Individual differences in intra-speaker variation: T-glottalling in England and Scotland

This presentation explores stylistic variation in the use of word-medial released and glottalled (t) in London and Edinburgh. While across communities norms of stylistic variation may differ, within a community, sociolinguistic theory predicts these to be similar (Labov 1972): we would expect more T-glottalling in informal than in formal styles for all individuals within a speech community. While this seems to hold for communities where the vernacular and the standard are close in structure, there has been some evidence that this generalisation may not hold in dialect areas where this is not the case (Johnston 1983; Milroy 1980; Newbrook 1982). However, such findings are hard to evaluate due to a lack of direct comparisons between different community types. London and Edinburgh are particularly suited for such a comparison as London represents a community of the former and Edinburgh of the latter type. In this presentation, I aim to answer two questions: (1) Do context-appropriate norms of stylistic variation differ within Britain and (2) are context-appropriate norms of stylistic variation similar within communities? Data is based on paired sociolinguistic interviews of 24 London-born adolescents and 21 Edinburgh-born adolescents. Results suggest that while style-shifting norms from speech to reading differ among London and Edinburgh adolescents for T-glottalling, they are mostly similar within the communities. However, there are a somewhat large number of Edinburgh adolescents who diverge from the majority norm and who do not style-shift at all. This points to some ambivalence in the local norms regarding T-glottalling and may be a reflection of varying stances that different speakers may hold towards speaking and reading norms of the community.