Celebrity Accents and Public Identity Construction: Analyzing Geordie Stylizations

Geordie Stylizations builds on the renovated interest in the nexus between accent-identity-prestige-prejudice, offering an analysis of celebrities' use of the Geordie variety in a series of public performances as a reflection instrument for scholars, but also for neophyte readers with an interest in Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Celebrity Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Gender Studies. Of interest are the individual instances of Geordieness performed on specific occasions, i.e. the ways in which people construct their unique and constantly evolving language repertoires sometimes appropriating some, other times distancing themselves from, linguistic traits that would characterise them as members of specific communities in other people's perceptions. Theoretically, the book is based on recent developments in linguistic anthropology and identity studies, which involve a shift from the idea that geo-sociocultural varieties and mannerisms index membership of a community to the idea of people drawing on communicative resources to perform identities that are both situated in specific contexts of discourse and dynamically changing. The material investigated is provided by the artistic world: engaging with the arts and culture, and in particular with music, is not just a solitary event, but also a participatory one which many people feel is worthwhile sharing through ordinary conversation and interaction via social networks every day.