Intonational variation in Liverpool English

This paper investigates intonational variation in Liverpool English, a dialect of British English that is recognised as having a number of distinctive phonetic characteristics [15, 16]. One previously reported aspect of Liverpool intonation is the pres- ence of rising contours in declaratives as part of the traditional dialect [7]. Here we present a phonological Autosegmental Metrical analysis [9] and a phonetic analysis of intonation in different sentence types from 9 speakers. Results suggest that traditional Liverpool rising nuclear contours are common among 20–22 year olds from Liverpool. Through analysis of these data, we aim to contribute to descriptions of intonational variation in the UK, and wider studies of intonational variation and typology

Phonetic variation, sound change, and identity in Scottish Gaelic

This thesis examines language variation and change in a context of minority language revitalisation. In particular, I concentrate on young fluent speakers of Scottish Gaelic, a minority language of Scotland that is currently undergoing revitalisation. Data from three groups of speakers are presented: older speakers in the Isle of Lewis, a Gaelic heartland area in north-west Scotland; adolescent Gaelic-speakers in Lewis learning the language in immersion schooling; and adolescent Gaelic-speakers in immersion schooling in Glasgow, an urban centre where Gaelic has not traditionally been spoken as a widespread community language. The sociolinguistic analysis examines potential language changes, explores patterns of linguistic variation, and uncovers the role that Gaelic plays in identity formation for each of the participants. In order to gain an insight into the role of Gaelic in different speakers’ lives, I report on ethnographic studies carried out in Lewis and in Glasgow. The phonetic analysis then explores patterns of variation in the production of laterals, vowels, and tone and intonation. The results indicate large differences between the speech of older and adolescent speakers in Lewis, while differences between young speakers in Lewis and Glasgow suggest that Glasgow Gaelic is developing as a phonetically and socially distinct variety of the language. For example, older speakers in Lewis speak Gaelic as a partial tone language, unlike young people in Lewis and in Glasgow. Differences are also present between young people in Lewis and in Glasgow, such as in the acoustics of the vowel [ʉ], the production of the lateral system, and intonation patterns. The developments detailed in this thesis are the result of a complex interaction between the internal sound structure of Gaelic, language contact with varieties of English, identity construction, and differing conceptions of the self. All of these factors are conditioned by the status of Gaelic as a minority endangered and revitalised language. In exploring these avenues, I advance an account of language variation and change and apply it to a context of minority language revitalisation

Bilingual language exposure and the peer group:Acquiring phonetics and phonology in Gaelic Medium Education

Aims and objectives: This paper aims to examine the acquisition of phonetics and phonology in the context of Scottish Gaelic immersion schooling. I explore the effect of differing home language backgrounds among primary school children on the production of laterals and stop consonants. Design/methodology/approach: Acoustic analysis was performed on Gaelic and English speech data collected from children in Gaelic Medium Education in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Data and analysis: Word list data were collected from 18 children aged 7–11 and analyzed using measurements of formants and duration of stop phases. Half of the sample had little or no exposure to Gaelic in the home, while the other half had differing degrees of family input. Statistical analysis was conducted using Conditional Inference Trees. Findings and conclusions: This study finds that any initial differences between children who enter Gaelic Medium Education as fluent speakers and those who do not are leveled out by late primary school, at least in terms of pronunciation. I suggest that leveled varieties of minority languages can develop in pre-adolescence in peer group settings such as minority language education. Originality: This study is the first to examine phonetic and phonological acquisition in Gaelic-English bilingual children. It is one of a small number of studies to examine bilingual phonological acquisition in immersion schooling. The study supports recent research exploring the development of peer group varieties among young minority language speakers. Significance and implications: This research aims to expand traditional models that consider the extent of exposure to two languages as key in predicting phonetic and phonological production. I suggest that the impact of the peer group and the context of language use are also significant factors. Results suggest potential development of education varieties of Gaelic. These findings have implications for future revitalization strategies for minority languages across the world

Third language phonological acquisition:Understanding sound structure in a multilingual world.

The field of third language acquisition has gathered increased attention over the last three decades. However, phonological acquisition in an L3 is still relatively understudied within the field, despite there likely being over a billion people regularly using an L3 worldwide. In this paper, we review experimental and theoretical studies of sequential L3 acquisition to date and aim to give implications for future L3 phonological acquisition research, laying the groundwork for advances in this area. According to the reviewed studies, it is necessary to adapt previous second language phonology models (i.e. SLM/SLM-r, PAM/PAM-L2, L2LP) into future L3 phonological research. Additionally, it is essential to expand the research scope and time scale to reflect linguistic diversity, age and education background of participants, and the processes of learning

An acoustic-articulatory study of bilingual vowel production:advanced tongue root vowels in Twi and tense/lax vowels in Ghanaian English

This article investigates the acoustic and articulatory correlates of vowel contrasts in bilingual speakers. We analyse data from bilingual speakers of Twi (Akan) and Ghanaian English, with the aim of examining how the production of the advanced tongue root vowel contrast in Twi relates to the production of the tense/lax vowel contrast in Ghanaian English. These data are compared to tense/lax vowel data from monolingual British English speakers. The acoustic results show that Twi and Ghanaian English mainly rely on F1 for distinguishing [ATR] and [TENSE] vowels, whereas British English uses F1, F2, F3 and duration for the [TENSE] contrast. The ultrasound tongue imaging data show tongue root distinctions across all languages, while there are consistent tongue height distinctions in British English, no height distinctions in Ghanaian English, and small height distinctions for some vowels in Twi. Twi has the weakest correlation between F1 and tongue root advancement, which suggests that the [ATR] contrast may involve additional strategies for pharyngeal cavity expansion that are not present in [TENSE] vowels. In doing so, we show that bilinguals produce similar contrasts in similar ways across their two languages, but that language-specific differences also persist, which may reflect different articulatory goals in each language

Place identity and authenticity in minority language revitalisation:Scottish Gaelic in Glasgow

Aims and objectives: This paper firstly aims to examine how young Gaelic-English bilinguals in immersion education produce aspects of Gaelic phonology. We secondly consider the extent to which they acquire aspects of a traditional dialect. Thirdly, we investigate how young new speakers outside of a traditional community negotiate place identity and authenticity. Methodology: Our methodology firstly consists of quantitative acoustic and auditory phonetic analysis of word list production data, accompanied by mixed effects regression. Secondly, we employ qualitative analysis of interview data from the same participants. Data and Analysis: Data are presented from 22 speakers aged 13-14 in Gaelic Medium Education in Glasgow and 15 speakers aged 13-14 in GME on the Isle of Lewis. For comparison with a traditional dialect, we also include 3 speakers from Lewis aged 65-80. Our quantitative analysis considers 3605 tokens in total and the qualitative analysis considers interview data with all speakers. Conclusions: Our finding show that young speakers reproduce traditional aspects of Gaelic phonology, though generally to a lesser extent that older speakers. Young new speakers in Glasgow recognise that they do not speak a traditional dialect of the language. They are beginning to create a new authenticity associated with belonging to Glasgow, which represents a new acquisition setting. Originality: This study is the first to explore acquisition of dialect and phonology among young new speakers of Gaelic. We explore perceptions of dialect and the implications of not coming from a traditional Gaelic-speaking area for the first time in young people. Implications: Revitalisation settings can lead to successful language acquisition but may also contribute to dialect levelling. However, institutional support structures can lead to increased confidence and new place identities emerging in young speakers

The acoustics of three-way lateral and nasal palatalisation contrasts in Scottish Gaelic

This paper presents an acoustic description of laterals and nasals in an endangered minority language, Scottish Gaelic (known as 'Gaelic'). Gaelic sonorants are reported to take part in a typologically unusual three-way palatalisation contrast. Here, we consider the acoustic evidence for this contrast, comparing lateral and nasal consonants in both word-initial and word-final position. Previous acoustic work has considered lateral consonants, but nasals are much less well-described. We report an acoustic analysis of twelve Gaelic-dominant speakers resident in a traditionally Gaelic- speaking community. We quantify sonorant quality via measurements of F2-F1 and F3- F2 and observation of the whole spectrum. Additionally, we quantify the extensive devoicing in word-final laterals that has not been previously reported. Mixed-effects regression modelling suggests robust three-way acoustic differences in lateral consonants in all relevant vowel contexts. Nasal consonants, however, display lesser evidence of the three-way contrast in formant values and across the spectrum. We discuss potential reasons for lesser evidence of contrast in the nasal system, including the nature of nasal acoustics, evidence from historical changes, and comparison to other Goidelic dialects. In doing so, we contribute to accounts of the acoustics of the Celtic languages, and to typologies of contrastive palatalisation in the world's languages

Intonational variation in the North-West of England:The origins of a rising contour in Liverpool

This paper investigates intonation in the urban dialect of Liverpool, Scouse. Scouse is reported to be part of a group of dialects in the north of the UK where rising contours in declaratives are a traditional aspect of the dialect. This intonation is typologically unusual and has not been the subject of detailed previous research. Here, we present such an analysis in comparison to Manchester, a city less than 40 miles from Liverpool but with a noticeably different prosody. Our analysis confirms reports that rising contours are the most common realisation in Liverpool, specifically a low rise where final high pitch is not reached until the end of the phrase. Secondly, we consider the origin of declarative rises in Scouse with reference to the literature on new dialect formation. Our demographic analysis and review of previous work on relevant dialects suggests that declarative rises were not the majority variant when Scouse was formed but may have been adopted for facilitating communication in a diverse new community. We highlight this contribution of intonational data to research on phonological aspects of new dialect formation, which have largely considered segmental phonology or timing previously

Dialect variation in formant dynamics:The acoustics of lateral and vowel sequences in Manchester and Liverpool English

This study analyses the time-varying acoustics of laterals and their adjacent vowels in Manchester and Liverpool English. We use Generalized Additive Mixed-Models (GAMMs) for quantifying time-varying formant data, which allows us to model non-linearities in acoustic time series while simultaneously modelling speaker and word level variability in the data. We compare these models to single time-point analyses of lateral and vowel targets in order to determine what analysing formant dynamics can tell us about dialect variation in speech acoustics. The results show that lateral targets exhibit robust differences between some positional contexts and also between dialects, with smaller differences present in vowel targets. The time-varying analysis shows that dialect differences frequently occur globally across the lateral and adjacent vowels. These results suggest a complex relationship between lateral and vowel targets and their coarticulatory dynamics, which problematizes straightforward claims about the realization of laterals and their adjacent vowels. We further discuss these findings in terms of hypotheses about positional and sociophonetic variation. In doing so, we demonstrate the utility of GAMMs for analysing time-varying multi-segmental acoustic signals, and highlight the significance of our results for accounts of English lateral typology