An investigation of postvocalic /r/ in Glaswegian adolescents Jane Stuart-Smith and Robert Lawson Department of English Language, University of Glasgow 1. Postvocalic /r/ in Scottish English Scottish English is typically described as rhotic (e.g.Wells, 1982: 10-11). Postvocalic /r/ is variable: [  ] - trills are rare and/or stereotypical (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996: 236) [  ] - alveolar taps are more often noted (e.g. Johnston 1997) [  ] [  ] – approximants – retroflex and post-alveolar - are also common (e.g. Johnston 1997) 2. Postvocalic /r/ is changing Changes to postvocalic /r/ have been reported in working-class speakers in Edinburgh (e.g. Romaine 1978) and Glasgow (Johnston 1997; Stuart-Smith 2003): -vowels produced with secondary articulation (pharyngealization/uvularization/velarization) – or a very weak approximant - vowels without audible secondary articulation, i.e. similar to vowels in syllables without /r/ 4. Research Questions This is a small-scale study to begin investigating 1. What is the realization of postvocalic /r/ in young working-class Glaswegian speakers? 2. What are the acoustic characteristics of postvocalic /r/ in flux? 5. Methodology 12 male working-class informants from Glasgow: 1m = years 2m = years 3m = years 4m = years Auditory results summarized in charts above collapse the transcriptions into broad categories and reveal variability in response from transcribers (cf. Plug and Ogden 2003). How do you hear them? (Listen to the samples file.) 3. Acoustic characteristics of /r/ Differing acoustic properties (e.g. Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996): - lowered F3 – retroflex and post-alveolar approximants - high F3 – uvular articulations Postvocalic /r/ in Dutch also shows variable ‘deletion’ and (Plug and Ogden 2003): - longer vowels - differing vowel and consonantal quality 10 words were selected from a read wordlist recorded onto DAT: hatbanfan(cat) heartbarnfarmcarfarcard Speech digitized into CSL at 44,100 Hz: - auditory analysis (three transcribers) - (parametric) acoustic analysis using Praat: duration of vocalic portion; vowel quality (midpoint; track: 5 pulses up to and including end of vocalic portion) References Johnston, P. (1997) 'Regional Variation', in C. Jones (ed), The Edinburgh History of Scots, Ladefoged, P. and Maddieson, I. (1996), The Sounds of the World’s Languages, Oxford: Blackwell Plug, L. and Ogden, R. (2003), ‘A parametric approach to the phonetics of postvocalic /r/ in Dutch’, Phonetica, 60, Romaine, S. (1978), ‘Postvocalic /r/ in Scottish English: Sound change in progress?’, in P. Trudgill (ed.), Sociolinguistic Patterns in British English, London: Arnold, Stuart-Smith, J. (2003), ‘The phonology of Modern Urban Scots’, in J. Corbett, J. D. McClure, and J. Stuart-Smith, The Edinburgh Companion to Scots, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, Wells, J. C. (1982), Accents of English, 3 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 6. Auditory analysis - Older speakers showed most articulated /r/: [  ] [  ] [  ] and even [  ] - Younger speakers showed: - rare weakly approximated taps/approximants - pharyngealized/uvularized vowels - vowels with no audible colouring - odd instances of vowels followed by [h] or [  ] 4m1 farm 4m2 car 3m1 far 2m1 card 1m3 car 3m3 far This research was partly supported by ESRC grant no. R We are very grateful to Claire Timmins and Jim Scobbie for their help in preparing this poster. 7. Acoustic analysis - duration Overall, the vocalic portion of words with /r/ is longer than those without /r/ (p =.0039). This is regardless of whether an apical /r/ is heard (red dots) or not. There is also some variation. 8. Acoustic analysis – vowel quality (midpoint) Midpoint formant values show that words with /r/ are generally more retracted than for words without /r/. Words heard with /r/ (red dots), tend to be even more retracted. F3 values were not always easy to measure, because F3 was often difficult to identify, especially in younger speakers. Measures tend to show high, rather than lower, F3 values, suggesting possible uvular articulation for some tokens. (See samples file and formant tracks.) 9. Acoustic analysis – vowel quality (formant track) Sample tracks from 3m1, heard as rhotic shows slight dip in (high) F3 in most words with /r/. Sample tracks from 3m3, whose /r/ is heard as pharyngealized, shows high, flat F Summary auditory analysis confirms a range of possible realizations for postvocalic /r/ in Glaswegian adolescents, with (‘coloured’) vowels as the most common outcome (as Johnston 1997: 511) acoustic analysis shows that syllables with /r/ (though without audible apical articulation) tend to be longer, and show lower F2 and high(er) F3  postvocalic /r/ is certainly changing, but as in Dutch, the outcome is usually still distinct from words without /r/. More work is needed to ascertain the articulatory nature of these changes.