LANGUAGE VARIATION AND CHANGE IN

Kaja Haugen, University of MA conference

1 BACKGROUND

• Scalloway: c. 900 inhabitants, 10km west of • dialect: Insular Scots, Norn substratum • Melchers (2012): bidialectal • Aware of having access to two distinct forms

2 Map of Shetland (Sundkvist 2007, 4) PREVIOUS STUDIES

SMITH AND DURHAM (2011, 2012) SUNDKVIST (E.G. 2011A, 2011B)

• Younger speakers use fewer dialect • Lerwick Scottish Standard English variants – change in progress (SSE) • Younger speaker less homogeneous • Both localised and standardised • Follow-up study (2012): only some of features the younger speakers can be • Speech to outsiders considered bidialectal • Lerwick SSE may be gaining ground

3 THE PRESENT STUDY

• Can the same processes be observed outside Lerwick? • Can the same processes be observed in speech to outsiders?

• RQ1: Do differences between the age groups indicate that the dialect features are subject to ongoing change? • RQ2: Do changes in the use of dialect features covary with gender? • RQ3: Are there any similarities or differences between the Scalloway results and the Lerwick results?

4 THE PRESENT STUDY

• Sociolinguistic interviews • 20 speakers

Age group Male speakers Female speakers Young: 20-33 2 3 Middle: 51-69 3 5 Old: 72-84 3 4

5 -WIDE SHETLAND-SPECIFIC

Lexical Ken Peerie

Morphosyntactic Yon Be-perfect

Phonetic/phonological L-vocalisation TH-stopping

HOUSE-HOOSE-variation

THE VARIABLES

6 RESULTS

KEN: OVERALL TOKENS BE-PERFECT: OVERALL TOKENS

Variants n % Variants n % Ken 63 15.3 Be 49 13.4 Know 348 84.7 Have 316 86.6 Total 411 100 Total 365 100

7 RESULTS: KEN

Age Ken Know Total Gende Ken Know Total group r n % n % n n % n % n Young 4 3.3 119 96.7 123 Female 40 15.9 211 84.1 251 Middle 39 21.9 139 78.1 178 Male 23 14.4 137 85.6 160 Old 20 18.2 90 81.8 110

x2 = 0.5801, p = .446255 x2 = 0.1835, p = .668373

8 RESULTS: KEN

Ken: % by age Ken: % by gender 100,00% 100,00% 90,00% 90,00% 80,00% 80,00% 70,00% 70,00% 60,00% 60,00% 50,00% 50,00% 40,00% 40,00% 30,00% 21,90% 18,20% 30,00% 20,00% 15,90% 20,00% 14,40% 10,00% 3,30% 10,00% 0,00% Young Middle Old 0,00% Female Male

9 RESULTS: BE-PERFECT

Age Be Have Total Gender Be Have Total group n % n % n n % n % n Young 3 2.7 109 97.3 112 Female 20 8.5 216 91.5 236 Middle 37 27.4 98 72.6 135 Male 29 22.5 100 77.5 129 Old 9 7.6 109 92.4 118

x2 = 16.5605, p < .01 x2 = 14.078, p < .01

10 RESULTS: BE-PERFECT

Be-perfect: % by age Be-perfect: % by gender 100,00% 100,00% 90,00% 90,00% 80,00% 80,00% 70,00% 70,00% 60,00% 60,00% 50,00% 50,00% 40,00% 40,00% 27,40% 30,00% 30,00% 22,50% 20,00% 20,00% 7,60% 8,50% 10,00% 2,70% 10,00% 0,00% 0,00% Young Middle Old Female Male

11 Research questions: • Do differences between the age groups indicate that the dialect features are subject to ongoing change? • Do changes in the use of dialect features covary with gender? SUMMING • Are there any similarities or differences between the UP Scalloway results and the Lerwick results?

Way forward • The other 5 variables • Local vs. non-local • Linguistic constraints

12 THANK YOU!

picture: www.shetland.org 13 • Melchers, Gunnel. 2012. English spoken in and Shetland: morphology, syntax and lexicon. In Brend Kortmann, Kate Burridge, Rajend Mesthrie, Edgar W. Schneider and Clive Upton (eds.), A Handbook of Varieties of English vol. 2: Morphology and Syntax, 34-46. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. • Smith, Jennifer and Mercedes Durham. 2011. A tipping point in dialect obsolescence? Change across the generations in Lerwick, Shetland. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (2), 197.225. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00479.x. • Smith, Jennifer and Mercedes Durham. 2012. Bidialectalism or dialect death? Explaining REFERENCES generational change in the Shetland islands, Scotland. American Speech 87 (1), 57-88. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00479.x. • Sundkvist, Peter. 2007. The pronunciation of Scottish Standard English in Lerwick, Shetland. English Word-Wide 28 (1), 1-21. 10.1075/eww.28.1.02sun • Sundkvist, Peter 2011a. The Shetland Islands: globalisation and the changing status of Standard English. English Today 27 (4): 19-25. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078411000496. • Sundkvist, Peter. 2011b. ‘Standard English’ as spoken in Shetland’s capital. World Englishes 30 (2): 166-181. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2011.01708.x.

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