accent levelling helen faye west

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. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

A town between dialects

Accent levelling, psycho-social orientation

andidentity in Merseyside, UK

Helen Faye WestUniversity of York

Speakers psycho-social orientation and social knowledge have oen been

identified as having an important role in linguistic change. We know, for

example, that speakers adoption of linguistic features from a neighbouring

region oen correlates with their positive social orientation towards that

region (Llamas 2007), and that their social orientation can be discussed with

reference to their interpretation of physical, political and social boundaries

(Llamas 2010). Southport, located 17 miles north of the large industrial city

of Liverpool, is historically an independent borough but was absorbed into

Merseyside in 1974. Southport and Liverpool are well connected by frequent

transport links and, given the high levels of contact between people, it has been

predicted that phonetic features of the Liverpool accent will diffuse into the

traditional Lancashire accent of Southport (Grey & Richardson 2007). However, a

complicating factor is Liverpools negative stereotype (Montgomery 2007), which

may be predicted to act as a barrier to the diffusion of Liverpool features.

is paper aims to analyse the diffusion of two local Liverpool features

the lenition of intervocalic and word-final /t/ and /k/ in speech from a corpus

of 39speakers stratified by age, gender and socio-economic status. I show that

despite the links between the two locations, the features of Liverpool are not

diffusing into Southport speech as rapidly as originally hypothesised. e second

aim is to investigate whether there is a correlation between speakers language use

and their spatial mobility patterns by mapping their external (contact) and

extra-linguistic (attitudinal) behaviour onto their linguistic production. I show

that varying patterns of contact could provide an explanation for the reduced

level of diffusion of Liverpool features.

In conclusion, I argue that understanding speakers psycho-social

orientations and social awareness, in conjunction with correlative patterns of

speech production is crucial for explaining language change.1

. I would like to thank Paul Kerswill, Kevin Watson, Eivind Torgesen and Lynn Clark for

their helpful suggestions in regard to this paper.


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Helen Faye West

. Introduction

Sociolinguistic study has increasingly been concerned with urban areas that besthighlight the nexus between social and linguistic factors that drive linguistic

change. Williams and Kerswill (1999)comparative research on three towns, which

varied according to the degree of mobility of their inhabitants, demonstrated the

importance of contact and identity in influencing dialect levelling. More recently,

increased attention has been paid to areas which lie near political boundaries, as

it in these areas that the effects of speaker attitudes and perception are heightened

(Beal 2010).

Southport was once an independent borough. However, under the Local

Government White Paper in 1971, the town was set to lose its borough status andbecome a district within Lancashire. is would have cost the town control of its

public and social services. Instead, Southport Corporation opted for inclusion into

the Metropolitan Borough of Seon in Merseyside (see Figure 1) to keep control

of its schools and services (cf. Grey & Richardson 2007).

Southport

Figure 1. Location of Southport and the Merseyside Border

As discussed in more detail below, however, the inclusion of Southport into

Merseyside is not only interesting in terms of the identity difficulties it poses for its


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inhabitants (cf.Llamas 2007study of Middlesbrough) but also the towns perceived

affiliation with Liverpool subsequent to this. Liverpool, approximately 17 miles to

the south of the town, is home to the largely negatively perceived Scouse accent(see Montgomery 2007). Hence, the current study poses three questions; (a) what

is the hypothesised direction of linguistic change based on patterns of contact

and linguistic diffusion?, (b) what is the actual direction of change? and (c) can

attitudinal factors be seen to affect the direction of change?

Indeed, based on population and distance, we might expect that Liverpool

would have a greater influence on Southport than the smaller Lancashire city of

Preston, 9 miles to the north-west. As Trudgill (1974) demonstrates in his study

of five towns within a small rural peninsula in Norway, the linguistic similarities

ofvowel variation in these towns successfully accounts for the patterns of linguis-tic change through hierarchical diffusion. e variant frequencies and variation

patterns in these towns pointed to small towns assimilating to nearby large towns,

before innovations filter down to smaller settlements within that area. In order

to formalise the process of diffusion, Trudgill posits the following equation (as

schematised in Boberg 2000: 2):

Iij =S ((Pi Pj) (dij)) (Pi Pj)

(Iij = influence of center i on center j, P = population, d = distance, S = index oflinguistic similarity)

Ignoring the index of similarity for the time being, based on population and

proximity alone, Liverpool is posited to have twice the potential influence on

Southport than Preston, as shown below:

Liverpool= ((469017 91404)/289) (469017/91404) = 761165903.876

Preston= ((184836 91404)/81) (184836/91404) = 421782057.771

As this paper will now discuss in detail however, the hypothesised pattern

of convergence can be intercepted by the extra-linguistic processes of speaker

orientation and attitude.

. Political boundaries: A potential barrier to levelling?

As Britain (2010: 200) states, numerous studies have been carried out on peripheral

and/or border towns on the assumption that it is in these regions where we may

well find increasingly heightened diversity. Such predictions have been made

for places along the Scottish-English border; as Glauser (1974) and Kay (1986)


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Helen Faye West

hypothesise, the already divergent dialects either side of border look set to diverge

further (Llamas 2010: 230).

In response to this claim, Llamas (2010) investigates the production of theindexically Scottish feature of rhoticity in coda position (Maguire et al. 2008)

analysing two major towns in Scotland and two in England in close proximity to

the border. Strikingly, despite derhotacisation in most urban Scottish varieties,

increased rhoticity was found in the speech of the young Eyemouth participants

(located north-east of the border), whilst all other localities in both Scotland and

England demonstrated a decrease in this variant. In conjunction with the attitudi-

nal data collected, the study concludes that this divergence is created in response

to a desire to sound Scottish as opposed to English.

Similarly,Bobergs (2000) study analyses 12 cities either side of the USCanadaborder, which is claimed to have long been a linguistic barrier of considerable

influence, just as it is a cultural divider (Chambers 2000: 118).2Taking Trudgills

(1974) model as an initial hypothesis for linguistic convergence, the model predicts

that the city of Windsor in Eastern Ontario should be completely assimilated to

Detroit within one generation, due to the population and proximity of the two

cities (Boberg 2000: 8).3 Despite this predicted trend of convergence, however,

both cities were found to remain distinct in terms of their phonetic output. Boberg

(2000: 23) concludes that the reason for this is the effect of the border and theheightened sense of otherness this provides. He states:

[i]n general, it seems safe to say that Canadians do not want to sound like

Americans, so that when a variant is marked [+American] rather than, say,

[+young] or [+trendy] it will not be readily transferred.

It is clear from these studies that extra-linguistic processes, such as speaker attitude

and identity, can intercept the projected direction of diffusion. As Labov (1972)

concludes in relation to his study of Marthas Vineyard, a larger center can have an

influence on a smaller one if the inhabitants of the smaller one hold a positive sub-jective evaluation of the larger center (Boberg 2000: 23). Indeed, Vandekerckhove

et al. (2009) affirm that whilst on a national level many European countries, nota-

bly Norway, are displaying regional rather than local levelling to display regional

affiliation, the opposite is true in the Netherlands, where dialects are used as a

more localised identity marker, and vary due to numerous social factors such as

region, age, class and so on.

. is is similarly attested by Llamas (2010: 231) who states, It is also clear that as far as the

attribution of national identity is concerned, linguistic behaviour is central to a categorisation.

. As Boberg (2000) claims that due to the perception in the media, Ontarians perceive

alinguistic similarity between the two cities.


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In relation to the current study, therefore, the town of Southport is particu-

larly well placed to further assess these claims, not only due to the presence of the

political boundary, but due also to the dialect of the largest centre of influence Scouse , being one of the most negatively perceived accents of English-English

(Montgomery 2007).

. Linguistic variables

In the light of the potential influence of the Liverpool Scouse dialect, numerous

supra-local accent features were selected for analysis. ese have, so far, shown

resistance to more widely spread levelling processes. For example, Watson

(2007) states that glottal stop occurs comparatively infrequently when comparedto its presence in other dialects across Britain (Stuart-Smith 1999; Kerswill &

Williams 2000).

e variables /t/ and /k/ are particularly interesting in Scouse as they are

subject to lenition (footnote), as schematised by Honeybone (2001: 242) below:

0 1 2 (3 4)

stop affricate fricative (h elision)

t t

/ts

/s (h )k kx x

e lenition of these forms is conditioned by both prosodic and melodic

features, such that, in the case of 0 2, the [ _#] (word-final) and [Vcm_(V)] (foot-

internal, post-stress) environments (see Table 1) are the most lenition-promoting

contexts in the Scouse dialect (Honeybone 2001).

Table 1. Lenition promoting environments and possible realisations of /t/ and /k/

Non-Scouse Scouse

/t/ [Vv] better [] [t] [ts] [s]

[V_#(V)] but it [] [t] [ts] [s] []

[V_##] what [] [t] [ts] [s] [h]

/k/ [Vv] speaker [k] [kx] [x]

[V_#(V)] look at [k] [kx] [x]

[V_##] like [k] [kx] [x]

Lenition of [t] [h], otherwise known as debuccalisation, and /t/ /r/

arenot only constrained to the phonological environments shown above but are

also lexically constrained (see Honeybone 2001; Clark & Watson 2011). For the


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Helen Faye West

purposes of this paper, however, they have not been included in the frequency

data, which show the distribution across all environments.

is paper will examine if these lenited forms are increasingly present inthe Southport dialect, as Trudgills model of diffusion might predict, or whether

the dialect is converging to other broader levelling processes, such as glottal

replacement of [t].

. Methodology

. Speaker sample

e speakers were stratified by age and gender, as shown in Table 2. Data were also

collected from archive recordings; hence, whilst a linguistic assessment of these

older speakers was possible, contact patterns and attitude data were not available.4

Table 2. Stratification of speaker sample

Younger Middle Older

1619 4055 70+ (Archive)

MiddleClass

WorkingClass

MiddleClass

WorkingClass

MiddleClass

WorkingClass

Female 4 4 4 4 2 1

Male 4 4 5 4 1 2

Informants had to have lived in Southport all of their lives, and age was

divided emically, with the middle age group being the first generation to witness

the change of the political boundary at a very young age. Interviews were mainlyconducted in pairs with age-groups and social class kept distinct.

. Data elicitation

Informants were recorded responding to an identity questionnaire (Stoddart et al.

1999; Llamas 2007) which elicited both overt and covert attitudes. Informants were

asked their opinions about the surrounding region and the people of Southport,

Preston and Liverpool, before being asked overtly about their attitudes towards

. Archive material provided by the North West Sound Archive. All speakers were born 1930

or earlier and were recorded in 2002.


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the dialects to be found here. In addition informants were asked how oen they

visited these cities for work, family, friends, shopping and so on; the interview last-

ing approximately 4060 minutes. Auditory and acoustic analysis of the linguisticoutput was undertaken using Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2009).

. Results

. Social and linguistic variation in /t/

10

0

20

30

40

50

60

70

8090

100

MC

Female

n = 280


MC

Male

WC

Female

WC

Male

MC

Female

MC

Male

WC

Female

WC

Male

MC

Female

MC

Male

WC

Female

WC

Male

n = 330 n = 421 n = 446 n = 245 n = 242 n = 403 n = 185 n = 269 n = 80 n = 119 n = 180

Non-Scouse

Scouse

Figure 2. Realisation of /t/: All linguistic environments, distribution according to age, gender

and class in Southport (%)

e decrease of Scouse variants over time, as shown in Figure 2, is striking as

we see 30% less [ts] and [s] production from middle age speech to younger speech,

despite the prediction of the diffusion model. e effect of speaker age on its own

is highly significant (p = 0.001).5Moreover, if we were to look at the non-Scousevariants in isolation we would see that younger speakers produce 90% glottal

stop (p = 0.02), which as mentioned above is relatively infrequent in Liverpool

speech. e older speakers, on the other hand, demonstrate less than 10% usage

[]. Speaker class and sex were insignificant in variant distribution (p = 0.4 and

p=0.3, respectively).

Linguistic environment (Figure 3) has a highly significant effect on variant

distribution. Word medial position appears to be the most promoting environ-

ment for Scouse features, with 40% usage of [ts] and [s] (p = 0.0001). In word

. All statistical analyses were done using logistical regression mixed effect models in

R2.14.1. with speaker and word as a random effect.


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Helen Faye West

final environments there is a considerable increase in glottal stop, in particular in

[V_##], which demonstrates 80% usage of this variant (p = 0.001). We see most

clearly the complementary distribution of glottal stop in relation to the Scousevariants in this environment, as the spirantised variant [s] is practically non-

existent here (p=0.0002). Moreover, this is not due to any other rival variant such

as the aforementioned [h], which barely appears in Southport speech. Overall, the

reduction of the Scouse variants in both the social and linguistic environment data

is highly indicative of divergence between Southport and Scouse.

n = 771

[V_#V] [V_v] [V_#v] [V_##]

n = 606 n = 805 n = 1018

Non-Scouse []

Non-Scouse [th]

Scouse [ts]

Scouse [s]

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

7080

90

100

Figure 3. Realisation of /t/ according to linguistic environment (%)

. Social and linguistic variation in /k/

10

0

20

30

40

5060

70

80

90

100

MC

Female

n = 126


MC

Male

WC

Female

WC

Male

MC

Female

MC

Male

WC

Female

WC

Male

MC

Female

MC

Male

WC

Female

WC

Male

n = 120 n = 143 n = 113 n = 72 n = 74 n = 110 n = 54 n = 98 n = 31 n = 57 n = 77

Non-Scouse

Scouse

Figure 4. Realisation of /k/: all linguistic environments, according to age, gender and class in

Southport (%)

Of immediate interest in Figure 4 is the emergence of an unexpected glottal/

velar stop variant. Although this variants distribution is significantly governed


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by age (p = 0.0006) glottal /k/ is still relatively unusual in comparison to glottal

/t/, and so does not dominate in the younger speech. Moreover, on closer inves-

tigation, it appears that this variant is particularly favoured in discursive usage oflike, which is a frequent discourse marker in younger speech but not in the older

groups (Figure 6, below).

In comparison to /t/ we do not find a dramatic decrease of the Scouse

variants over time. Indeed speaker age has a highly significant effect on

variant distribution (p = 0.0001). As we can see in Figure 4, other than its high

frequency in the speech of middle aged males, its use appears to be increas-

ing. Older speakers, on the other hand, demonstrate on average 60% usage

of[k], showing a clear preference for this form over Scouse variants. Speaker

sex (p=0.0001) and class (p = 0.0001) also proved highly significant in thedistribution of Scouse variants. As Figure 4 demonstrates, in younger speech,

the Scouse variants are predominantly used by working class speakers, with

sex displaying little variation here, whilst amongst the middle age speakers, the

middle class males display 70% usage of [kx] and [x] followed by the working

class males who show 55% usage.

Similar to the distribution of the variants of /t/, the distribution of Scouse

variants in Figure 5 is comparatively high in intervocalic position; particularly

in [V_V]. Given this observation it is perhaps reasonable to suggest that thisdistribution is indicative of a connected speech process (cf. Shockey 2003: 28).

Indeed the production of the fricative Scouse variant is much closer to a velar [x]

rather than the uvular [] variant, which is increasingly used in Scouse speech

(Watson 2007). However, the distribution of the Scouse variants only proved

significant in word final, pre-pausal position (p = 0.0004), where the fricative form

is considerably reduced.

n = 233

[V_#V] [V_v] [V_#v] [V_##]

n = 315 n = 240 n = 297

Non-Scouse []

Non-Scouse [kh]

Scouse [kx]

Scouse [x]

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Figure 5. Realisation of /k/ according to linguistic environment (%)


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Helen Faye West

As with /t/, it is in [V_##] that we see an increase in [] (p = 0.001). In

further analysis of the data, however, it was clear that the discursive like, shown

in Figure 6, was most frequently used at the end of a sentence.

Discursive Non-discursive All other words

[V_#V] [V_#v] [V_##] [V_#V] [V_#v] [V_##] [V_#V] [V_v] [V_#v] [V_##]

n = 66 n = 144 n = 137 n = 7 n = 24 n = 18 n = 150 n = 314 n = 102 n = 142

Non-Scouse []

Non-Scouse [kh]

Scouse [kx]

Scouse [x]

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Figure 6. Realisation of likeaccording to age and linguistic environment (%)

Within this dataset the increase in the discursive usage of likehas increased

over time; from 5% in older speakers to 60% in younger speech. Moreover, discur-

sive like was found to be considerably more frequent sentence finally. As Figure 6

clearly demonstrates in relation to this, the glottal variant is particularly promoted

not only in word final, pre-pausal position, but its frequency in relation to discur-

sive like is particularly significant (p = 0.0001).

. Extra-linguistic data

e following data demonstrate the average overall contact that individuals have

with both Liverpool and Preston, with a score of 5 = daily, 4 = weekly, 3 = fort-

nightly, 2 = monthly, 1 = annually and 0 = never. e percentages present thespeakers frequency of [s] production on the leand [x] on the right (see appendix

for all individual production of all variants of /t/ and /k/).6

If we were to look at the overall averages, without looking at the individual,

we would see that the contact patterns by age group look equal for each location.

However, by analysing individual scores (Figure 7) two distinct clusters emerge,

with the working class speakers clearly visiting Preston more than Liverpool.

Liverpool, on the other hand, though preferred by the middle class speakers is

still visited by all speakers at least once a month. Despite this overall preference

. e individual coding system is as follows: F01 = Female 1, M01 = Male 1 and below

MF01 = Middle (age) Female 1, MM01 = Middle (age) Male 1 and so on.


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for Liverpool, however, the Scouse variants are comparatively low, due to the high

percentages of []. Similarly, there does not seem to be a correlation between

speakers who use Scouse forms more frequently and those who visit the city moreoen; for example, comparing the percentage usage of Scouse variants for speaker

M03 who visits the city weekly with the much higher percentage for speaker M09

who visits Liverpool annually.

25%

1%

3%

10%

5%

5%

9%

4%

3%

6%

6%

14%

3%

7%

6%

5%

15%

43%

5%

24%

14%

19%

33%

33%

70%

65%

46%

66%

45%

53%

29%

40%

M04

M03

M02

M01MC

WC

F04

F03

F02

F01

M09

M08

M06

M05

F08

F07

F06

F05

Liverpool Preston

= 5

= 4

= 3

= 2

= 1

= 0

Figure 7. Younger speakers frequencies of contact with people in Liverpool and Preston (heatmap using R 2.12.2, 5 = daily, 0 = never)

Contrary to the younger speakers, the data for the middle age group in Figure8

show a much clearer distinction between the two locations, with the majority

of informants never visiting Preston whilst less than a quarter visit monthly or

annually.

Liverpool, on the other hand, demonstrates more contact overall, with only

one individual never visiting the city, whilst the majority of informants visit on a

monthly or fortnightly basis. For some speakers there appears to be a correlationbetween contact and speech production; speakers MM03 and MM04, for example.

Yet, there are several anomalies; for instance in the comparison between speaker

MF01 and MF06. Of course, for the impact of contact to be a considered with

this age group we would have to assume that contact has an effect over a speakers


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Helen Faye West

lifespan (see Sankoff& Blondeau 2007). Nonetheless, due to these unsatisfactory

correlations for both age groups, this paper will now turn to attitude as a potentially

more prominent factor influencing individual speech production.

25%

47%

35%

54%

29%

46%

5%

38%

44%

10%

40%

29%

34%

22%

39%9%

33%

57%

88%

57%

90%

77%

17%

36%

44%

45%

27%

25%

60%

80%

60%

39%35%

21%

MM11

MM10

MM09

MM08

MC

WC

MM07

MF08

MF07

MF06

MF05

MM04

MM03

MM02

MM01

MF04

MF03MF02

MF01

Liverpool Preston

= 5

= 4

= 3

= 2

= 1

= 0

Figure 8. Middleaged speakers frequencies of contact with people in Liverpool and Preston

(heat map using R 2.12.2, 5 = daily, 0 = never))

.

Attitudinal data

e following graphs illustrate the overt responses to accent. Figures 9 and10

respectively show younger and middle age responses to how different they feel

their individual accent is from Scouse and Lancashire (5 = the same, 1 = totally

different).

In the perception of their accents it is clear that the majority of speakers are

unsure as to how they sound. e younger speakers in particular cluster around

the middle for both accents with five out of sixteen speakers selecting an in-

between score of 3. Overall there is a slight leaning towards a Scouse perception inyounger middle class speech, whilst the younger working class orient their accent

towards Lancashire.

e opposite can be seen for the middle age speakers who perceive their

accent as more Lancashire than Scouse, with a number of speakers selecting a


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score of 1 for Scouse but 2 or 3 for Lancashire. e working class speakers, on the

other hand, display a stronger orientation towards Scouse.

Figures 11 and 12 display the younger and middle age groups response to thequestion: How offended would you be at your accent being identified as Scouse

and Lancashire (1 = very offended, 5 = not at all).

= 5

= 4

= 3

= 2

= 1

MM11

MM10

MM09

MM08

MC

WC

MM07

MF08

MF07

MF06

MF05

MM04

MM03

MM02

MM01

MF04

MF03

MF02

MF01

Scouse Lancashire

M04

M03

M02

M01

MC

WC

F04

F03

F02

F01

M09

M08

M06

M05

F08

F07

F06

F05

Scouse Lancashire

Figures 9 and 10. Younger and middle age groups perception of difference between their

ownaccent and that of Scouse/Lancashire (heat map using R 2.12.2)

MM11

MM10

MM09

MM08

MC

WC

MM07

MF08

MF07

MF06

MF05

MM04

MM03

MM02

MM01

MF04

MF03

MF02

MF01

Scouse Lancashire

= 5

= 4

= 3

= 2

= 1

M04

M03

M02

M01

MC

WC

F04

F03

F02

F01

M09

M08

M06

M05

F08

F07

F06

F05

Scouse Lancashire

Figures 11 and 12. Younger and middle age groups perception of Scouse and Lancashire

identification as an offence (heat map using R 2.12.2)


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Helen Faye West

Surprisingly, here, the majority of younger speakers report offence at their

accent being identified as Scouse, including the younger middle class and middle

age working class who perceived their own accent as Scouse (Figures 9 and10).Both age groups show a more positive attitude towards being identified as

soundingLancashire.

. Convergence or divergence? Initial evidence from the social

andlinguistic data

Certainly one of the most robust findings of this study of Southport is the increase

in glottal stop in both /t/ and /k/. In the case of /t/ in particular, contrary to theprediction of Scouse influence, Southport appears to be in the reach of a much

broader process of diffusion; the spread of glottal stop across the UK (Kerswill&

Williams 2000). Perhaps it is historical linguistic similarity, as suggested by

Trudgills (1974) Gravity Model, that is the key factor in determining the direction

of change. As Johnson and Britain (2007) find in their study of the diffusion of /l/-

vocalisation across the Fens, levelling towards a vocalised variant occurred most

rapidly in areas that displayed dark /l/ initially, whilst areas with a history of clear

/l/ were shown to block the spread or show diffusion at much slower rates. PerhapsScouse, in its convergence with Irish varieties (see Knowles 1973; Irish mass immi-

gration in the 1800s) is now linguistically too dissimilar from the surrounding

Lancashire varieties which have not had the same extent of Irish contact.

e data for /k/ are less straightforward. Despite the initial observations that

there are parallels between /t/ and /k/ with an increase in []-realizations, the

occurrence of the glottal stop in the /k/ data set cannot be attributed to diffusion,

as this is not a common variant for most accents of British English. Moreover,

unlike the Scouse variants of /t/, Scouse forms of /k/ display an overall increase

in the speech production of younger people. So what are the motivations for

these forms?

Watson (2007) claims that [x] is a salient Scouse feature. Indeed, when

asked in the interviews whether they could think of a typically Scouse sound or

pronunciation, younger speakers nearly always mentioned the uvular [] variant,

while the older speakers recognised the fronted nature of the NURSE/SQUARE

merger as more salient (cf. Knowles 1973). e Scouse [x], however, is either

identified with the word like,or not attributed specifically to /k/, but perceived

as a sound which is randomly made in speech (Speaker M02). One could thenargue that the use of the glottal variant, parallel to the production of discursive

likein younger speech, is perhaps indicative of the salience of [x] in this word, and

speakers subsequent desire to avoid this feature.


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Turning now to the interplay of the extralinguistic factors and speech

production, contact with Liverpool appears, remarkably, to have very little impact.

Moreover, younger speakers show comparatively less contact with Scouse, yet anincrease in Scouse forms of /k/. When looking at the individual contact patterns,

we see that two of the middle aged females have considerably more contact with

Liverpool than the males, yet their production of Scouse forms is noticeably

less than their male counterparts. However, despite there not being a consistent

correlation within this age group as a whole, if we look at the linguistic out-put and

contact of the males in isolation, then a positive correlation can be seen between

increased contact with Liverpool and the production of Scouse forms.

e overt attitudinal data do provide some indication as to speakers preferred

orientation. However, overall, speakers take a middle of the road approach whenasked specifically for their opinion about Scouse, selecting scores of 2 or 3, perhaps

to appear politically correct in front of a stranger.roughout the interview,

however, numerous covert opinions surfaced. For instance, it was very common

for informants to complain that their council tax was now spent on more deprived

areas of Liverpool rather than on Southport, as a consequence of the shiof the

political border. Speakers true attitudes might therefore be discovered by closer

discourse analysis. e interplay of attitude and linguistic constraint, then, is in

need of further investigation.

References

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svg (08/08/2011)
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Appendix

(1) Actual scores and percentages of younger speakers individual /t/ production.

YOUNGER [] [s] [t] [ts] TOTAL [] (%) [s] (%) [t] (%) [ts] (%)

F01 66 0 0 3 69 95.65 0 0 4.34

F02 53 1 1 4 59 89.83 1.69 1.69 6.77

F03 77 1 0 3 81 95.06 1.23 0 3.70

F04 69 0 0 4 73 94.52 0 0 5.47

F05 123 4 2 2 131 93.89 3.05 1.52 1.52

F06 78 2 1 3 84 92.85 2.38 1.19 3.57

F07 119 7 1 2 129 92.24 5.42 0.77 1.55

F08 76 0 1 2 79 96.20 0 1.26 2.53

M01 105 10 4 2 121 86.77 8.26 3.30 1.65

M02 55 1 1 1 58 94.82 1.72 1.72 1.72

M03 79 0 0 1 80 98.75 0 0 1.25

M04 47 3 6 15 71 66.19 4.22 8.45 21.12

M05 105 7 3 11 126 83.33 5.55 2.38 8.73

M06 109 4 1 3 117 93.16 3.41 0.85 2.56

M08 102 2 0 3 107 95.32 1.86 0 2.80

M09 93 0 0 3 96 96.87 0 0 3.12

(2)Actual scores and percentages of younger speakers individual /k/ production.

YOUNGER Glottal [k ] [kx] [x] TOTAL Glottal (%) [k ] (%) [kx] (%) [x](%)

F01 12 4 4 4 24 50 16.66 16.66 16.66

F02 21 5 3 10 39 53.84 12.82 7.69 25.64

F03 5 8 3 0 16 31.25 50 18.75 0

F04 4 8 2 0 14 28.57 57.14 14.28 0

F05 27 6 9 13 55 49.09 10.90 16.36 23.63

F06 17 12 5 7 41 41.46 29.26 12.19 17.07

F07 10 8 5 15 38 26.31 21.05 13.15 39.47

F08 16 7 9 10 42 38.09 16.66 21.42 23.80

M01 21 8 4 5 38 55.26 21.05 10.52 13.15

M02 8 12 1 0 21 38.09 57.14 4.76 0

M03 8 15 10 8 41 19.51 36.58 24.39 19.51

M04 8 9 1 2 20 40 45 5 10

(Continued)


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Helen Faye West

YOUNGER Glottal [k ] [kx] [x] TOTAL Glottal (%) [k ] (%) [kx] (%) [x](%)

M05 9 5 14 13 41 21.95 12.19 34.14 31.70

M06 10 9 9 7 35 28.57 25.71 25.71 20

M08 4 2 4 7 17 23.52 11.76 23.52 41.17

M09 4 2 2 12 20 20 10 10 60

(3) Actual scores and percentages of middle age speakers individual /t/ production.

MIDDLE [] [s] [t] [ts] TOTAL [] (%) [s] (%) [t] (%) [ts] (%)

MF01 80 2 9 42 133 60.15 1.50 6.76 31.57

MF02 89 1 49 12 151 58.94 0.66 32.45 7.94

MF03 45 0 24 4 74 60.81 0 33.78 5.40

MF04 35 0 9 1 45 77.77 0 20 2.22

MF05 13 6 1 5 25 52 24 4 20

MF06 19 6 5 9 39 48.71 15.38 12.82 23.07

MF07 90 1 4 1 96 93.75 1.04 4.16 1.04

MF08 41 5 26 13 85 48.23 5.88 30.58 15.29

MM01 32 10 1 5 48 66.66 20.83 2.08 10.41

MM02 49 4 0 16 69 71.01 5.79 0 23.18

MM03 21 2 0 12 35 60 5.71 0 34.28

MM04 26 0 1 1 28 92.85 0 3.57 3.57

MM07 34 6 2 9 51 66.66 11.76 3.92 17.64

MM08 10 3 2 11 26 38.46 11.53 7.69 42.30

MM09 35 9 1 10 55 63.63 16.36 1.81 18.18

MM10 24 20 5 5 54 44.44 37.03 9.25 9.25

MM11 41 0 12 2 55 74.54 0 21.81 3.63

(4) Actual scores and percentages of middle speakers individual /k/ production.

MIDDLE Glottal [k ] [kx] [x] TOTAL Glottal (%) [k ] (%) [kx] (%) [x] (%)

MF01 1 18 4 1 24 4.16 75 16.66 4.166

MF02 3 25 11 4 43 6.97 58.13 25.58 9.30

MF03 3 11 6 3 23 13.04 47.82 26.08 13.04

MF04 3 5 10 2 20 15 25 50 10MF05 0 5 1 4 10 0 50 10 40

MF06 2 3 1 3 9 22.22 33.33 11.11 33.33

(Continued)


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MIDDLE Glottal [k ] [kx] [x] TOTAL Glottal (%) [k ] (%) [kx] (%) [x] (%)

MF07 8 10 6 4 28 28.57 35.71 21.42 14.28

MF08 0 20 4 0 24 0 83.33 16.66 0

MM01 1 2 6 10 19 5.26 10.52 31.57 52.63

MM02 1 5 4 5 15 6.66 33.33 26.66 33.33

MM03 0 6 2 0 8 0 75 25 0

MM04 2 6 2 1 11 18.18 54.54 18.18 9.09

MM07 1 3 10 10 24 4.166 12.5 41.66 41.66

MM08 0 1 0 9 10 0 10 0 90

MM09 1 2 0 4 7 14.28 28.57 0 57.14MM10 1 1 0 15 17 5.88 5.88 0 88.23

MM11 3 3 6 2 14 21.42 21.42 42.85 14.28

accent levelling helen faye west

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