A new online grammar of North East English

Senior Lecturer in English Language Dr Mike Pearce has written a major new grammar of North East English. Drawing on a naturalistic corpus of contemporary vernacular writing, the grammar covers morphology, syntactic linkage, syntax, and the organisation of discourse. This new work appears alongside Mike's archived research on his Dialectological Landscapes of North East England site, where you can read about perceptual dialectology, the 'survival' of traditional dialect lexis, the use of vernacular forms in the linguistic landscape, and the origins and meanings of the region's ethnonyms.

Criminal corpses

PhD student Patrick Low has taken on the role of Online Exhibition Creator for the University of Leicester's Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse. This Wellcome Trust funded project explores the criminal corpse from the disciplines of archaeology, medical and criminal history, folklore, literature and philosophy, revealing the ways in which its power was harnessed, by whom, and to what ends in Britain between the late seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Patrick was approached by the project team after they had read his blog on execution in North East England: Last Dying Words. You can visit the website here.

                
                 William Heath (1829): Burke and Hare suffocating Mrs Docherty for sale to Dr Knox;
                 satirizing Wellington and Peel extinguishing the constitution for Catholic emancipation. 

The linguistic landscape of North East England

Dr Mike Pearce has begun a research project on the visual representation of North East dialect in the public domain. So far, most research on the language of the road signs, advertising hoardings, street names, shop signs and other written messages which make up the linguistic landscape of a given area has focused on issues surrounding multilingualism. In contrast, Mike's project will focus on the use of vernacular North East English lexis, grammar and orthography in public settings. There is a 'crowd-sourcing' element to the project: if you see any instances of dialect use, please consider sending a photo to mike.pearce@sunderland.ac.uk (with details of where it was taken) and I'll add it to the project website.

New research network

A new university-wide research network has been set up in the Department of Culture. If your research, scholarship or creative practice engages with aspects of the culture, history, geography, language, sociology, literature, architecture, politics, and visual and performing arts of North East England, then the North East Research Network (NERN) is for you. Its aim is to expand interdisciplinary links across the university in the broad field of North East Studies. NERN's website is here. The site is looked after by Mike Pearce (mike.pearce@sunderland.ac.uk).

New research networks

Dr Angela Smith has set up two new research networks within the Department of Culture.

The gender network (SunGen), which encompasses the study of feminism, masculinity and sexuality welcomes anyone with research interests in these areas around the university.  The web site is here and includes a link to Jiscmail which you can subscribe to in order to send and receive emails from people who are fellow subscribers.

The Northern Network for Death, Dying and Memory (NNDDM) is for those in the humanities and social sciences with an interest in this broad area of study. As with the SunGen site, you can subscribe to the group email via Jiscmail (details on the web site).

Perceptual dialectology website goes live

Dr Mike Pearce has collected together his research on the perceptual dialectology of North East England and made it accessible on a new website. As well as links to his academic articles, the site contains online maps which reveal 'folk' beliefs about language variation across the region.