Scouse

Reviews / Votes

Can there be an archaeology of sound? Tony Crowley raids newspapers, journals, letters and his own memories in an attempt to trace the history of a manner of speaking. In doing so he tells the story of the rise and fall of a whole city, a way of life. This is an eccentric, creative, quixotic, scholarly and ultimately emotional book that is unlike anything else I've ever read. Tony Crowley's Scouse: A Social and Cultural History. Rather than a dialectological list of features, Crowley gives a fascinating account of the enregisterment process of Scouse, leading to its status as perhaps the top recognizable variety of all of Britain today. * Years Work in English Studies, vol 93, no 1 * Rather than a dialectological list of features, Crowley gives a fascinating account of the enregisterment process of Scouse, leading to its status as perhaps the top recognizable variety of all of Britain today. * Year's Work in English Studies, vol 93, no 1 * Scouse offers a compelling account of how a city's identity is formed through its language, drawing on a rich range of sources and generating a wealth of unexpected insights. * Key Words 12 * 'Thoroughly researched using an impressive range of sources from antiquarian to contemporary creative writing; and written with fluency and authority. This is the nearest thing to a definitive history of scouse.'
University of Liverpool 'An enthralling book... Tony Crowley has written a book many of us have wanted to read for a long time.'
Michael O'Neil, Durham University 'Tony Crowley's searching book starts with a rigorous study of historic sources, their modern interpretations and the insights of contemporary linguistic theory. The conventional view has been that, in the 1840s, a warm front of Irish immigration came up against an unyielding mass of Lancashire grittiness, rough and dour. So superficially appealing has this explanation been that it's gone largely unquestioned until now, even by serious historians. Crowley places the emergence of a distinctive Liverpool accent a great deal earlier - but that of "Scouse" as comparatively recent. In doing so, he opens up much wider questions of place, class and identity; of how people are seen and come to see themselves.'
The Scotsman