/t/

/t/-glottalling, the realisation of non-initial /t/ with a glottal stop in words such as butter and bottle, is a stereotype of Glasgow speech and Urban Scots more generally (cf. e.g. Johnston and Speitel 1983; Macafee 1994: 27, 1997; Johnston 1997: 500). It is even spreading into Scots as a general Scottish feature (Johnston 1997: 501). In Glasgow, /t/-glottalling is clearly evidenced in Macaulay’s data with the lower classes using glottals extensively (90% for Class III). An analysis of the 1997 Glasgow data revealed similar patterns, and a cautious real-time comparison across the two suggested some increase among working-class speakers, especially girls (though with the already high numbers in 1973 there was little room for manoeuvre).

Perhaps more interesting were the qualitative patterns of /t/-glottalling which were found from a close analysis of my 1997 corpus. In other accents of English /t/- glottalling is a feature which seems to correlate with social class on a continuum, with higher class speakers using few glottals and lower classes using more. On the face of it a similar impression can be gained from looking at Scottish English, and certainly this is how it looks for the 1973 and 1997 results. However, when I analyzed the patterning of glottals in working-class speakers and middle-class speakers according to phonetic environment, comparing the usage in prepausal position (e.g. but) compared with word-final prevocalic (e.g. a lot of) and intervocalic position (e.g. water), a striking difference in patterning emerged. When all instances where [t] was used (exceptions to /t/-glottalling) were considered, it became clear that /t/-glottalling is the norm for working-class speakers, and we could even say obligatory for working-class adolescents. All exceptions are clearly motivated. Middle-class speakers however show a different pattern. For them [t] is the norm, and /t/-glottalling optional. That these distributions amounted to systematic patterning was shown when speakers tried to shift socially through /t/-glottalling. Movement sociolinguistically seems to require a systematic shift which neither middle- nor working-class speakers achieved successfully. Middle-class children moving ‘down’ approximated the working-class pattern but were not entirely successful, retaining traces of typical middle-class patterning. Working-class adults trying to move ‘up’ approximated their middle-class peers intervocalically, but again retained working-class patterns in the categorical use of glottals before a pause. Thus successful style-shifting along the Scottish English continuum requires more than simply increasing or reducing the number of glottals used, and demonstrates the continuation of different constraints inherited from Scots and Scottish Standard English respectively. Variants other than released [t] or glottals were less usual.

مواضيع ذات صلة

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English /r/: a brief outline

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Length, tenseness and English vowel systems

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The life-cycle of the Scottish Vowel Length Rule