Paul Cooper

My research focuses on how regional dialect features are enregistered in English. Enregisterment is a process where a linguistic repertoire becomes overtly linked with social values (e.g., place, class, friendliness, etc). Evidence for enregisterment can be seen in interviews, commentary on language (newspapers, online, Facebook, Twitter), or where dialect features are used on commodities like t-shirts. I am currently researching the enregisterment of Yorkshire dialect, both in historical and modern contexts, as well as Liverpool English, a.k.a. Scouse. Additionally, I am looking at how both varieties are evaluated and used as linguistic resources in educational contexts by younger speakers. Current research projects include ‘Variation and style in Liverpool English: building corpora to support automatic dialect recognition’, the aim of which is to contribute to our understanding of how speech recognition systems interact with regional dialect features. Other projects include ‘Multiple Liverpool Identities: ideology as a barrier for young Merseyside speakers’ identity construction’ (ongoing), which aims to enhance existing teaching practices by addressing this deficiency in the National Curriculum in order to empower students as learners through studying Scouse talk.