way respondents use this adjective suggests a degree of sensitivity
towards the sociolinguistic distribution of vernacular variables:
(12) Some working class in high unemployment areas still very distinct and
broad.
(13) The West End of Newcastle is much broader and people from Gosforth
and Jesmond speak posher.
(14) The broader dialects tend to be those with lower incomes.
(15) People from the rougher areas tend to use slang, as if broadening their
accent makes them territorial in some way.
(16) I have found office workers seem to speak in a very similar tone and
dialect while builders (for example) tend to have a more broader accent
typified by their area.
(17) People in communication jobs will speak their local accent but in clear
English whereas the lads down the coal yard, or the pub barmaid are
much broader and more traditional if you like.
Here respondents are acknowledging a sociolinguistic universal: the “in-
verse relation between class level and the local distinctiveness of speech”
which means that “working class speakers have the most locally distinct
speech while the upper middle class have a speech pattern which transcends
the local and even the regional” (Eckert 2010: 170).
‘Broad(er)’ is an evaluative term, suggesting a continuum with neutral
or unmarked speech at one end and maximally local speech at the other.
Even though evaluations were not explicitly solicited in the survey, they
frequently appear in respondents’ descriptions of the differences between
Newcastle and Sunderland speech. For example, the terms used for voice
quality considered in the previous section are embedded in a discourse of
evaluation. When the adjective ‘harsh’ is used in scientific descriptions of
articulatory setting, it does not carry evaluative meaning. But in everyday
language, ‘harsh’ is generally used to describe unpleasant sounds, and a
‘soft’ sound is usually pleasant. To characterize one accent as ‘harsh’ and
another as ‘soft’ is usually to judge the latter positively in comparison to the
former. When such terms as ‘harsh’ and ‘sharp’ are applied to an accent,
there is almost always an implied negative evaluation, whereas ‘soft’ and
‘round’ have positive connotations (compare ‘she has a lovely soft accent’
with the highly unlikely ‘she has a lovely harsh accent’).
It is at this point worth noting that in the survey, respondents were asked
to state which of the two cities in Tyne and Wear they felt the stronger af-
22 Michael Pearce

filiation with.15 When these emotional and personal ties are taken into con-
sideration, a pattern of ‘them’ and ‘us’ often emerges. For example, in rela-
tion to the harsh-soft conceptual metaphor, amongst the seventy respon-
dents affiliating themselves with Newcastle, none of them used ‘harsh(er)’
(or ‘harshness’) in their descriptions of either accent. But those affiliated
with Sunderland used these words six times more often to describe Newcas-
tle speech than Sunderland speech. Likewise, some respondents affiliated
with Newcastle used somewhat pejorative terms to describe Sunderland
speech: “The Wearside accent tends to be a lot higher and sometimes
squealy”; “The Sunderland accent has a much more piercing tone”.
This tendency to judge ‘our’ speech positively and ‘their’ speech nega-
tively sometimes extends to contexts where evaluations are expressed in a
more direct and unequivocal manner:
(18) Sunderland is an awful accent and can never be endearing: the way
‘pound’ is pronounced makes me cringe. [Newcastle affiliation]
(19) I’ve always felt that the Newcastle accent is much rougher than the
Sunderland one. [Sunderland affiliation]
(20) Sunderland is quite a pleasant dialect. [Sunderland affiliation]
Some comments overtly conflate linguistic and social evaluations:
(21) The people from Newcastle speak very differently to those in Sunder-
land and they are not as friendly in Newcastle either. [Sunderland af-
filiation]
(22) When I go into Sunderland town centre a lot of the people sound rough.
[Newcastle affiliation]
(23) I think that the Sunderland accent is actually quite harsh and feels
threatening, whereas I think the Geordie accent is more linked to less
educated members of society and someone who is a bit stupid. [Sun-
derland affiliation]
Here, characteristics such as education, intelligence, friendliness and ag-
gression are indexed by perceived linguistic performance. Remarks such as
these echo robust findings in studies of language attitudes in which evalua-
tions of speech are seen to reflect wider social attitudes (see, for example,
Coupland & Bishop 2007).
Given the cultural context of civic rivalry in Tyne and Wear (Pearce
2011: 18–19), it is perhaps not surprising to find some overtly negative
evaluations in the survey responses. However, by no means all evaluations
of ‘the other’ are negative:
_________________________
15
The question was: “If you had to choose, which city would you say you felt emo-
tionally and personally closer to?” Eighty-one respondents chose Sunderland, while sev-
enty chose Newcastle. The remainder did not answer the question.
 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear 23

(24) There is more of a rhythm to the way people speak in Newcastle, which
makes the accent more attractive than Mackem. [Sunderland affiliation]
(25) Newcastle tend to be clearer than Sunderland. [Sunderland affiliation]
(26) Both dialects are attractive and easy on the ear. [Newcastle affiliation]
(27) The Sunderland tone is softer and clearer. [Newcastle affiliation]
(28) I think the Sunderland accent is softer and has more melody. [Newcastle
affiliation]
These positive evaluations of ‘the other’ suggest that the mutual antagonism
often present in representations of the relationship between the people of
Sunderland and Newcastle – reflected in popular publications such as Ian
Black’s Geordies Vs Mackems: Why Tyneside is Better Than Wearside &
Why Wearside is Better Than Tyneside – is a simplification of a more com-
plex picture, in which apparent ill-feelings are often mitigated by a gruff
sort of tolerance, bordering on respect. In the words of one of the respon-
dents, the relationship is “probably more friendly than either we Makems or
the Geordies would have you believe.”

4. Conclusion

This article has shown that, when given the opportunity to write at length,
‘the folk’ are capable of producing nuanced and detailed descriptions of
linguistic variation. Using respelling, together with impressionistic – but
nevertheless evocative – descriptions to convey the sound-experience of
speech, and illustrating their perceptions of lexical and grammatical varia-
tion with lively and engaging examples, respondents make fine-grained dis-
tinctions at all the linguistic levels traditionally recognized by linguists as
salient in differentiating dialects. In addition, they sometimes suggest that
suprasegmental features such as speech rate and voice quality – under-
explored area in the dialectology of the British Isles – can be used to distin-
guish speakers from different locations, perhaps pointing out a research
route for future dialectological studies to take. In many cases, descriptions
of perceived contrasts and similarities between the speech of Newcastle and
Sunderland are combined with evaluations, which are often linked to the
cultural loyalties and affiliations of ‘the folk’ of Tyne and Wear. Taken to-
gether, these descriptions and evaluations present a high-resolution picture
of the linguistic ecology of this part of North East England.
24 Michael Pearce

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Michael Pearce • University of Sutherland • mike.pearce@sunderland.ac.uk