'Talkin' Jockney'? Variation and Change in Glaswegian Accent1
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Journal of Sociolinguistics 11/2, 2007: 221–260 ‘Talkin’ Jockney’? Variation and change in Glaswegian accent1 Jane Stuart-Smith∗, Claire Timmins∗ and Fiona Tweedie† ∗ Department of English Language, University of Glasgow †School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh 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, butmustbetakeninconjunctionwiththerecenthistoryofstructuralchanges to Glasgow and the resulting construction of local class-based language ideologies which continue to be relevant in the city today. KEYWORDS: Phonological variation, language variation and change, multivariate analysis, Scottish English, adolescents and vernacular, language ideology 1. INTRODUCTION Glaswegian teenagers are developing a southern drawl as traditional sounds like the ‘ch’ in loch disappear. And pronunciations such as ‘toof’ for tooth are becoming more common as youngsters are influenced by Frank Butcher and the other Cockneys in EastEnders. ‘“Talkin’ Jockney”: Scots youngsters’ language is changed by EastEnders’ Daily Record, 27 June 2000 In the late 1990s, preliminary results from a study of Glaswegian accent indicated that working-class adolescents, with few apparent opportunities for contact outsidethecity,werebothusingfeaturesusuallyassociatedwithsouthernEnglish (e.g. TH-fronting, the use of [f] for /θ/ in e.g. think), and at the same time, not showing expected ‘Scottish’ features (e.g. production of postvocalic /r/ in e.g. car). These findings led to a flurry of media reports which jokingly dubbed the C The authors 2007 Journal compilation C Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA 222 STUART-SMITH, TIMMINS AND TWEEDIE ‘new’ dialect ‘Jockney’ (‘Jock’ = Scot + ‘Cockney’), and which speculated that another possible cause for such patterns of variation was watching London-based TV soap operas, such as the popular show, EastEnders. This paper presents the first integrated account of the linguistic facts behind suchreports.Herewedescribethemainpatternsofvariationobservedinasocially stratified sample of Glaswegian collected in 1997, and we account for them in terms of evidence which directly relates to the corpus itself, the recent social history of Glasgow,and indications of local language ideologies constructed about this history. Using univariate and multivariate statistical analysis, we look at the use of a range of consonant variables in speakers from two neighbouring areas of Glasgow, representing distinct points on the sociolinguistic continuum of Glaswegian English. When compared against predictions from social network structure and personal mobility, our results seem odd: middle-class speakers with more opportunities for contact with English English speakers and weaker social networks are maintaining Scottish features, while less mobile, strongly-tied working-class speakers are losing some Scottish features and using innovative features the most. However, when we look more closely at the geographical and social restructuring of Glasgow over the twentieth century we find that mobility and changes in network structure are important factors for understanding these results.Butwealsoneedtotakeaccountofthecontextswithinwhichtheyoperate – Scotland and the city of Glasgow – and the extent to which these impact on the construction of local language ideologies. Our young innovators are using a consonantal system which in many respects is more similar to that of London English, but at the same time, they are exploiting ‘non-local’ variation in such a way that it is used, and feels to them to be, thoroughly local. This then provides further support for the notion that constructing identity through linguistic variation is crucially connected to the local context (e.g. Labov 1963; Eckert 2000; Dyer 2002; see also Meyerhoff and Niedzielski 2003). 1.1 The wider context: Accent change in the U.K. Recent research is revealing rapid accent change in urban accents across the U.K. (see e.g. the collection of papers in Foulkes and Docherty 1999a). Consonantal systems in particular are showing changes which together have been described as ‘homogenization’ (Foulkes and Docherty 1999b), such that resulting systems across dialects appear to be more similar. The linguistic reflexes of the changes are twofold: features are appearing in regional accents, for example, TH-fronting (Kerswill 2003), and local features are disappearing, for example, the reduction of the ‘reinforced’ glottal variants of /t/ typical of Tyneside English (e.g. Docherty et al. 1997). Describing the prime innovators in these changes, whose profile varies in different locations, is often made with reference to the social factors of age, social C The authors 2007 Journal compilation C Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007 TALKIN’ JOCKNEY? 223 class, and gender. In general adolescents seem to show more change, which is perhaps to be expected, given the particular development of social and linguistic identities that emerge during this life-stage (e.g. Kerswill 1996; Eckert 1997). Social class, at all times an awkward label, but which in these studies tends to refer to a broad range of differing socio-economic factors, may be a factor. For example, TH-fronting is commonly found in working-class speakers (e.g. Kerswill 2003). Similarly,gender, in conjunction with class, may also play a role, and TH-fronting has been observed more often in working-class males (e.g. Milroy 1996). Earlier discussion of accent change in British urban accents referred to social class (e.g. Trudgill 1974) and this is not surprising given the classic formulation of quantitative sociolinguistics in the work of Labov in New York (e.g. 1972). Theoretical modelling of the current changes now tends to refer to two complementary sociolinguistic models, social networks and dialect contact (e.g. Kerswill and Williams 2000). Social network theory, as applied to sociolinguistic data (e.g. Milroy 1987), has played an important role in extending our understanding of language change (e.g. Milroy and Milroy 1985; Milroy 1992).Networkscharacterisethesocialrelationscontractedbetweenindividuals, whose groupings may in turn be characterised in terms of strong or weak ties constitutingdenseorloosenetworks(MilroyandGordon2003:127ff.).Language change is linked to the nature of the networks such that dense social networks with strong ties promote conformity in social and linguistic norms and inhibit change, while loose networks with weak ties typically facilitate change. The foundations of a dialect contact model are found in Trudgill’s (1986: vii) proposalsforexplaining‘thosechangesthattakeplaceduringorasaconsequence of contacts between closely related varieties of a language’. A core assumption of Trudgill’s model is that such changes take place during face-to-face interaction between speakers through linguistic accommodation, or the social-psychological process of linguistic convergence during interaction; see also Kerswill (2002, 2003). That dialects are brought into contact presumes some kind of personal or group mobility, and we could identify here two possibilities: active mobility, when individuals move away to new dialect areas; and passive mobility, when individuals are brought into contact with other dialects as their communities experience in-migration. We also note that certain groups of the population may be less likely to be actively mobile than others, for example, adolescents (e.g. Britain 2002). Identifying the linguistic processes arising from dialect contact and mobility forms part of an emerging research agenda (see e.g. Milroy 2002). Another important task is the development of a framework for understanding the ideological consequences of mobility and dialect contact as speakers reposition themselves in social-psychological space using linguistic variation to symbolise particular orientations to real or perceived notions of affiliated and opposing groups (e.g. Milroy 2002). Clearly mobility and social networks are connected concepts, and so too their potential impact on language change (see e.g. Milroy and Gordon 2003: 130). C The authors 2007 Journal compilation C Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007 224 STUART-SMITH, TIMMINS AND TWEEDIE Middle-class speakers who are more mobile are also likely to contract weaker ties and belong to looser networks and so be more susceptible to linguistic change. Conversely, less mobile individuals, more typical of traditional working-class communities, may also be more strongly tied and members of denser networks, and so more likely to resist change to linguistic norms. Kerswill and Williams (2000)testedthiscomplexofpredictionsonvoweldatafrommiddle-andworking- class speakers with differing profiles of mobility in Reading and Milton Keynes. Their results