TY - JOUR
T1 - “I can't see myself ever living any[w]ere else”
T2 - Variation in (HW) in Edinburgh English
AU - Markl, Nina
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Natural Language Processing, funded by the UKRI (grant EP/S022481/1) and the University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics and School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences. I would like to thank Lauren Hall-Lew, Catherine Lai, Josef Fruehwald, Adam Lopez, two anonymous reviewers, the LVC editorial team, the audience at UKLVC 13, the University of Edinburgh LVC Research Group, and Lukas Eigentler for comments and advice. Most importantly, I would like to thank the research participants who generously shared their experiences and time with me.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2023/5/9
Y1 - 2023/5/9
N2 - Sociolinguistic research across Scotland in recent decades has documented an erosion of the phonemic contrast between /ʍ/ (as in which) and /w/ (as in witch). Based on acoustic phonetic analysis of 1400 realisations produced by 18 Edinburgh women born between 1938 and 1993, I argue that in the context of Edinburgh this is best understood as a complex sociolinguistic variable (HW) encompassing (at least) six fricated and frication-less variants. Realisations vary in type and relative duration of frication, voicing, and glide quality. Bayesian statistical analysis suggests that choice and realisation of variants is conditioned by speaker’s social class, style, and phonetic context. Unlike some prior work, I do not find evidence of ongoing (apparent-time) change or an effect of contact with Southern British English. Fricated variants are most prevalent in formal speech styles and in the speech of middle-class women, while working-class speakers favour frication-less variants.
AB - Sociolinguistic research across Scotland in recent decades has documented an erosion of the phonemic contrast between /ʍ/ (as in which) and /w/ (as in witch). Based on acoustic phonetic analysis of 1400 realisations produced by 18 Edinburgh women born between 1938 and 1993, I argue that in the context of Edinburgh this is best understood as a complex sociolinguistic variable (HW) encompassing (at least) six fricated and frication-less variants. Realisations vary in type and relative duration of frication, voicing, and glide quality. Bayesian statistical analysis suggests that choice and realisation of variants is conditioned by speaker’s social class, style, and phonetic context. Unlike some prior work, I do not find evidence of ongoing (apparent-time) change or an effect of contact with Southern British English. Fricated variants are most prevalent in formal speech styles and in the speech of middle-class women, while working-class speakers favour frication-less variants.
U2 - 10.1017/S0954394523000078
DO - 10.1017/S0954394523000078
M3 - Article
SN - 0954-3945
VL - 35
SP - 79
EP - 105
JO - Language Variation and Change
JF - Language Variation and Change
IS - 1
ER -