6 QueeŶslaŶd foƌ Eǀeƌ & Augus uŶ ďallLJďug go ďƌaugh: The EdžpƌessioŶ of IdeŶtitLJ iŶ Nineteenth-Century Irish Emigrant Letters Marije van Hattum 1 Introduction It may not be necessary to have an extensive knowledge of the background of the writer of the words in the title of this chapter, Queensland for Ever & Augus un ballybug go braugh [and Ballybug for ever], in order to identify this person as an Irish emigrant in Australia. Language use is unique to every individual and works like a fingerprint in reflecting our personal identity. At the same time, certain aspects of our language use allow us to link ourselves to certain social groups and thus serve to both create and reflect a social identity (Llamas and Watt 2010). A person s vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation are indexical of their identity, and thus by analysing, for example, the grammar of instances of an individual s language, we can learn much about their identity. Our identity, and thus our language, is shaped by our social context and previous experiences. The effects of migration on the language use of individuals and how the linguistic behaviour of first-generation migrants can signal identity is the main focus of this chapter. The Modern English period (ca. 1500 – 1900) is characterized by a substantial increase in regional mobility as a result of technical advancement and of the social, political and cultural changes, both in terms of large-scale urbanization within Britain and in terms of colonization. Internal and external migrations continuously shape the identities and languages of nations, societies and of individuals. An example of how migration has shaped the English language can be found in the borrowing of foreign terms. The colonization of North America has introduced several new lexical items to the English language, such as moose and raccoon. In present-day English these words are commonly used in most varieties of English and are thus not associated with any particular identity. However, the use of these two lexical items in the early seventeenth century would have signalled the identity of someone who lived in North America. Emigrants to the New World frequently found themselves in direct contact with speakers of many varieties of English, and where in many cases they had previously been members of a fairly homogeneous social group using a similar dialect to the other members of their group, they now found themselves as part of a social group where everyone spoke a different variety of English, or in some cases even a different language. Theoretical frameworks such as New Dialect Formation (NDF) (Trudgill 2004) and SĐhŶeideƌs dLJŶaŵiĐ ŵodel foƌ the eǀolutioŶ of Woƌld EŶglishes (Schneider 2003) have given an extensive account of how new, relatively homogeneous varieties of English have developed in former British colonies. However, they have not provided much empirical evidence of what happens in the initial stages of an individual s language use when settling in a colony in the New World. Indeed, this is quite a difficult task, as most of the processes that allow for new, homogeneous