Analysing examples from 18th century literary texts through to 21st century social media, this is the first comprehensive collection to explore dialect writing in the North of England. The book also considers broad questions about dialect writing in general: What is it? Who does it? What types of dialect writing exist? How can linguists interpret it?Bringing together a wide range of contributors, the book investigates everything from the cultural positioning and impact of dialect writing to the mechanics of how authors produce dialect spellings (and what this can tell us about the structure of the dialects represented). The book features a number of case studies, focusing on dialect writing from all over the North of England, considering a wide range of types of text, including dialect poetry, translations into dialect, letters, tweets, direct speech in novels, humorous localised volumes, written reports of conversations and cartoons in local newspapers.

This book, first published in 1933, examines the dialect of the people of Byers Green in County Durham. Orton explores the possible reasons behind why the dialect has signs of external influences, and the ways in which it differs to the dialects of other populations in County Durham. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.