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This volume is a corpus-based variationist sociolinguistic study of contemporary urban western Irish English. It demonstrates the diverse local patterns of variability and change in the phonetic realisation of the dental fricatives (th) and (dh) and establishes a considerable degree of divergence from traditional accounts on Irish English.

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This volume is a novel approach to the corpus-based variationist sociolinguistic study of contemporary urban western Irish English. Based on qualitative data as well as on linguistic features extracted from the Corpus of Galway City Spoken English, this study approaches the major sociolinguistic characteristics of (th) and (dh) variability in Galway City English. It demonstrates the diverse local patterns of variability and change in the phonetic realisation of the dental fricatives and establishes a considerable degree of divergence from traditional accounts on Irish English. This volume suggests that the linguistic stratification of variants of (th) and (dh) in Galway correlates both with the social stratification of the city itself and with the stratification of speakers by social status, sex/gender and age group.

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Contents: Galway as a social and linguistic area - Galway City English as a variety of Irish English - The Corpus of Galway City Spoken English - Uni-/bi-/trivariate analysis of (th, dh)-variability in Galway City English.

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Arne Peters works as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Potsdam (Germany). His main research interests involve the fields of language variation and change, sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, multilingualism and World Englishes.

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