Linguistic identity and the study of Emigrant Letters: Irish English in the making - Carolina P. Amador-Moreno y Kevin McCafferty (original) (raw)

2012, Lengua y migración / Language and Migration

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper builds on the fi ndings from a larger research project that analyses written data extracted from a corpus of emigrant letters. This preliminary study is an exploration of the Irish Emigration Database (IED), an electronic word-searchable collection of primary source documents on Irish emigration to North America (USA and Canada) in the 18th and 19th centuries. The IED contains a variety of original material including emigrant letters, newspaper articles, shipping advertisements, shipping news, passenger lists, offi cial government reports, family papers, births, deaths and marriages and extracts from books and periodicals. The paper focuses specifi cally on the sections dealing with transcriptions of Emigrant Letters sent home and Letters to Irish Emigrants abroad, from which CORIECOR, the Corpus of Irish English Correspondence, is developed. Our study is intended as a fi rst step towards an empirical diachronic account of an important period for the formation of Irish English. A close look at the ocurrence in the corpus of some features such as the use of the progressive form (e.g. I am reading) and the uses of will vs. shall reveals that these features were already part of what is known as Irish English nowadays. Our study covers the period from the early eighteenth century to 1840, a timespan that stretches from the beginning to the middle of the main period of language shift from Irish to English. RESUMEN “Identidad lingüística y el estudio de cartas de emigrantes: la formación del inglés de Irlanda” Este artículo se basa en los resultados de un proyecto de investigación que analiza los datos extraídos de un corpus de cartas de emigrantes. Este estudio es una exploración preliminar de la Irish Emigration Database (IED), una colección electrónica de fuentes relacionadas con la emigración irlandesa a América del Norte (EE.UU. y Canadá) en los siglos XVIII y XIX. La base de datos IED contiene una gran variedad de material original que incluye cartas de emigrantes, artículos de periódicos, anuncios, noticias, noticias, listas de pasajeros, informes ofi ciales del gobierno, documentos familiares, partidas de nacimiento, matrimonio y defunción, y extractos de libros y publicaciones periódicas. El presente artículo se centra específi camente en las secciones que se ocupan de las transcripciones de la correspondencia entre emigrantes irlandeses en el extranjero y sus familiares y amigos en Irlanda. Estos documentos constituyen la base de CORIECOR, the Corpus of Irish English Correspondence. Nuestro estudio pretende ser un primer paso hacia un estudio diacrónico empírico de un período de gran importancia para la formación del inglés de Irlanda. Un análisis exhaustivo de el uso en el corpus de algunas características tales como el uso de la forma continua (por ejemplo, I am reading) y los usos de las formas will y shall demuestra que estas estructuras sintácticas formaban ya parte de lo que en la actualidad se conoce como Irish English. Nuestro estudio abarca el período comprendido entre principios del siglo XVIII hasta 1840, un lapso que abarca desde el principio hasta la mitad del período en el que el inglés vino a sustituir al irlandés como lengua principal.

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