29/05/2026
Register for our upcoming ISWÜ Guest Lecture
"English and Irish in Contact: Sociophonetic Perspectives" by Dr. Kate Tallon (University of Oxford, UK)
📆02.06.2026, 6 till 8 pm
Online via Zoom
More information and registration: on our website
https://www.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/irish-studies/aktuelles/single/news/guest-lecture-kate-tallon
ℹ This talk presents a sociophonetic analysis of Connemara English, comparing bilingual Irish–English speakers with local monolingual English speakers. Using quantitative acoustic methods, it examines variation in key Irish English features, including vowel contrasts and consonantal variation. The results show systematic differences between bilingual and monolingual speakers that vary by social factors such as age, gender, linguistic background, and attachment to local area. This reveals ongoing change in the Gaeltacht. These findings challenge accounts that characterise Gaeltacht English as straightforwardly influenced by L1 Irish and instead suggest a more complex interaction between bilingualism, conservatism, and language change.