DOCSLIB.ORG

Leeds Studies in English

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Leeds Studies in English Leeds Studies in English New Series XXX 1999 Dialectal Variation in English: Proceedings of the Harold Orton Centenary Conference 1998 Edited by Clive Upton and Katie Wales Leeds Studies in English School of English University of Leeds 1999 Leeds Studies in English New Series XXX © Leeds Studies in English 1999 School of English University of Leeds Leeds, England ISSN 0075-8566 Leeds Studies in English New Series XXX 1999 Dialectal Variation in English: Proceedings of the Harold Orton Centenary Conference 1998 Edited by Clive Upton and Katie Wales Leeds Studies in English School of English University of Leeds 1999 Leeds Studies in English Leeds Studies in English is an annual publication from the School of English, University of Leeds, England. It is an international refereed journal publishing articles on Old and Middle English literature, Old Icelandic language and literature, and the historical study of the English language. Editorial Board: Catherine Batt, Editor Pam Armitage Elizabeth Baldwin Paul Hammond Joyce Hill, Chair Rory McTurk Peter Meredith Oliver Pickering Mary Swan Andrew Wawn Notes for Contributors Contributors are requested to follow the Style Book of the Modern Humanities Research Association, 5th edition (London: 1996). The language of publication is English and translations should normally be supplied for quotations in languages other than English. Each contributor will receive twenty offprints. Contributions from the UK should be accompanied by a large stamped addressed envelope; those from overseas should be accompanied by a large self-addressed envelope and the appropriate value of International Reply Coupons. All contributions should be sent to: The Editor, Leeds Studies in English, School of English, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, England. Reviews Copies of books for review should be sent to Catherine Batt at the above address. Contents Editorial Preface vii Front Rounded Vowels in Northumbrian English: the Evidence of The Orton Corpus Kurt Rydland 1 The Leeds Corpus of English Dialects - Project Juhani Klemola and Mark Jones 17 The Phonetic Data Base Project (PDP): a New Tool for the Dialectologist Willy Elmer 31 Parallel Lines Through Time: the Confusing Case of She Merja Black 59 Explanations of Sound Change: Contradictions Between Dialect Data and Theories of Chain Shifting Robert Stockwell and Donka Minkova 83 The Phonology of Definite Article Reduction Mark Jones 103 The East-West New England Dialect Boundary: Another Look at the Evidence Lawrence M. Davis, Charles L. Houck and Veronika K. Horvath 123 Attitudes Towards British English Dialects in the 19th Century Manfred Gorlach 137 Scots Language Attitudes and Language Maintenance Caroline Macafee and Briege McGarrity 165 Glottals Past and Present: a Study of T-glottalling in Glaswegian Jane Stuart-Smith 181 Dialect Recognition and Speech Community Focusing in New and Old Towns in England: the Effects of Dialect Levelling, Demography and Social Networks Paul Kerswill and Ann Williams 205 English Intonation in the British Isles Kimberley Farrar, Esther Grabe and Francis Nolan 243 The First SuRE Moves: Early Steps Towards a Large Dialect Project Paul Kerswill, Carmen Llamas and Clive Upton 257 The Future of Dialectology William A. Kretzschmar, Jr 271 Editorial Preface The autumn of 1996 marked a fresh beginning for English language studies in Leeds: a new Chair in English Language was taken up by Professor Katie Wales from the University of London; and Dr Anthea Fraser Gupta from Singapore, and Dr Catriona McPherson from Edinburgh were appointed to lectureships. There is no doubt that the three of them had been attracted to Leeds in no small part by the prestige and fame of Professor Harold Orton and his team and of the Survey of English Dialects (published 1962-71). Katie Wales in particular was delighted to find that Stanley Ellis, principal fieldworker, was an 'honorary lecturer'; that Dr Clive Upton, who had worked with Harold Orton, was a visiting lecturer, and about to embark on a new national survey; and that Leverhulme Trust finance was about to be spent on editing the Survey's original surviving recordings in machine-readable form (by Dr Juhani Klemola, temporary lecturer, and Mark Jones). The very month she was appointed Katie Wales realised the significance of the year 1998: the centenary of Harold Orton's birth (1898-1975); and the (approximate) half-centenary of the institution of the Survey. So the idea of a celebratory international conference took shape, culminating in a 3-day event in March 1998 with over 70 participants from all over Europe and North America, including many of Orton's former colleagues and fieldworkers, as well as Harold's own daughter, Betty Borthwick. As Stanley Ellis reminded us at the conference dinner, the SED remains the only systematic nation-wide dialect survey ever to have been completed in England. The aim of the conference, however, was not only to remember Harold himself, and to take stock of past achievements in English dialectology, but also to highlight current research projects in urban as well as rural dialect studies, English English as well as 'global' English: providing a rapprochement between dialectology and sociolinguistics; between diachronic and synchronic perspectives; theory and empirical research. The papers selected from the conference proceedings for this volume hopefully reflect a vigorous variety of perspectives and approaches. What is noteworthy is that time and again the SED and its related publications continue to be cited, in ever expanding fields. As Stanley Ellis also reminded us at the conference: 'Harold has a lasting memorial in the existence of the Survey, which, still, 30 years after his death, provides material that scholars will use and enlarge on for further work. He knew he was drawing a firm base line from which to build future studies.' Editorial Preface We wanted also to look forward to the next millennium, to future developments in dialectology. As some of the papers in this volume reveal, there is no doubt that dialectology, like other linguistic disciplines, is benefitting considerably from electronic technology: and how Harold Orton himself would have welcomed that! He would also have delighted in the media interest which the conference attracted: from interviews with almost every local radio station in the country, to the BBC's World Service, television and national broadsheets. At the end of this millennium accents and dialects have lost none of their popular appeal: if anything, non-academic interest has increased. It is even more important, therefore, that dialect studies should continue and flourish, to provide an informed and accurate picture to the community at large of variation in English. The actual fourteen papers selected for publication here comprise four main groupings. The first group of three papers draw upon the 'Orton corpora': namely, Orton's own Northumbrian Corpus (Kurt Rydland); and the Orton-Dieth SED corpus. The papers of both Klemola/Jones and Willy Elmer show just how the SED and related materials have adapted well to the electronic age. The second grouping of four papers draws upon existing holdings of well-established dialect data, to provide fresh insights: Merja Black and Stockwell/Minkova from a diachronic perspective, Mark Jones and Davis/Houck/Horvath from a synchronic perspective, the latter looking again at LANE data. The third group, Manfred Gorlach and Macafee/McGarrity, are concerned with attitudes to dialects, past and present. The final group comprise studies of urban dialects, non-traditional data (Jane Stuart-Smith; Kerswill/Williams); and also new studies with new methods (Farrar/Grabe/Nolan; Kerswill/Llamas/Upton). The volume concludes with a timely look at the future of dialectology, by William Kretzschmar. We would like to thank Anthea Fraser Gupta and Catriona McPherson for their invaluable help in preparing this volume for publication. Katie Wales and Clive Upton vui Front Rounded Vowels in Northumbrian English: the Evidence of The Orton Corpus Kurt Rydland Abstract This paper examines the phonological properties and the historical development of Northumbrian front rounded vowels of the types [0(:)] ([0(1)3]) and [ce(:)l ([ce(:)a]), with special reference to the material of the Orton Corpus. While studies based exclusively on the Survey of English Dialects regard these vowels as two phonemes, or perhaps one, the present paper demonstrates that they constitute three phonemes, /0:/,/oei/and/ce/ (or hf), two of which have back as well as front realisations (/0:/ = [0: ~ 0:] etc.; /ce/ = [ce ~ 3] etc.). In terms of lexical incidence, I01I occurs typically in the standard lexical set GOAT, while /ce:/ as well as /ce/ (hf) appears chiefly in LOT and CLOTH. Special features of lexical incidence in the Orton Corpus include the use of l0il (in North Tynedale) and /ce:/ (at most localities) in some subsets of THOUGHT. The paper also offers explanations of the historical development of Northumbrian front rounded vowels. Lass's (1989) suggestion that they may have developed as an approach to the southern GOAT vowel is accepted in general as regards [0(:)], but is otherwise rejected. Instead, it is shown that all three main types, [0(:)], [ce:] and [ce], may have developed by various native processes, one of which is contextual, while two are context-free. At the same time, it is recognised that the use of front rounded vowels in the Orton Corpus and the Survey of English Dialects owes a great deal to the influence of external norms of pronunciation. 1. Introduction 1.1 Front rounded vowels (FRVs) are a prominent and well-known feature of Kurt Rydland traditional Northumbrian speech. In the Basic Material of the Survey of English Dialects (SED), they appear typically in such words as coat [k0:t, k0'3t, k03t, korst, kce:3t] (~[ko9t,ko3t]),/ox [fceks, fecks, foe:ks] (~[foks, foks]) and off [cef, cef, ce:f] (~[of, of]) (Orton and Halliday 1962-63: IV.5.11, VI.14.5-6, IX.2.13), that is, in words belonging to the standard lexical sets GOAT, LOT and CLOTH as defined by Wells (1982).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Social and Cultural Functions of the Local Press in Preston, Lancashire, 1855-1900
    Reading the local paper: Social and cultural functions of the local press in Preston, Lancashire, 1855-1900 by Andrew Hobbs A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Central Lancashire November 2010 ABSTRACT This thesis demonstrates that the most popular periodical genre of the second half of the nineteenth century was the provincial newspaper. Using evidence from news rooms, libraries, the trade press and oral history, it argues that the majority of readers (particularly working-class readers) preferred the local press, because of its faster delivery of news, and because of its local and localised content. Building on the work of Law and Potter, the thesis treats the provincial press as a national network and a national system, a structure which enabled it to offer a more effective news distribution service than metropolitan papers. Taking the town of Preston, Lancashire, as a case study, this thesis provides some background to the most popular local publications of the period, and uses the diaries of Preston journalist Anthony Hewitson as a case study of the career of a local reporter, editor and proprietor. Three examples of how the local press consciously promoted local identity are discussed: Hewitson’s remoulding of the Preston Chronicle, the same paper’s changing treatment of Lancashire dialect, and coverage of professional football. These case studies demonstrate some of the local press content that could not practically be provided by metropolitan publications. The ‘reading world’ of this provincial town is reconstructed, to reveal the historical circumstances in which newspapers and the local paper in particular were read.
    [Show full text]
  • Kuwaiti Arabic: a Socio-Phonological Perspective
    Durham E-Theses Kuwaiti Arabic: A Socio-Phonological Perspective AL-QENAIE, SHAMLAN,DAWOUD How to cite: AL-QENAIE, SHAMLAN,DAWOUD (2011) Kuwaiti Arabic: A Socio-Phonological Perspective, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/935/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: e-theses.admin@dur.ac.uk Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Kuwaiti Arabic: A Socio-Phonological Perspective By Shamlan Dawood Al-Qenaie Thesis submitted to the University of Durham for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures 2011 DECLARATION This is to attest that no material from this thesis has been included in any work submitted for examination at this or any other university. i STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged.
    [Show full text]
  • LANGUAGE VARIETY in ENGLAND 1 ♦ Language Variety in England
    LANGUAGE VARIETY IN ENGLAND 1 ♦ Language Variety in England One thing that is important to very many English people is where they are from. For many of us, whatever happens to us in later life, and however much we move house or travel, the place where we grew up and spent our childhood and adolescence retains a special significance. Of course, this is not true of all of us. More often than in previous generations, families may move around the country, and there are increasing numbers of people who have had a nomadic childhood and are not really ‘from’ anywhere. But for a majority of English people, pride and interest in the area where they grew up is still a reality. The country is full of football supporters whose main concern is for the club of their childhood, even though they may now live hundreds of miles away. Local newspapers criss-cross the country in their thousands on their way to ‘exiles’ who have left their local areas. And at Christmas time the roads and railways are full of people returning to their native heath for the holiday period. Where we are from is thus an important part of our personal identity, and for many of us an important component of this local identity is the way we speak – our accent and dialect. Nearly all of us have regional features in the way we speak English, and are happy that this should be so, although of course there are upper-class people who have regionless accents, as well as people who for some reason wish to conceal their regional origins.
    [Show full text]
  • Reference Guide for the History of English
    Reference Guide for the History of English Raymond Hickey English Linguistics Institute for Anglophone Studies University of Duisburg and Essen January 2012 Some tips when using the Reference Guide: 1) To go to a certain section of the guide, press Ctrl-F and enter the name of the section. Alternatively, you can search for an author or the title of a book. 2) Remember that, for reasons of size, the reference guide only includes books. However, there are some subjects for which whole books are not readily available but only articles. In this case, you can come to me for a consultation or of course, you can search yourself. If you are looking for articles on a subject then one way to find some would be to look at a standard book on the (larger) subject area and then consult the bibliography at the back of the book., To find specific contents in a book use the table of contents and also the index at the back which always offers more detailed information. If you are looking for chapters on a subject then an edited volume is the most likely place to find what you need. This is particularly true for the history of English. 3) When you are starting a topic in linguistics the best thing to do is to consult a general introduction (usually obvious from the title) or a collection of essays on the subject, often called a ‘handbook’. There you will find articles on the subareas of the topic in question, e.g. a handbook on varieties of English will contain articles on individual varieties, a handbook on language acquisition will contain information on various aspects of this topic.
    [Show full text]
  • Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics
    LWPLP Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics The University of Leeds Volume 18, 2013 Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics Volume 18, 2013 Editors: David Wright, Marilena Di Bari, Christopher Norton, Ashraf Abdullah and Ruba Khamam Contents Christopher Norton and David Wright ii–iii Editorial preface Alaric Hall 1–33 Jón the Fleming: Low German in Thirteenth-Century Norway and Fourteenth-Century Iceland Barry Heselwood and Janet C. E. Watson 34–53 The Arabic definite article does not assimilate Sandra Nickel 54–84 Spreading which word? Philological, theological and socio-political con- siderations behind the nineteenth-century Bible translation into Yorùbá Mary Alice Sanigar 85–114 Selling an Education. Universities as commercial entities: a corpus-based study of university websites as self-promotion Abdurraouf Shitaw 115–132 Gestural phasing of tongue-back and tongue-tip articulations in Tripoli- tanian Libyan Arabic Marilena Di Bari 133–137 An interview with Marina Manfredi on the use of systemic functional linguistics, and other ways of teaching translation studies Ran Xu 138–141 An interview with Dr. Franz Pöchhacker on interpreting research and training Norton and Wright LWPLP, 18, 2013 Editorial Preface Chris Nortona and David Wrightb aThe University of Leeds, UK; C.Norton@leeds.ac.uk bThe University of Leeds, UK; en07dw@leeds.ac.uk Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics (LWPLP) is a peer- reviewed journal which publishes reports on research in linguistics, lan- guage studies, phonetics, and translation studies by staff and students at the University of Leeds. First published in 1983, the journal was revived in 1998 by Paul Foulkes (now at the University of York) and Diane Nelson.
    [Show full text]
  • Publications in Pers Format
    1 Curriculum Vitae Robert P. Stockwell Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics, UCLA Address: (Home) 4000 Hayvenhurst Ave, Encino, CA 91436 (Office) Department of Linguistics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 Phone: (Home) (818) 783-1719 (Office) (310) 925-8675 E-Mail: Stockwel@Ucla.Edu Born June 12, 1925, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Education: BA. (English and Greek) 1946, University of Virginia MA. (English) 1949, University of Virginia Ph.D. (English Philology) 1952, University of Virginia Experience: 1952-56 School of Languages, Foreign Service Institute, Department of State (in charge of Spanish and Portuguese language instruction; co-authored the FSI Spanish text which was the main instructional tool at FSI for the next 20 years and became the principal model for the MLA Modern Spanish and the ALM series of language texts from Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1956-66 Professor of English, UCLA (Assistant Professor 1956, Associate Professor 1958, Full Professor 1962). Responsible for graduate and undergraduate courses in history and structure of English language. 1966-1994: Professor of Linguistics, UCLA. Responsible for graduate and undergraduate courses in historical linguistics, history of English, syntactic theory, historical theory. 1994--: Professor Emeritus, Recalled to Active Service 1994-1999, Department of Linguistics, UCLA 1963-66 Chair, Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics, UCLA 1966-73 Founding Chair, Department of Linguistics, UCLA 1980-84 Chair, Department of Linguistics, UCLA Visiting professorships (summers): 1955, 1956
    [Show full text]
  • British Accents and Dialects
    British Accents and Dialects www.bl.uk/british-accents-and-dialects Resources consulted in creating British Accents and Dialects Books Bauer, L. & Trudgill, P. 1998. Language Myths. Harmondsworth: Penguin Beal, J. 2006. Language and Region. London: Routledge Beard, A. 2004. Language Change. London: Routledge Crystal, D. 2002. The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language, 2nd Edn. Harmondsworth: Penguin Crystal, D. 2003. English as a Global Language, 2nd Edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Crystal, D. 2004. The Stories of English. Harmondsworth: Penguin Crystal, D. 2011. Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices. London: British Library Chambers, J. & Trudgill, P. 1998. Dialectology, 2nd Edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cruttenden, A. 2001. Gimson's Pronunciation of English, 6th Edn. London: Hodder Arnold Dent, S. 2011. How to Talk Like a Local: From Cockney to Geordie. London: Random House Elmes, S. 2005. Talking for Britain. Harmondsworth: Penguin Foulkes, P., & Gerard D. (eds.) 1999. Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles. London: Arnold Hughes, A., Trudgill, P. & Watt, D. 2005. English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles, 4th edn. London: Hodder Arnold Kortmann, B. & Upton, C. (eds.) 2008. Varieties of English 1: The British Isles. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Opie, I. & P. 1987. The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. Oxford: Oxford University Press Orton, H. 1962. Survey of English Dialects (A): An Introduction. Leeds: E J Arnold and Son Ltd. Orton, H., Halliday, W. & Barry, M. (eds.) 1962-1971. Survey of English Dialects (B): The Basic Material, Vols.1- 4. Leeds: E.J.
    [Show full text]
  • Ÿþm Icrosoft W
    Leeds Studies in English Article: Anonymous. 'Harold Orton: Published Writings', Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 2 (1968), 165-66 Permanent URL: https://ludos.leeds.ac.uk:443/R/-?func=dbin-jump- full&object_id=134436&silo_library=GEN01 Leeds Studies in English School of English University of Leeds http://www.leeds.ac.uk/lse HAROLD ORTON: PUBLISHED WRITINGS "The Medial Development of ME 6 (Tense), Fr. ii (=[y]) and ME eu (OE eow) in the Dialects of the North of England," Englische Studien, LXIII (1928-9), 229-51. "The Dialects of Northumberland," Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society, V (1931), 14-25. The Phonology of a South Durham Dialect. London, 1933. "Northumberland Dialect Research: First Report," Proceedings of the University of Durham Philosophical Society, VIII (1937), 127-35. "Contemporary English Speech," Proceedings of the University of Durham Philosophical Society, X (1939), 200-13. (Lecture delivered before the English Seminar of Berlin University on January 29, 1939) With W. Renwick, The Beginnings of English Literature to Skelton 1509. London, 1939; rev. ed., London, 1952; 3rd ed., rev. M. F. Wakelin, London, 1967. "Dialectal English and the Student," Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society, VII (1947), 27-38. "The Study of Dialectal English," Leeds Magazine (1949), 28-32. With E. Dieth, "The New Survey of Dialectal English," English Studies Today: Papers Read at the International Conference of University Professors of English held in Magdalen College, Oxford, August, ig5o, ed. C. L. Wrenn and G. Bullough (Oxford, 1951), pp. 63-73. "The Isolative Treatment in Living North-Midland Dialects of OE e lengthened in Open Syllables in Middle English," Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages, 7 and 8 (1952), 97-128.
    [Show full text]
  • Northumbrian Rounded Vowels in the Old English Gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels
    167 Northumbrian Rounded Vowels in the Old English Gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels Johanna Wood Aarhus University Abstract This paper1 investigates the distribution of mid-front rounded vowels in the Northumbrian glosses to the Lindisfarne gospels. Rounding after /w/ is a dialect feature of late Old Northumbrian. Numerical counts for the distribution of the feature are merged with new data. The goal is to see whether the data support already hypothesized demarcations in the text. The main fi nding is that the gospel of Luke and the second half of Mark have the most frequent occurrences of this feature and therefore are the most conservative sections of the glosses. 1. Introduction The debate regarding the authorship of the Old English Gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels has maintained a continued presence in academic literature for at least 150 years. This paper contributes to that debate by further investigating the distribution of mid-front rounded vowels throughout the four gospels. The Lindisfarne bible in Latin was written at Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island and ascribed to the monk Eadfrith, who was Bishop of Lindisfarne between 698 and 721. The Lindisfarne community, after being 1 Many thanks to Elly van Gelderen, Sten Vikner, and the participants in the Workshop on the Old English Glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels (Arizona State University, May 26-27, 2017) for helpful comments. Thank you to Ocke Bohn for his cheerful collegiality and for motivating my interest in Old English vowel variants. Anne Mette Nyvad, Michaela Hejná, Anders Højen, Anna Bothe Jespersen & Mette Hjortshøj Sørensen (Eds.), A Sound Approach to Language Matters – In Honor of Ocke-Schwen Bohn (pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Lectures in History of the English Language and Method-Guides for Seminars
    Lectures in history of the English language and method-guides for seminars Contents Foreword……………………………………………………………………………..…3 1. What is English? A short history of the origins and development of English……….4 2. Lectures and seminar topics …………………………………………………………9 2.1.Lecture 1. The English language as a chief medium of communication …..9 2.2.Lecture 2. Historical background………………………………………….12 2.3. Lecture 3. Development of the language: Old English period …………...17 2.4.Lecture 4. Development of the language: Middle English period ………...20 2.5. Lecture 5. The Great Vowel Shift ………………………………………..25 2.6. Lecture 6. Development of the language: Modern English period ……....28 2.7. Lecture 7. 20th - Century English ………………………………………..34 2.8. Lecture 8. American English as a variety of the English language spoken in the United States ………………………………………………37 2.9. Lecture 9. Other varieties of English ……………………………………..39 2.10. Lecture 10. The future of English ……………………………………….44 3. Seminar topics for individual elaboration …………………………………………..47 4. Five events that shaped the History of English …………………………………….83 5. Historic English text samples ………………………………………………………88 6. Tables of grammatical changes during the history …………………………………92 7. Comparison of British and American vocabulary ………………………………….94 8. Test your knowledge – Self assessment ……………………………………………108 8.1. Module Test on Lecture (1-5) …………………………………………….108 8.2. Module Test on Lecture (6-10) …………………………………………...110. 9. Reccommended literature …………………………………………………………..112 2 Foreword History of the English language is one of the essential courses forming the linguistic background of a specialist in philology. It studies the uplifting and advancement of English, its structure and peculiarities in the old days, its similarities to other languages of the same family and its unequalled specific features.
    [Show full text]
  • Vocalisations: Evidence from Germanic Gary Taylor-Raebel A
    Vocalisations: Evidence from Germanic Gary Taylor-Raebel A thesis submitted for the degree of doctor of philosophy Department of Language and Linguistics University of Essex October 2016 Abstract A vocalisation may be described as a historical linguistic change where a sound which is formerly consonantal within a language becomes pronounced as a vowel. Although vocalisations have occurred sporadically in many languages they are particularly prevalent in the history of Germanic languages and have affected sounds from all places of articulation. This study will address two main questions. The first is why vocalisations happen so regularly in Germanic languages in comparison with other language families. The second is what exactly happens in the vocalisation process. For the first question there will be a discussion of the concept of ‘drift’ where related languages undergo similar changes independently and this will therefore describe the features of the earliest Germanic languages which have been the basis for later changes. The second question will include a comprehensive presentation of vocalisations which have occurred in Germanic languages with a description of underlying features in each of the sounds which have vocalised. When considering phonological changes a degree of phonetic information must necessarily be included which may be irrelevant synchronically, but forms the basis of the change diachronically. A phonological representation of vocalisations must therefore address how best to display the phonological information whilst allowing for the inclusion of relevant diachronic phonetic information. Vocalisations involve a small articulatory change, but using a model which describes vowels and consonants with separate terminology would conceal the subtleness of change in a vocalisation.
    [Show full text]
  • Sociophonetic Variation, Orientation and Topic in County Durham
    Sociophonetic Variation, Orientation and Topic in County Durham Thomas Patrick Devlin PhD University of York Language and Linguistic Science September 2014 Abstract This thesis presents a sociophonetic study of four villages in County Durham which have not previously been explored in sociolinguistic literature. As well as examining socially- conditioned phonological variation across the villages, the study analyses the linguistic relationship between the research site and two larger localities with their own urban varieties of English, which are situated at either side of the research area: the city of Sunderland to the north and the Teesside conurbation to the south. The study examines phonological variability in the linguistic production of a socially-homogeneous group of thirty-two speakers, split equally across the four villages and stratified by emically-defined age groups. More than 6500 tokens of the MOUTH, FACE, GOAT and START variables (following Wells’ 1982 method of classifying sets of vowels) are analysed from recorded sociolinguistic interviews with informants. The findings are compared to previous sociolinguistic investigations of other varieties of North East English in terms of the levelling of variants local to the area. The established methodological comparison of read speech and conversational styles is complemented by detailed investigation of the conversational topic in which the production occurs, and its effect on phonological variation. An Identity Questionnaire (pioneered by Llamas 2001) explores identity construction in County Durham and how this is shaped by local speech patterns. This is achieved by surveying speakers’ individual attitudes and perceptions about their local area and accents. The correlation of this language ideology data and speakers’ actual linguistic performance allows the study to assess the role orientation plays in variant usage.
    [Show full text]