This volume highlights aspects of language and dialect in Northern Ireland that are in need of further research, especially those that might make suitable projects for student dissertations. It is also intended to be a reference tool for a general readership.

The book evolved from my enduring interest in this topic which started as a childhood game with my sister in which we mimicked different Irish English varieties for the amusement of our parents. Later, I became aware that they used expressions like for to instead of to that our generation did not – though, of course, at the time I had no idea why this might be (see §3.7.4) nor why my uncle from the Republic of Ireland was perceived to have a ‘softer brogue’ than they did (see §1.3). This curiosity was also fuelled by my exposure to other local language attitudes, starting with my mother's enrolling us in elocution lessons where we worked hard to eradicate the distinctive Northern Irish [əᵾ aᵾ, aᵾ] diphthong in MOUTH words (see §2.2.2.5). There was also my grandfather's conviction that my cousins who went to a state school had ‘Protestant accents’ which his Catholic-educated grandchildren did not (see §1.4.3).

This book is designed to provide an accessible overview of research addressing questions like these relating to the distinctive phonological (Chapter 2), morphosyntactic (Chapter 3) and lexical/discourse features (Chapter 4) used in Northern Ireland.