%0 Journal Article %T They do be anxious about their speech: Performance and Perceptions of Authenticity in Irish-Newfoundland English %A Michael Collins %J The English Languages : History, Diaspora, Culture %D 2012 %I The English Languages : History, Diaspora, Culture %X Newfoundland English presents current speakers with a dilemma. Canadian English functions as a prestige dialect, but Newfoundland English's 'considerable range of linguistic variation' (Clarke 2010, 16) makes covert/overt or standard/non-standard binaries unstable. Newfoundland's variety of dialects are one legacy of an ethno-linguistic sectarianism bound up in centuries-old debates about Newfoundland nationalism. Speakers may be criticized, by insiders or outsiders, in any number of ways¨Cfor having a dialect, for lacking a dialect, or for producing a dialect that is ¡®wrong'. In short, the way a Newfoundlander speaks determines the speaker¡¯s coordinates within a multi-dimensional space of difference. The comments Newfoundlanders make about other Newfoundlanders¡¯ speech demonstrates that this process of placing is real, and that it rouses passion. In this paper, I will examine the perception of Newfoundland English as an Irish-derived dialect, and the ways ethno-linguistic Irishness has been employed to defend or critique Newfoundland's distinctiveness¡ªor indeed, its nationhood. %K Newfoundland %K dialect %K Newfoundland English %K Ireland %K Irish %K Canada %K Canadian English %K British English %K West Country %K Catholic %K Protestant %K sectarianism %K nationalism %K diglossia %K covert prestige %K overt prestige %K Republic of Doyle %K lexicography %K linguistic ndexing %U http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/elhdc/article/view/17058