They do be anxious about their speech: Performance and ...

They do be anxious about their speech:

Performance and Perceptions of Authenticity

in Irish-Newfoundland English

MICHAEL COLLINS

University of Toronto

[email protected]

Introduction

'This failure to produce, on command, this relic of our dear culture . . .

I’ve been accused (more than once) of failing on purpose. . . . There’s a

sense that if I grew up there, it’s obviously something I should be able to

perform, and to fail to do so demonstrates some guardedness or

falseness . . . . to fail in this performative aspect of our culture

automatically questions the legitimacy of one’s (in this case, my own)

cultural attachment.' (Butler 2011)

'Krystin Pellerin is from Newfoundland. So why make her use an

accent? Just talk like normal fucking human beings' (bluekaffee.com

2010).

NEWFOUNDLAND ENGLISH PRESENTS MANY CURRENT SPEAKERS WITH A DILEMMA. After 1949,

when Newfoundland became part of Canada, standard Canadian English has become an

implicit and explicit standard. It is heard in broadcast media and from speakers who have

moved to Newfoundland from other parts of Canada, often to fill positions of prominence and

power. However, the dilemma is not of a unitary non-standard dialect struggling to be

preserved or respected. Instead, Newfoundland demonstrates a variety of non-standard dialects

of English, existing in a state of both tension and partial fusion.

Sandra Clarke describes Newfoundland English’s 'considerable range of linguistic

variation' as not merely a result of 'settlement history and ethnicity' but also reflecting 'such

social factors as age or rural versus urban residence–not to mention gender and socio-economic

background' (Clarke 2010, 16). As a result, associations exist between a variant’s perceived

ethnic provenance and many other vectors, such as the speaker’s socio-economic background.

The relationship is more complex than equating standard Canadian English with an educated

Authenticity in Irish-Newfoundland English MICHAEL COLLINS 2

middle/upper class and all Newfoundland Englishes with a socio-economic and intellectual

underclass.

Diglossia, a speaker’s ability to switch between dialects as context requires, certainly

exists. Among insiders, a Newfoundland dialect may carry a covert prestige, while a standard

Canadian dialect carries an overt prestige. However, the situation is more complex.

Newfoundland English is too full of internal variation and tension. It cannot form a stable pole

within a binary standard/non-standard system. Diglossia then takes on numerous forms–a kind

of polyglossia–and attempts by the Newfoundland English speech community to police

endonormative standards become contradictory or incoherent.

It is not only a question of how standard or non-standard a speech act is perceived to be.

Instead, a multitude of independent qualities are judged simultaneously, and different hearers

will place different values on those qualities. It may be impossible for a Newfoundlander to

speak without some self-consciousness about his or her phonology, morphology, or vocabulary.

This anxiety is not only that outsiders will detect hints of a non-prestigious dialect, or that

insiders will not be able to distinguish one another by speech. It is that a speaker may be

criticized, by insiders or outsiders, in any number ways–for having a dialect, for lacking a

dialect, or for producing a dialect that is ‘wrong’ in one way or another.

The way a Newfoundlander speaks places the speaker within Newfoundland society. It

is used to determine the speaker’s coordinates within a multi-dimensional space of difference

composed of many axes–Irish versus English, Catholic versus Protestant, Townie versus

Bayman,1 educated versus uneducated, literate versus illiterate, upper class versus working

class, Newfoundland nationalist versus Canadian assimilationist. While conscious awareness of

this process of ‘placing’ is difficult to prove, the comments Newfoundlanders make about other

Newfoundlanders’ speech demonstrates that it is real, easily rousing passionate responses.

Why Newfoundland? No speech act is ideologically unmarked2–a person suggests a cultural, political, or class

background simply by the way he or she speaks. However, the specifics of Newfoundland’s

history and culture mean that the ideological cues coded within Newfoundland speech are

perhaps easier to map than in populations that are larger, more cosmopolitan, and less isolated

or (literally and figuratively) insular.

Newfoundland demonstrated an extremely specific pattern of European settlement,

occurring largely in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. It 'displays a greater degree of

homogeneity in its European founder population than perhaps anywhere else in English-

speaking North America' (Clarke 2010, 7). However, this homogeneity was not drawn from a

singular source, but from two sources, one Irish, the other English. This binary will prove

fundamental.

This dual settlement was followed by an extended period of little new immigration and

1 ‘Townie’ designates a Newfoundlander from St John’s; ‘Bayman’ designates a rural coastal inhabitant.

2 Indeed, theorists such as Lacan or Althusser would suggest that it is by language that we are

inculcated within an ideological system, that our subjectivity is inherently linguistic and also

inherently ideological.


relative isolation: 'by 1884, 97% of Newfoundland’s population was native-born . . . this portion

has not changed dramatically' (Clarke 2010, 7). During this time of relative isolation,

Newfoundland took steps toward nationhood similar to those taken by other Dominions of the

British Empire (Canada, Australia, etc). However, it suffered an economic collapse in the 1930s.

In 1948 it voted itself out of existence as an autonomous political entity by a narrow margin

(roughly 52% of voters favouring annexation by Canada). The lines of Newfoundland’s past

internal conflict remain as points of fracture in the present, and are manifested by insider

attitudes toward Newfoundland’s various dialects.

The scope of this paper does not allow me to explore all of these fracture points. As a

case study, I will examine the perceived degree of ‘Irishness’ in Newfoundland English. It

manifested first as a political project, drawing conceptual links between Ireland and

Newfoundland. Later, during the Newfoundland ‘cultural renaissance,’ it became a supplement

to compensate for the loss of dialect that followed confederation with Canada. Finally, it has

recently emerged as a locus of criticism regarding ‘fake,’ ‘inauthentic,’ or ‘non-representative’

performances of Newfoundland speech within media.

The context, history, and settlement of Newfoundland

Newfoundland is a large, heavily peninsulated island (108,860 square kilometres, the sixteenth

largest island in the world, larger than Ireland but smaller than Britain). Save Greenland, it is

the most easterly part of geographic North America. Indeed, the capital city, St John’s, is as close

to Dublin as it is to Winnipeg.3 It first entered into European awareness when it was briefly and

unsuccessfully settled by the Norse around 1000 CE; after this it was largely forgotten by

Europe until fifteenth and early sixteenth century explorers and seasonal fishermen began

visiting again. Despite this early history of European contact, formal attempts at settlement did

not begin until 1610, and these were minimal until well into the eighteenth century. By 1750, the

permanent population was no more than 5,000; this almost quadrupled to 19,000 by 1803, and

quintupled to 96,000 by 1845. At this point immigration to the island slowed to a trickle, and

further population increase was largely due to birthrate (Clarke 2010, 7).4

3 On Canadian and North American maps, the curvature of the earth often makes Newfoundland

appear much more northerly than it is. St John’s, for example, is near the 47th parallel, more southerly

than Victoria or Vancouver BC. Its extreme easterly situation accounts for it being jammed into the

northeast corner.

4 The main aboriginal nation on the island, the Beothuk, avoided contact with early settlers, and in the

eighteenth century began to be squeezed from their ancestral hunting and fishing grounds. The last

known Beothuk, Shawnadithit, died in captivity in St John’s in 1829; it is largely through her and her

aunt, Demasduit, who had similarly been captured and taught some English, that we know anything

at all about Beothuk culture and language. Only a few dozen words of the Beothuk language survive,

recorded by well-meaning Europeans (who, sadly, did not have access to the IPA). Its influence on

Newfoundland English is negligible to the point of near non-existence. Words from Mi’kmaq, Innu,

and Inuit languages have found their way into the Englishes spoken in southwestern Newfoundland

(Mi’kmaq) and Labrador (Innu, Inuit), but both of these areas are geographically remote from the

regions that are the primary focus of this paper. Sandra Clarke notes a significant aboriginal influence


The development of the English language in Newfoundland represents a 'unique

situation' (Hickey 2002, 284). Most of the European settlers who came to Newfoundland in the

eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries 'derive from two clear historical sources' (Hickey

2002, 284). The first of these is the southwest of England, primarily counties Dorset, Devon, and

Somerset (Hickey 2002, 284). These immigrants settled throughout most of the island and

comprise what G. M. Story calls 'the oldest and strongest strain in our blood' (1975, 21).

The second 'strain' is the southeast of Ireland, centering on Waterford City and including

counties Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny, Tipperary, and Cork. This wave of immigration peaked

shortly after the English wave, and focused primarily on St. John`s and south along the coast of

the Avalon Peninsula to Placentia, where the Irish came to dominate. The latter of these regions

is today 'populated almost exclusively by descendants of the original Irish settlers and

constitutes the ‘Irish Avalon’ linguistic area' (Clarke 2010, 11). The newcomers from

southeastern Ireland also settled alongside the West Country English in some parts of

Conception Bay and northern and western Placentia Bay, where today this 'dual linguistic

heritage [is] obvious' (Clarke 2010, 11). There are also a small number of Irish enclaves within

otherwise overwhelmingly English areas of settlement, such as the community of Tilting on

Fogo Island, off the north coast (not indicated in the map provided).

within Labrador English, but also notes that this dialect not only differs from Newfoundland

Englishes, but also has been the subject of very little scholarship.

Illustration 1. Simplified map showing primary areas of Irish

settlement. Modified by the author from

www.physics.mun.ca/~sstring/web


The uniqueness of Newfoundland English is partly due to this relatively simple dual

heritage. Its limited and specific sources resulted in parts of the island speaking a West

Country-derived English, others a southeast Ireland-derived English, and still others hybrids of

the two. Additionally, 'these varieties have until well into the twentieth century been largely

isolated from other forms of English in North America' (Hickey 2002, 284). Immigration to

Newfoundland became negligible by the middle of the nineteenth century and remains so

through to the present moment. In the 2006 Canadian census only 2% of the province’s

population had been born outside of Canada, and 94% had spent at least the previous five years

in the province (Clarke 2010, 8).

Linguistic Sectarianism Despite this isolation, there was also only a limited amount of pan-Newfoundland

homogenization prior to 1950. Perhaps this was because of internal isolation, which kept one

hypothetical cove’s Somerset-derived dialect unlike another hypothetical cove’s Kilkenny-

derived dialect. The kind of processes which would have produced a unitary Newfoundland

English had trouble occurring in a population of so few people5 scattered over such a large

territory. Much of the regional variations seem to be arrangements and rearrangements of

genetic material from two parents: 'the [regional] variation impressionistically noted by early

visitors reflects simply the two principal varieties of English which are overwhelmingly

dominant'(Kirwin et al 1990, xxv). Thus, Newfoundland did not and does not have a singular

dialect, but rather a limited variety of dialects, signalling the speaker’s regional and ethnic

background: a particular variety of Irish, a particular variety of English, or an idiosyncratic

mixture of the two.

Limited infrastructure and a heterogeneous education system kept at arm’s-length from

the government likely facilitated this lack of homogenization. Newfoundlanders were educated

by a variety of denominational schools run by various Christian sects. For example, Catholic

schools were largely attended by Newfoundland-Irish students and were often staffed by nuns

and brothers from Ireland. Religious sectarianism is significant in Newfoundland because it is

also ethnic and linguistic sectarianism. Keough, for example, simply identifies 'the standard

Newfoundland formula of ethnicity' as 'Catholic = Irish' and 'Protestant = English' (2008, 13).

The English-Irish divide was a factor in the struggle for Newfoundland’s self-

government in the nineteenth century and in its resistance to confederation with Canada in the

twentieth. It makes sense that language, as a primary marker of difference, would take on

political significance. The initial push for self-government in the mid-nineteenth century was

lead by the Irish Catholic community in and around St John’s. Newfoundland’s sense of itself as

a nation was linked to a sense of itself as an Irish place: 'the power to define the nation . . . [was]

predominantly in the hands of Irish Roman Catholics . . . From early on, the Newfoundland

nation was forged in the image of the Irish. Naturally, this did not go down well with the

English-Anglican fragment settled mainly in the outports (Thomsen 2010, 114) 6. In 1948, the

roughly 52-48 vote to join Canada split very neatly down regional lines, reflecting Irish/English

5 Currently about 479,000 people live on the island itself, according to Statistics Canada.

6 Outports meaning small fishing communities remote from St John’s.


settlement patterns. St John’s, its environs, and much of the Avalon Peninsula–the area of Irish

and Catholic predominance and the centre of power within quasi-independent Newfoundland–

firmly did not elect to be part of Canada in 1948.

Where have all the Irish gone?

About half the island’s population was Irish-derived in 1836 (Mannion and Handcock

1993), a little more than a decade before the population ceased to receive statistically significant

numbers of newcomers. Scholars routinely treat a 50:50 English:Irish ratio as a given throughout

the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. About 48% of Newfoundlanders voted

against joining Canada in 1948. Yet in 1951, in the first census to include Newfoundland as a

part of Canada, far fewer than 48% of the new province’s population claimed an Irish heritage.

Keough tells us that: 'only 14.8% of Newfoundlanders claimed Irish ancestry' in this census

(Keough 2008, 15). What accounts for this low level of self-reported Irishness? At first we might

consider that the Irish in Newfoundland conceived of themselves as ethnic Newfoundlanders,

not ethnic Irish, but the census data does not bear this out–it seems few, if any, gave

‘Newfoundlander’ as a response.

Perhaps the disappearance of self-identifying Irish Newfoundlanders has to do with

prestige. A 'vague Irish cast' is a feature identified by mainland Canadians as characteristic of

Newfoundland English, and is, even by itself, 'sufficient to suggest to English Canadians that

the speaker being represented is an uneducated fisherman from a Newfoundland outport.'

(Pringle 1985, 186). Clarke goes on to analyze Pringle’s data: 'NLE [Newfoundland English] was

negatively evaluated on both correctness and pleasantness ratings by residents of Ontario and

Alberta. NLE was also termed ‘drawl’ ‘Newfie talk’ and ‘extremely fast lower class [speech].'

Illustration 2: The red represents support for Confederation in 1948’s referendum; the blue, support for

Newfoundland’s independence. Sections marked N/A were unpopulated. Map is from

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/ref1map.html


She goes on to report that 'residents of the province have [also] largely internalized outsider

stereotypes of local speech.' (Clarke 2010, 131). While these studies occurred much later than

1951, anecdotal reports suggest that Newfoundlanders were very much subject to similar (or

more extreme) linguistic and cultural shaming by the rest of Canada: 'in the 1950s . . .

Newfoundlanders felt a sort of shame about the way they dressed or the way they spoke'

(Richler 2007, 345).

Perhaps, by associating Irishness with the idea of a Newfoundland nation separate from

Canada, people may have become reluctant to self-identify as Irish, especially when

Newfoundland’s linguistic difference from English Canada became an focus of shaming tactics

and of suppression–with real economic implications, as any diasporic Newfoundlander who

attempted to climb professionally or academically elsewhere in Canada in the 1950s or 60s will

attest (Lush 2011). If nothing else, gatekeepers at various institutions of prestige and power

might have identified Irishness as a mark of Newfoundlandishness, as did the respondents of

the surveys Clarke and Pringle discuss.

Newfoundland as distinct and distinctively Irish This is furthered by Keough’s analysis of the role of Irishness in the ‘Newfoundland

renaissance’ of the later twentieth century. He notes 'what is intriguing is the re-awakening of

Irish ethnic identity [in Newfoundland]. . . since the 1960s and the open celebration of Irishness

since the 1990s.' (2008, 12) A further ‘Celtification’ of Newfoundland strengthened the idea that

Newfoundland’s Irish heritage was what made it distinct from the rest of Canada–that if there

was a Newfoundland nation, it was primarily an Irish Newfoundland nation. Keough identifies

a 35% increase in the number of people claiming Irish heritage in Newfoundland between the

1950s and the 1990s, a period when the population only increased by 20%, (this is also a period

of negligible immigration, which cannot account for such a change). In the same period, claims

of Englishness fell from 77% to 59.8%. Mathematically, this would mean the actual number of

‘English’ Newfoundlanders fell during a period when the population increased by 20% without

any statistically significant immigration– a startling conclusion. The link between Irishness and a sense of Newfoundland’s distinction from the rest of

Canada is furthered by Keough’s analysis of these statistics: '41% [of Newfoundlanders] . . .

described themselves as Canadian only. However, this transition [to a Canadian identity] was

not evidenced evenly across ethnic groups. The bleed came almost entirely from the English

ethnic group, with very little loss from the Irish' (Keough 2008, 15). In other words, the number

of ‘English’ Newfoundlanders did not really fall, but rather many of them began to describe

their ethnic identity as ‘Canadian.’ An equation of Englishness with Canadian assimilation and

Irishness with Newfoundland nationalism seems to be borne out.

Business, tourism, and government also followed this cultural re-casting of

Newfoundland as an Irish culture distinct from mainstream English Canada. Memoranda of

understanding between Newfoundland’s and Ireland’s governments were signed and

reaffirmed in the 1990s and 2000s, and organizations, partnerships, and artistic exchanges were

established and funded to reunite the ‘lost kin’ on both sides of the Atlantic (inp.ie 2011).

Academic articles and books were produced, asserting Newfoundland’s claim to the title 'most

Irish place in the world outside of Ireland' (McGinn 2011). In the years before Aloysius O’Brien,


the last ‘native’ Irish Gaelic speaker in Newfoundland (and a 'devout Roman Catholic') died in

2008, at the age of 93, (Sullivan 2008, 1), an old Irish-Gaelic name for Newfoundland began to

circulate in Irish-Newfoundland nationalist circles: Talamh an Éisc, meaning 'land of fish'

(McGinn 2011, 1). Newfoundland, as tourist pamphlets and government websites are only too

happy to remind you, is the only place in North America with a unique name in the Irish

language.

With its independence dissolved and a Canadian cultural imperialism devaluing its

language and culture, forces within Newfoundland were aligning to stress a distinct and

unitary idea of Newfoundland identity–and Newfoundland English was included in this

project. Claims of Newfoundland’s distinctiveness–its nationhood–were to lean heavily on

Newfoundland’s Irishness, ignoring the fact that the West Country of England was an equal (if

not dominant) linguistic and cultural strain in the island’s heritage.

Perhaps this leaning on Irishness was to loan strength from North American concepts of

Irish language and culture, in a bid to have outsiders recognize Newfoundland’s claim to

distinctiveness as legitimate, its culture and language worthy of respect and preservation.

Perhaps Ireland was merely an easy tool to explain basic facts to North Americans who did not

have the education or the patience to recognize or accept that Newfoundland English is a

complicated family of distinct dialects, only some of which are Irish-derived. Or perhaps the

intent was to use Ireland as a supplement or a model to heal or undo the partial linguistic

erasure that resulted from the decades Newfoundland had already spent within a country that

perceived its dialects as unintelligent and lacking in prestige.7

Talamh an Éisc: How Irish they sounds

One of the fruits of the ‘Celtification’ process is An Bóithrín Glas: Talamh an Éisc, a television

documentary, produced in 1999 by Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), the Republic of Ireland’s state

broadcaster. The documentary argues that Newfoundlanders are ‘lost Irish’–an Irish people

who left Ireland some two hundred years ago, but whose culture and dialect are as they had

been in the old country.

This clip from An Bóithrín Glas: Talamh an Éisc, available as of April 2011 as 'Irish-

Newfoundland Connection–2' on youtube.com, focuses on Newfoundland dancing and folk

entertainment. The viewer comments focus almost exclusively on the speech of the

Newfoundlanders and on Newfoundland’s degree of Irishness.

One memorable comment, made by user 'tallicalad', simply claims 'pfft gay nationalist

sentiment'–not bothering to explain the relationship he or she perceives between

Newfoundland nationalism and claims of Newfoundland’s Irishness. Others are less pejorative

and more descriptive. User 'davidl999' exclaims 'it’s like a Waterford accent!' while user

'rebekahface' enthuses 'it sounds like she only left Waterford yesterday!! feckin’ brilliant!'

7 Until relatively recently, it was mandatory for students from most parts of Newfoundland to take and

pass an elocution class at Memorial University, the only University in the province; this was designed

to teach them to speak ‘properly,’ and rid them of accents and lexicon that would ‘mark’ them as

Newfoundlanders, to their detriment. (Crocker 2006, 89).


The totalization of Irish-Newfoundland–the perception that Newfoundlanders are all

Irish–is also a feature of these comments. User ‘kristenpetten’ says 'all newfoundlander’s have

accents like theirs some aren’t so strong. but we all have the accent,' while JasonVz simply says

'Newfoundland should be renamed New Ireland.' These comments are, as of April 2011, the two

‘top rated’ comments attached to the video. The Irish-Newfoundland speakers interviewed in

the documentary, who represent only one of the several dialects comprising Newfoundland

English, are taken to represent the whole of Newfoundland, and are explicitly described as such

in many of the comments. All of the commentators, including the dismissive ‘tallicalad,’

recognize that Newfoundland’s ‘Irishness’ is deeply linked to the argument that

Newfoundland’s language and culture are distinct from English Canada’s.

It is undeniable that the speakers in the video all exhibit dialectical features associated

with Ireland, and that they all originate from the southern Avalon peninsula, an area of almost

exclusive Irish settlement. In the clip, Lizzy Careen’s first utterance contains many features that

mark her dialect as Irish-derived: 'I was a house keeper over [th]ere to Mr. Jerrett’s. That big

house now where ye come from?' These features include the fortition of ambi-dental fricatives,

or ‘th’ sounds, (so that ‘there’ becomes more like ‘dere’), the second-person plural pronoun ‘ye,’

and a use of verb tense and aspect that, combined with insertion of ‘now’ ('now where ye come

from'), suggests an avoidance of ‘have’ in the present perfect. There is also a general ‘Irish’

sound to many of her vowels. Later in the clip, Mary Power gives several excellent examples of

the habitual aspect ('I loves dancin’,' and 'it do be on television'), another feature associated with

an Irish-derived dialect. Both Careen’s and Power’s speech is heavily rhotic. It also exhibits

obvious epenthesis in sonorant clusters. All of these are generally understood to be Irish

features.

There are also slightly more than 200 (215, by my count) words in the Dictionary of

Newfoundland English that are either derived from Irish Gaelic ('sleveen' for a sly or

untrustworthy person, for example) or have a meaning within Irish English that differs from its

meaning elsewhere ('poisoned' to mean ‘very annoyed or aggravated,’ for instance) (Kirwin et al

1990, 384, 491). Another clip of An Bóithrín Glas, also available on youtube.com as 'Irish

Newfoundland Connection–1,' describes Newfoundland English’s lexical debt to Irish, using

sleveen, 'angish,' 'angishore,' and 'cronan' as examples. Neither the documentary nor the viewer

comments on YouTube point out that these words, or others of the Irish-Newfoundland lexis,

may be little known beyond the Avalon peninsula.

As Raymond Hickey has argued, the provenance of many of these seemingly Irish

features is complicated. Many dialects have features such as the second person plural pronoun

‘ye’ and the fortition of ambi-dental fricatives (turning ‘th’ into ‘t’ or ‘d’)–by themselves, neither

is a compelling argument for a special relationship between Ireland and Newfoundland.

However, other features, such as the realisation of low vowels, the habitual aspect, the

immediate perfective tense (the use of after paired with an -ing verb, to indicate something has

recently happened), and other phonological and lexical elements, all suggest that the claim that

an Irish-derived dialect persists in Newfoundland is true for conservative speakers from the

southern Avalon region and St John’s.8 Hickey also points out a fact that threatens to disrupt the

8 My father is from Placentia, Newfoundland; when visiting me in Ireland in 2006, he was asked several times if

he was from Cork. I, also from Placentia, was most commonly mistaken for an American when in Ireland;


entire foundational English-Irish binary: the English spoken in southeast Ireland two hundred

years ago was not drastically different from the English spoken in southwest England two

hundred years ago. Disentangling the Irish influence from the English influence is more difficult

than perhaps immediately assumed (2002, 312).

With that said, the truth and the extent of Newfoundland English’s resemblance to Irish

English is somewhat beside the point: it is perceived as an Irish-derived dialect, and not only

among Newfoundlanders. Here, an Irish viewer gives his opinion of the internationally-

broadcast Newfoundland-produced television program Republic of Doyle, mistakenly

interpreting the accents of the characters. At first, he assumes their dialects are a form of ‘stage

Irish.’ 'i’m guessing the family are generational Irish who emigrated to Newfoundland. Irish

detective family, the accents are quite bad, but they do try...it sounds like a mix of Dub and

Canadian...sounds really weird!,' user ‘Richard Dower’ begins. Other members, who

acknowledge that they have not seen Republic of Doyle, correct him: 'as for the Newfie accent, it

is pretty mental alright. It’s a mix of Waterford/Wexford thrown in with the North American

accent,' says user ‘Doctor Zaius,’ while user ‘Pickarooney’ explains 'Newfies generally sound

like a mix of Irish and Canadian' (2011). There is no mention of a West Country influence.

The Irish-Newfoundland speakers interviewed in An Bóithrín Glas are older,

linguistically-conservative, and rural. They were all born before Confederation with Canada

and were not part of the Newfoundland diaspora in the decades following confederation with

Canada. While we might believe Lizzy Careen’s and Mary Power’s dialects as being

unselfconsciously Irish, the generations following after them would perhaps be more aware of

the (real or perceived) Irishness of Newfoundland dialect even as they are less capable of

producing that ‘Irishness’ unselfconsciously.

I Would Have Liked To Say I Was Irish: Irish-Newfoundland

dialect anxiety

I have selected two poems that are explicitly about this anxiety concerning Irish-Newfoundland

dialect and a lost or disrupted linguistic inheritance. Both were published in the late 1990s and

early 2000s, the same period that Keough identifies as the height of ‘Celtification’ in

Newfoundland. Both were written by poets from the same region that Lizzie Careen and Mary

Power, featured in the RTE documentary, call home. Unlike Careen and Power, both poets were

born after confederation with Canada and grew up in a Canadian Newfoundland.

Agnes Walsh characterizes the generational breach of linguistic transmission in her

poem, 'The Time that Passes,' while Carmelita McGrath’s poem 'I would have liked to say I was

Irish' identifies an Irish heritage while questioning if it is appropriate to call oneself Irish when

one '[feels] so North American' (2003, 212).

Walsh’s speaker is regretful and nostalgic for a lost past she did not herself experience: 'I

hold on to before, before our / tongues were twisted around corrected speech . . . I ranted that

we’re educated into ignorance' (1996, 1). McGrath’s speaker, meanwhile, is aware of the rewards

however, I moved to southern Ontario later in the same year and was sometimes mistaken as an Irishman there.


she can reap and the power she might wield if she performs an Irish caricature for her

interlocutor, an outsider who begins by telling her that 'you people, out here' 'are so Irish' (2003,

212). The speaker is aware she can 'enter diddle-dee-dee’s seductive spell' and 'say [she] was

Irish,' confirming this initial assertion and pleasing the outsider. However, the speaker feels too

'North American' to perform an Irishness that would be, in her mind, illegitimate (2003, 212).

McGrath’s speaker feels pressured to perform an Irish caricature for an outsider, while

Walsh’s speaker pushes back against the linguistic homogenization that has disrupted her

inheritance of a ‘legitimate’ Irish-Newfoundland dialect. There is a grim silver lining in Walsh’s

poem: '[we] can get jobs on the mainland / or at radio stations / our voices do sound so

homogenous now' (1996, 1). While McGrath’s poem contains few dialect features and makes

several references to North American consumer culture and mass media, Walsh offers some

hope that an Irish-Newfoundland linguistic heritage will persist. In the final stanza, physically

inset from those that came before it, the speaker’s mother interjects into her daughter’s anger

and regret: 'but you watch it, my mother said, / it’s your tongue too that was dipped / in the blue

ink, and do go leaking imabics / all the day long' (1996, 1). Walsh employs two dialect features

identified as Irish in provenance to assert that Newfoundland English will survive the

onslaught of media and education–the habitual aspect ('do go leaking') and a syntactical

rearrangement for emphasis ('it’s your tongue . . . that was dipped').

In both poems, Newfoundlanders are fed contradictory messages about their own

language. Stereotypes from the outside mix positive (if patronizing) attitudes of quaintness,

hospitality, good humour, and old world ‘Oirish’ charm with more poisonous stereotypes of

illiteracy, stupidity, naivete, laziness, etc. Some members of the Newfoundland community have

internalized these attitudes, correcting their fellow Newfoundlanders’ speech to the frustration

of linguists:

'after years of hearing in school that their speech is ‘incorrect,’ it is difficult for university

educated students to become convinced of even such basic linguistic facts as that local

non-standard varieties are legitimate linguistic systems, that they really do have a logical

and coherent grammatical structure, and that such varieties are simply ‘different’ from

standard ones, rather than deficient' (Clarke, quoted in Hickey 2002, 265).

At the same time, longing for a linguistic heritage that has been mis-transmitted will lead some

Newfoundlanders to self-consciously adopt / re-learn dialect features they perceive as

‘authentic,’ so that a learned Irishness becomes a form of Newfoundland language that is

‘authentic,’ ‘distinct,’ and available to later generations whose 'tongues were twisted around

corrected speech' (Walsh 1996, 1).

This results in nothing less than an ongoing linguistic psychodrama. Discourse within

Newfoundland about the current state of Newfoundland English demonstrates a constant

anxiety about what is lost/retained, spurious/authentic, disrespectful/respectful. While

nationally broadcast shows like CODCO, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Hatching Matching and

Dispatching, etc. offered satiric and over-the-top ‘Newfie’ characters, the ‘insider’s laugh’ at

caricatures who speak in heavy dialect is likely not the same laugh as that of non-

Newfoundlanders viewing the same material. Satiric caricatures of Newfoundland dialect may


end up reinforcing the stereotypes they sought to employ or deflate.

The Republic of Newfoundland and the Republic of Doyle Wishing for public examples of Newfoundland dialect that were not satiric or

stereotypical in nature, I wrote, in 2007, that 'we need to demonstrate that a nice, thick

Newfoundland dialect is good for more than a laugh . . . the people who speak it are not

caricatures. . . . How about a Newfoundland-written, acted, and produced daytime TV drama?'

(Collins, quoted in Clarke, 2010, 136). When I discovered I had been quoted by Sandra Clarke, I

shared the discovery with friends. One quipped 'did you predict Republic of Doyle?'

Indeed, CBC’s hour-long drama-comedy about a father and son who work as private

investigators is set in Newfoundland, filmed in Newfoundland, and is largely cast by

Newfoundlanders who perform in non-satirical dialect. The show has recently concluded its

second season and has been renewed for a third, and reviews in online and print journalism

suggest that the exoticism of the Newfoundland setting–including dialect–is one of the show’s

‘selling points.’

The show is set in St John’s and presents a variant of Newfoundland dialect that wears

its Irish influence on its sleeve.9 The dialect is sometimes most apparent in moments of comedic

relief, but the characters are not ethnic caricatures of the type seen previously. Certain aspects of

Newfoundland English are stressed, such that climactic lines or comedic asides will be freighted

with an obvious Newfoundland-Irish quality. The use of the habitual aspect is one such feature.

For example, at the climax of the premiere episode, a suspect who has been duplicitous

attempts to explain the situation and is told 'we’re not listenin’ to you ‘cause you tells [emphasis

mine] lies' (Republic of Doyle 1.1, 2010).

Irish-derived lexical elements are also used in a similar fashion. Words like sleveen,

streel, and so on are not common but are conspicuous. There is usually at least one instance of

Newfoundland-Irish vocabulary per episode, and the twitter community that liveblogs each

episode (#doyletweets) usually joys at each instance as it occurs, anticipating that the Irish-

derived word will confound the ‘mainland’ audience.

In short, the non-satirical Newfoundland dialect being performed by Republic of Doyle

has overtly Irish-derived elements. Indeed, the father character is portrayed by Sean McGinley,

an Irish actor who, according to series creator, producer, and star Alan Hawco, is the only actor

'on the show [who] is ‘putting on an accent’ . . . and he’s Irish, so he’s barely even trying.'

(eastcoastconnected.ca, 2010).

Newfoundlanders’ reactions to the non-satirical use of dialect are intriguing, and

provide an excellent opportunity to test many of the theories I have forwarded in this paper.

Indeed, the topic of accents and dialect has been one of the main bones of contention amongst

Newfoundlanders when discussing the merits or flaws of the show. The wealth of

messageboard threads and online comments about this topic is surprising. Much of the criticism

has focused on the actress Krystin Pellerin, who grew up in Mount Pearl, a suburb of St John’s.

9 Pink, white, and green tricolours, the ‘Republic of Newfoundland’ flag and a common symbol of

Newfoundland nationalism, are also common on the show–sometimes appearing in unexpected or

covert locations or forms. One such comprises the side of the Doyle family’s refrigerator.


On Republic of Doyle she portrays the character Leslie Bennett, a police office and the main

character’s primary love interest. Here is a sample of criticism focusing on her performance of

dialect. The following three comments are from users of bluekaffee.com, a site predominantly

populated by young people from the St John’s area:

- 'Krystin Pellerin’s fake accent still really really annoys the shit out of me.'

- 'Oh, biggest nitpick is Krysten Pellerin’s accent. Can’t figure out if she’s Irish, or just

doing what she thinks is a Newfoundland accent.'

- 'Krystin Pellerin is from Newfoundland. So why make her use an accent? Just talk like

normal fucking human beings.' (bluekaffee.com, 2010)

A reader of The Scope, St John’s alternative newspaper, posted the following comment to the

paper’s website, suggesting that he or she considers Pellerin’s ‘fake’ ‘Irish’ accent to be

symptomatic of a larger trend: 'I found her accent really annoying and out of place. that said its

not the first time i’ve heard local people irish up their accents for tv, etc.' (2010).

Similarly, the author of the blog Townie Bastard diagnoses Pellerin’s ‘bad’ accent as a

symptom of the phenomenon of ‘Celtification’ as described by Keough, suggesting that the

show’s Irish-inflected linguistic aesthetic is a result of a program of general Newfoundland

nationalism via Irish-Catholic cultural dominance: 'she sounded like someone from Dublin, not

St. John’s. I guess the writers are going for a full Celtification makeover, though I didn’t see the

Catholicism cues that others seem to detect. It would, however, help if the cast had at least one

identifiable Prod. Or perhaps there are no Prods left in St. John’s these days.'

(Towniebastard.blogspot.com, 2010).

Intriguingly, I could find no similar criticism of actor Sean McGinley, who is actually

Irish. This criticism of dialect seems to be very much a case of insiders critiquing one of their

own.

The equation of Newfoundland with Ireland and the relationship of this equation to

Newfoundland nationalism is clearly something many of these commentators are aware of but

find problematic. Perhaps they think Pellerin is a ‘bad fake,’ but Alan Hawco, the show’s creator,

has defended the actress and her performance of dialect: 'she’s from Newfoundland–that’s the

way she sounds. She’s gotta hide her accent on her other TV and film projects, so she was

delighted to speak in her ‘regular’ voice here' (eastcoastconnection.ca, 2010).

If we accept that Pellerin’s ‘bad accent’ is genuine, then where do these critical comments

come from? Are they fuelled by resentment from non-Irish parts of the island who dislike how

Newfoundland has been equated with Ireland when only St John’s and a portion of the Avalon

Peninsula has ever been Irish-dominated? Or could it be that, while the people who make these

complaints might understand that Newfoundland English has some abstract link to Irish

English, the versions of Newfoundland English spoken around them exhibit few or no Irish

qualities? If this is the case, it would be easy to interpret a Newfoundlander who ‘sounds too

Irish’ (as Lizzie Careen and Mary Power, from the RTE documentary, might well do) as a

Newfoundlander who can’t ‘do’ the Newfoundland accent ‘right’ and is faking it by mistakenly

and incompetently performing an Irish accent.

Or are these comments symptomatic of a Canadian assimilationist stance, a stance


against Newfoundland cultural nationalism? Positive or value-neutral depictions of

Newfoundland dialect might then be taken as simply incorrect, if not socially irresponsible. This

would not be a new position in Newfoundland’s internal discourse about its dialect, as shown

in this letter to the editor of the Gander Beacon: '[Newfoundland] dialect . . . represents a drastic

departure from proper English–it is mispelled, illiterate, and sloppy'(1975, quoted in Clarke

2010, 141).

Certainly, the bluekaffee.com user who wished that Pellerin would 'just speak like a

normal fucking human being' (bluekaffee.com, 2010) seems to have internalized the idea that

standard Canadian English dialect is ‘normal’ and correct, and that local varieties are abnormal

and incorrect. Thus, a deliberate choice to perform in dialect would amount to being wilfully

wrong–perhaps the vehemence in such critical comments is vehemence against perceived

linguistic perversity.

Pellerin, when speaking about Newfoundland in interviews, seems to betray that she has

some sympathy to Newfoundland cultural nationalism. If my thesis is correct, her performance

of a Newfoundland dialect aligns with this sympathy, as does the perceived ‘Irishness’ or ‘over-

Irishness’ of that dialect: 'after the first semester [at National Theatre School in Montreal], I said

I don’t know if I can do this. I was homesick for my people, for my country [emphasis mine] . . .

I feel so steady and so strong when I’m on Newfoundland soil.' (Ouzouian 2011).

Conclusions

I want to question a fairly simplistic assumption that many of these commentators have made: it

may be quite possible that all of Pellerin’s accents are authentic to Pellerin, and that none are

‘fake.’ Diglossia, the ability (conscious or unconscious) to switch between dialects, is common in

many minority language communities. The minefield of minor difference and internal tension

in contemporary Newfoundland English means it is entirely possible that an intelligent actress,

raised in Newfoundland and trained to think about and use her voice to desired effect, would

be a linguistic chameleon. This may be true of many–perhaps most–speakers of Newfoundland

English, who have had to learn to navigate a number of sometimes-contradictory language

value systems, who have no access to easy insider/outsider categories, and who, as a result, may

be accustomed to being self-conscious about their speech in all contexts.

Pellerin admits as much in a brief feature that aired on CBC Radio’s Babel in June 2012.

She describes how she ‘lost’ her accent at National Theatre School in Montreal, where it was

perceived as a hindrance (albeit a charming one) to her career, thus necessitating a conscious re-

learning of a Newfoundland-Irish accent as an adult: ‘if you’re unable to turn it on and turn it

off, you’re less castable.’ Despite this conscious control of her own diglossia, Pellerin does not

seem to view either her Standard Canadian English or her Newfoundland Irish English as less

genuine or authentic. This departs from the foundational assumption, made by many of her

critics, that there are ‘false’ and ‘true’ Newfoundland accents, and that hers, because she is

conscious of it, falls into the former category.

All speech acts are political and ideological. However, the competing claims of

contradictory ideologies, cultures, and histories means that the impossibility of making an


apolitical utterance is felt strongly in Newfoundland. Simply by how one speaks, every

Newfoundlander says something about his or her background and about his or her ideas and

feelings about Newfoundland and its place in Canada. For this reason, anxiety constantly

surrounds language in Newfoundland, and is subject to criticism from all camps, whether they

be ethnic, sectarian, socio-economic, or political.


References

‘Accents in the Workplace.’ Babel. CBC Radio 1. Toronto, ON: CBC, June 26, 2012.

Butler, Jillian. 2011. Personal communication with the author.

Clarke, Sandra. 2010. Dialects of English: Newfoundland and Labrador English. Edinburgh:

Edinburgh UP.

Hickey, Raymond. 2002. 'The Atlantic edge: The relationship between Irish English and

Newfoundland English.' English World-Wide 23.2: 283-316(34).

Keough, Willeen. 2008. 'Creating the 'Irish Loop': Cultural Renaissance or Commodification of

Ethnic Identity in an Imagined Tourist Landscape?' The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies

34. 2:12-22.

Kirwin, W.J, G. M. Story, and J.D.A Widdowson. 1990. Dictionary of Newfoundland English: Second

Edition with Supplement. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Lush, Donald. 2011. Personal communication with the author.

Mannion, John and W. Gordon Handcock. 'Origins of the Newfoundland Population, 1836.' In

Historical Atlas of Canada: The Land Transformed, 1800-1891. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press.

McGinn, Brian. ‘Newfoundland: The Most Irish Place Outside of Ireland.’ In Irish

Diaspora Studies. Leeds: The Institute of Communication Studies, University of

Leeds. Web.

McGrath, Carmelita. 2003. 'I would have liked to say I was Irish.' In The Backyards of Heaven: An

Anthology of Contemporary Poetry from Ireland and Newfoundland and Labrador, edited by

John Ennis and Stephanie McKenzie, 212. Waterford: Waterford Institute of Technology

School of Humanities Press.

Pringle, Ian. 1985. 'Attitudes to Canadian English.' In The English Language Today, edited by

Sidney Greenbaum, 183-205. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Richler, Noah. 2007. This Is My Country, What’s Yours?: A Literary Atlas of Canada. Toronto:

McClelland & Stewart.

Story, G.M. 1975. 'Newfoundland Dialect: an Historical View.' In Canadian English: Origins and

Structure, edited by J. K. Chambers, 19-24. Agincourt, Ontario: Methuen.


Sullivan, J. M. October 13, 2008. 'Aloysius O’Brien, 93.' The Globe and Mail.

Thomsen, Robert C. 2010. Nationalism in Stateless Nations: Selves and Others in Scotland and

Newfoundland. Edinburgh: John Donald.

Walsh, Agnes. 1996. In the Old Country of My Heart. St John’s: Killick Press.

Blogs, comments, forums, and web media referenced

'Irish Newfoundland Connection–1.' April 22, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlEeQ7Uu9dg&NR=1. March 2, 2008.

'Irish Newfoundland Connection–2.' April 22, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xmqb4W2T0M. March 3, 2008.

'Republic of Doyle.' bluekaffee.com. April 21, 2011.

http://www.bluekaffee.com/topicview.php?topic=98498&page=1. January 6, 2010.

'Republic of Doyle.' Boards.ie. April 23, 2011.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055790607. January 7,

2010.

'Republic of Doyle: What’s the verdict?' The Scope. April 23, 2011.

http://thescope.ca/answers/republic-of-doyle-whats-the-verdict. January 7, 2010.

'Review: Republic of Doyle, Ep. 2.' Townie Bastard. April 23, 2011.

http://towniebastard.blogspot.com/2010/01/review-republic-of-doyle-ep2.html. January 13, 2010.

Ouzounian, Richard. 'The Big Interview: Krystin Pellerin, Soulpepper’s sunbeam.' The Toronto

Star. April 22, 2011.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/theatre/article/952526—the-big-interview-

krystin-pellerin-soulpepper-s-sunbeam. March 11, 2011.

Willis, Alex. 'ECC Profiles: The Republic of Doyle’s Alan Hawco.' April 18, 2011.

http://eastcoastconnected.ca/news/ecc-profiles-republic-doyle%E2%80%99s-

allan-hawco. February 26, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlEeQ7Uu9dg&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xmqb4W2T0M

http://www.bluekaffee.com/topicview.php?topic=98498&page=1

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055790607

http://thescope.ca/answers/republic-of-doyle-whats-the-verdict

http://towniebastard.blogspot.com/2010/01/review-republic-of-doyle-ep2.html

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/theatre/article/952526

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/theatre/article/952526

http://eastcoastconnected.ca/news/ecc-profiles-republic-doyle’s-allan-hawco

http://eastcoastconnected.ca/news/ecc-profiles-republic-doyle’s-allan-hawco

They do be anxious about their speech: Performance and ...

Documents

Transcript of They do be anxious about their speech: Performance and ...