"Talkin' Different"
Linguistic Diversity and the Irish Traveller Minority

Looks at whether attendance by teenage girls from the Irish Travelling Community in secondary education is bringing about longer term changes in their speech patterns. This volume also examines whether this tendency to converge, or indeed not to converge, to the speech patterns of the girls' peers in the 'settled' community is a conscious process.

This volume looks at whether attendance by teenage girls from the Irish Travelling Community in secondary education is bringing about longer term changes in their speech patterns. It also examines whether this tendency to converge, or indeed not to converge, to the speech patterns of the girls' peers in the 'settled' community is a conscious process and analyses the factors influencing such tendencies, such as 'survival' in the school environment. The study is based on an analysis of both naturally occurring conversation and speech occurring in an informal interview setting.