Accents of Ireland:
Northern Irish Accent


•Northern Irish
•Southern Irish
•Dublin
•West of Ireland
•etc.

Guide to Irish Accents



Northern Irish Accent
•Vowel features
•Consonant features
•Intonation and prosody

Vowel features: differences in pronunciation
(Julišová 2013 based on Wells, Accents 120 and 438)


Vowel features
Monophthongs:
•/e/ -> [ɛ]
•/ɒ/ -> [ɔ] or [o]
•/ɪ/ -> [i]
•/ʊ/ -> [u]
Diphthongs:
•/eɪ/ -> [ε:] in final position
•Pre-consonantally /eɪ/ -> [εə] or [iə]
•/aɪ/ -> [əi]
•realization of  the /aʊ/ diphthog

Vowel features: vowel length
•diff. accents of En. language -> pronounce the same phoneme /ɪ/ slightly longer in kid than in kit
      -> in NIr accent -> the contrast in vowel length is lost
•Ulster Lengthening = vowel length for /ɛ, a, ɔ/ if used word-finally or before any consonant than
/p, t, ʧ, k/ -> longer allophones are used
      -> /bed/ -> [bε:d]

Consonant features
•strong rhoticity -> “r” pronounced more prominently, esp. at the end of words and before
consonants
       -> eg. 'career'
•lack of dark /l/
•Elision: /mother/ -> [ma:ər] or [mɔ:ər]
      /d/ -> lost completely in /hand/ or /old/
     /l/ -> in the final position in /call/ or /full/
•Glottalization

Intonation
•rising / falling intonation patterns
•High rising terminal (HRT)
•the voice-pitch is continually rising and falling

Derry Girls
Derry girls being hilarious


Sources:
•Hickey, R. (2004). The phonology of Irish English. Handbook of varieties of English, 1, 68-97.
•McCafferty, K. (1998). Shared accents, divided speech community? Change in Northern Ireland
English. Language Variation and Change, 10(2), 97-121.
•https://dspace.cuni.cz/bitstream/handle/20.500.11956/53716/DPTX_2013_1_11410_0_330031_0_95958.pdf?
sequence=1&isAllowed=y
•https://www.voiceoverguy.co.uk/guide-to-a-northern-irish-accent
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