The sociophonology and sociophonetics of Scottish Standard English (r)
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Ole Schützler
Abstract
This paper inspects the variability of (r) in non-linking coda positions (e.g. in the words car, far, and art) in Scottish Standard English (SSE), accepting the three variants [ɾ], [ɹ], and Ø. Interviews with 27 middle-class speakers were conducted, eliciting three styles (careful speech, reading passage, and word list). Following a discussion of previous research on (r) in SSE and an explanation of the conditional hierarchical logistic regression model applied to the data, results are presented with a focus on social and stylistic factors. It appears that female speakers are more likely to vocalise /r/, and older speakers are more likely to use the more traditional tapped variant [ɾ]. Thus, quasi-phonological variation correlates with gender, and phonetic variation correlates with age. Moreover, contact with Southern Standard British English (SSBE) also increases the rates of (r)-vocalisation. In word list style, all speakers are less likely to vocalise (r), but there are significant differences between social groups in this respect: especially young men’s accents are almost categorically rhotic in word list style.
Abstract
This paper inspects the variability of (r) in non-linking coda positions (e.g. in the words car, far, and art) in Scottish Standard English (SSE), accepting the three variants [ɾ], [ɹ], and Ø. Interviews with 27 middle-class speakers were conducted, eliciting three styles (careful speech, reading passage, and word list). Following a discussion of previous research on (r) in SSE and an explanation of the conditional hierarchical logistic regression model applied to the data, results are presented with a focus on social and stylistic factors. It appears that female speakers are more likely to vocalise /r/, and older speakers are more likely to use the more traditional tapped variant [ɾ]. Thus, quasi-phonological variation correlates with gender, and phonetic variation correlates with age. Moreover, contact with Southern Standard British English (SSBE) also increases the rates of (r)-vocalisation. In word list style, all speakers are less likely to vocalise (r), but there are significant differences between social groups in this respect: especially young men’s accents are almost categorically rhotic in word list style.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Where is syntactic variation? 1
- Phonological variation in Catalan and Alemannic from a typological perspective 27
- Language ideologies and language attitudes 45
- Late language acquisition and identity construction 57
- The variation of gender agreement on numerals in the Alpine space 69
- ‘Standard usage’ 83
- Code alternation patterns in bilingual family conversations 117
- A variationist approach to syntactic change 129
- Children’s switching/shifting competence in role-playing 145
- The Present Perfect in Cypriot Greek revisited 159
- Chain shifts revisited 173
- And the beat goes on 187
- Migrant teenagers’ acquisition of sociolinguistic variation 201
- The sociophonology and sociophonetics of Scottish Standard English (r) 215
- Stance and code-switching 229
- A town between dialects 247
- Variation of sibilants in Belarusian-Russian mixed speech 267
- The case of [nən] 281
- Index 295
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Where is syntactic variation? 1
- Phonological variation in Catalan and Alemannic from a typological perspective 27
- Language ideologies and language attitudes 45
- Late language acquisition and identity construction 57
- The variation of gender agreement on numerals in the Alpine space 69
- ‘Standard usage’ 83
- Code alternation patterns in bilingual family conversations 117
- A variationist approach to syntactic change 129
- Children’s switching/shifting competence in role-playing 145
- The Present Perfect in Cypriot Greek revisited 159
- Chain shifts revisited 173
- And the beat goes on 187
- Migrant teenagers’ acquisition of sociolinguistic variation 201
- The sociophonology and sociophonetics of Scottish Standard English (r) 215
- Stance and code-switching 229
- A town between dialects 247
- Variation of sibilants in Belarusian-Russian mixed speech 267
- The case of [nən] 281
- Index 295
