Irish English Stereotypes

The aim of the paper is to examine common Irish English stereotypes in cinematographic representations of Irish English with special reference to pragmatic features and sociopragmatic norms. After giving an overview of some of the ways in which the concepts of ‘stereotype’ and ‘stereotyping’ are defined and used in sociolinguistics and sociopragmatics, selected features of the Irish English pragmalect (the use of pragmatic markers, the performance of speech acts such as requests, compliment responses and thanks minimizers) will be discussed and contrasted with the (highly stereotypical) representation of Irish English in the films Intermission and The Guard.