Hall-Lew, Lauren

Markl, Nina

Papineau, Brandon

Sung, Matthew

T-glottaling is a well-studied variable in UK English and a well-known feature of Scottish varieties. Speaker age, gender, social class, and formality of talk are typical social predictors (e.g., Stuart-Smith 1999; Schleef 2013). Some have posited that the glottal variant may have been innovated in Scotland separately from in Southern England (Schleef 2013; Smith &amp; Holmes-Elliott 2018). To explore the constraints on glottal realization, as well as this polygenetic hypothesis, we consider variation within Scotland. While Stuart-Smith (1999) identified differences within Glasgow according to social class, we consider differences within Scotland according to region and formality

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     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Regional and Social Variation in Scottish T-glottalingCitation for published version:Hall-Lew, L, Markl, N, Papineau, B & Sung, M 2019, 'Regional and Social Variation in Scottish T-glottaling'UKLVC 2019, London, United Kingdom, 3/09/19 - 5/09/19, .Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordGeneral rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 26. Sep. 2019........................................Regional and Social Variation in Scottish T-glottalingLauren Hall-Lew, Nina Markl, Brandon Papineau, & Matthew SungUniversity of Edinburgh, Lauren.Hall-Lew@ed.ac.uk5 September 20191. INTRODUCTIONGlottal replacement, or T-glottaling, is well-studied in UK English and a known featureof Scottish varieties. Speaker age, gender, social class, and formality of talk are typicalsocial predictors in community studies. While glottal replacement is favoured by afollowing consonant and disfavoured by a following vowel, the eﬀect of a followingpause on word-ﬁnal /t/ varies by study, prompting the ’polygenetic’ hypothesis(Schleef 2013; Smith & Holmes-Elliott 2017:2). Given Stuart-Smith’s (1999) ﬁndingof variation within Glasgow, more comparisons between Scottish locales are needed.Here we examine word-medial or word-ﬁnal /t/ production among 17 Scottish womenof varying ages, professions, and backgrounds, speaking in a range of diﬀerentcontexts. We ﬁnd that the speaker’s profession is the only social predictor, and thatthis is clearly explained by the indexical value of the /t/ variants and the performanceof social personae. We also see that the eﬀect of a following pause seems to diﬀerbetween regions, especially the Central Belt versus the rest, but more data are neededand the polygenetic hypothesis is unresolved.2. GROUP-LEVEL DIFFERENCES: Study 12.1 Methods• Researchers: A class of 36 advanced undergraduate university students.• Speakers: 17 famous Scottish women, regionally and socioeconomically diverse.• Recordings: from 2010-2018, from publicly available sources (e.g., YouTube).• Coding:• Groups of coders obtained 10min of continuous speech per speaker, including 2 styles.• Two variants: /P/ and /t/. All other variants (N=230) excluded.• Total: 3,469 tokens, which were fully coded twice, auditorily.• Initial inter-rater agreement: 88%. Resolved to 100% through token-by-token consensus.• Linguistic factors:• following phonological environment (consonant, vowel, pause)• number of syllables• Speakers factors:• Year of Birth (continuous, 1955–1994), and Age (Older, Younger)• Socioeconomic Class (Working, WC; New Middle, NMC; Established Middle, EMC)• Region (greater Edinburgh, greater Glasgow, the Highlands, Angus/Fife, Stirling)• Occupation Type (Entertainment, Journalism, Politics, Writing, Other)• Contextual factors:• Interlocutor Accent (Scottish, UK non-Scottish, North American, Other/Unknown)• Location (Scotland, UK non-Scotland, North American, Other/Unknown)• Formality (Formal, Informal)2.2 ResultsFor both word-medial and word-ﬁnal /t/, the only signiﬁcant predictors were number ofsyllables, following phonological environment, and speaker profession.Figure 1 – No eﬀect by Region on T-glottaling: word-medial (left) and word-ﬁnal tokens (right)Figure 2 - T-glottaling by Following Phonological environment (sig.), and Speaker Region (n.s.),for word-ﬁnal /t/Figure 3 – T-glottaling by Speaker Profession, for word-medial /t/ (left) and word-ﬁnal /t/ (right)3. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES: Study 2a & 2bName Region YOB Occupation SECSue Black Highlands 1961 Forensic Anthropologist NMCSusan Boyle Edinburgh 1961 Musician WCKaren Gillan Highlands 1987 Actor EMCGail Honeyman Stirling 1972 Writer EMCJackie Kay Glasgow 1961 Writer EMCLorraine Kelly Glasgow 1959 TV Presenter NMCLaura Kuenssberg Glasgow 1976 Journalist EMCLesley Lokko Angus/Fife 1964 Architect EMCShirley Manson Edinburgh 1966 Musician EMCLauren Mayberry Glasgow 1987 Musician EMCMhairi Black Glasgow 1994 Politician WCVal McDermid Angus/Fife 1955 Writer NMCChristina McKelvie Glasgow 1968 Politician NMCJudy Murray Stirling 1959 Tennis Coach EMCNina Nesbitt Edinburgh 1994 Musician NMCNicola Sturgeon Glasgow 1970 Politician NMCKT Tunstall Angus/Fife 1975 Musician EMC3.1 Methods• Study 2a: 531 tokens produced by Nicola Sturgeon during three 2018 FirstMinister’s Questions and 205 tokens produced by Mhairi Black during a speechat the SNP conference (2017) and interviews with journalists Owen Jones (2016)and Emma Barnett (2015)• Study 2b: 283 word medial, intervocalic tokens produced by Nina Nesbitt; 203taken from a set of ﬁve interviews, and 80 from her musical discography; inaddition to /P/ and /t/, /R/ was also coded for3.2 Results• Study 2a: Comparing within one profession we ﬁnd individual diﬀerencesapparently depending on age, status and their distinct roles in the Scottish andBritish political contexts: newly elected, 23-year-old SNP MP Mhairi Blackproduces higher rates of glottal replacement than the 48-year-old leader of theScottish government.• Study 2b: Comparing within a single speaker, we ﬁnd that stylistic diﬀerencesapparently depending on register and genre. Nesbitt has high rates of t-glottalingin speech, but low rates in singing. Nesbitt has no instances of /R/ in her speech,but high rates in singing, along with /t/. These two variants correlate with songgenre; she produces /t/ most frequently on acoustic tracks, whilst /R/ occurs onfolk-pop and pop-style tracks.Figure 4 – Individual diﬀerences as explored in two case studies: Black and Sturgeon (l) and Nesbitt (r)4. DISCUSSIONPoliticians and writers use higher rates of alveolar stops compared to entertainers,possibly to index qualities such as “learnedness” (Benor 2004; Bucholtz 2001),“articulateness” (Podesva et al. 2015), competence and reliability (Kirkham & Moore2016). Glottal replacement has only recently started to spread into formal styles andvarieties such as political speeches (Fabricius 2002; Kirkham & Moore 2016, both in RP)where it has been found to invoke relational themes such as “solidarity” and “familiarity”(Kirkham & Moore 2016). While external social factors such as age and status inﬂuencevariation among Black and Sturgeon, this dissemination is now also documented inScottish Standard English, potentially with similar indexical values (see Markl 2018).These indexical meanings are present in intraspeaker variation as well, as seen in NinaNesbitt’s intervocalic /t/ productions, which are tightly connected to her constructions ofcoherent musical identities, reﬂecting apparent associations between supralocal pop /R/and the careful acoustic style /t/ (see Papineau & Hall-Lew forthcoming). A degree ofregional variation is also observed (see Sung 2018), but larger quantities of diachronicand synchronic data are needed to comment conﬁdently with regard to the origin ofT-glottaling in Scottish English, especially in the north of Scotland.References available upon request

Regional and Social Variation in Scottish T-glottaling

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Regional and Social Variation in Scottish T-glottaling

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