‘Talkin' Jockney’? Variation and change in Glaswegian accent¹

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of language variation and change in a socially stratified corpus of Glaswegian collected in 1997. Eight consonantal variables in read and spontaneous speech from 32 speakers were analysed separately and then together using multivariate analysis. Our results show that middle-class speakers, with weaker network ties and more opportunities for mobility and contact with English English speakers, are maintaining traditional Scottish features. Working-class adolescents, with more limited mobility and belonging to close-knit networks, are changing their vernacular by using 'non-local' features such as TH-fronting and reducing expected Scottish features such as postvocalic /r/. We argue that local context is the key to understanding the findings. Mobility and network structures are involved, but must be taken in conjunction with the recent history of structural changes to Glasgow and the resulting construction of local class-based language ideologies which continue to be relevant in the city today.

The private life of stops: VOT in a real-time corpus of spontaneous Glaswegian

“…Rather our conservative statistical treatment of the data showed consistent tendencies, with a few statistically significant instances, for the inference of real-and apparent-time lengthening of VOT in voiced and voiceless stops in all groups of speakers bar those born in the 1990s and recorded in the 2000s, who show shorter VOT durations, even controlling for speech rate. This last group has also been observed to be reverting to more non-standard vernacular norms, both local and non-local, for other phonological features (e.g., Stuart-Smith et al 2007). The use of stops with shorter VOT, more usually associated with vernacular Scots, may be part of a more general construction of local, nonstandard sociolinguistic personae.…”

Language perception in the East Midlands in England

“…Other studies have also examined the role of the media on representation and recognition of geographical areas (for example Bayard, 1990;Goodey, 1973;Montgomery and Beal, 2011;Stuart-Smith, Timmins & Tweedie, 2007). However, the East Midlands region lacks TV representation.…”

Ejectives in Scottish English: A social perspective

“…Previous research on Glaswegian has shown that production of a range of consonants is strongly stratified by social class (e.g. Stuart-Smith et al 2007), with innovative variants being particularly common among working-class adolescents in the core period of adolescence (aged 13-15 years old). We have also found variation according to ethnicity, including ejectives in read speech in Glaswegian Asian speakers (Lambert et al 2007).…”

“…Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and one that has suffered from the decline of heavy industry, but at the same time it has seen substantial urban regeneration and economic revival (see e.g. StuartSmith, Timmins & Tweedie 2007). Scottish English comprises a range of varieties along a sociolinguistic continuum.…”