A sociolinguistic study of t-glottalling in young RP : accent, class and education
Received Pronunciation (RP) has been widely described linguistically (Wells 1982, 1991, 1997), although little sociolinguistic research has been carried out on it (Fabricius 2000). Over the last few years, a new trend has been observed in young RP speakers to incorporate non-standard features in their accent, such as t-glottalling (Fabricius 2000). This quantitative sociophonetic study analyses to what extent t-glottalling is present in the speech of young RP speakers and which are the linguistic and social constraints that affect its variability. The data are based on sociolinguistic interviews of 20 teenagers, aged between 13 and 17, from three different types of schools in the South of England: a major public (private) boarding school, a private non-boarding school and an outstanding rated comprehensive school in a prosperous rural area. These data are complemented by 15 older speakers, aged 27, who are ex-alumni of the schools under study. The quantitative data are analysed through multivariate analysis using Varbrul. This thesis aims at re-visiting t-glottalling, a widely researched linguistic variable, from an innovative perspective, by splitting the dataset into word-medial and word-final and by analysing
Badia Barrera, Berta
P Philology. Linguistics
A sociolinguistic study of t-glottalling in young RP : accent, class and education. Received Pronunciation (RP) has been widely described linguistically (Wells 1982, 1991, 1997), although little sociolinguistic research has been carried out on it (Fabricius 2000). Over the last few years, a new trend has been observed in young RP speakers to incorporate non-standard features in their accent, such as t-glottalling (Fabricius 2000). This quantitative sociophonetic study analyses to what extent t-glottalling is present in the speech of young RP speakers and which are the linguistic and social constraints that affect its variability. The data are based on sociolinguistic interviews of 20 teenagers, aged between 13 and 17, from three different types of schools in the South of England: a major public (private) boarding school, a private non-boarding school and an outstanding rated comprehensive school in a prosperous rural area. These data are complemented by 15 older speakers, aged 27, who are ex-alumni of the schools under study. The quantitative data are analysed through multivariate analysis using Varbrul. This thesis aims at re-visiting t-glottalling, a widely researched linguistic variable, from an innovative perspective, by splitting the dataset into word-medial and word-final and by analysing
sociolinguistic_study young accent class education received pronunciation widely describe linguistically wells although_little sociolinguistic carry new trend observe young speaker incorporate non_standard feature accent quantitative sociophonetic study analysis extent present speech young speaker_linguistic social constraint affect variability data base sociolinguistic interview teenager age three_different type school south england major public_private board school private non school outstanding rat comprehensive school prosperous rural_area data complement old speaker age school study quantitative_data analyse multivariate_analysis use aim_re visiting widely research linguistic_variable innovative perspective split dataset word word_final analysing