15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15) Barcelona, Spain August 3-9, 2003

A Sociophonetic Investigation of the Vowels OUT and BIT in Glaswegian

Viktoria Eremeeva, Jane Stuart-Smith

University of Glasgow, UK

This paper presents a sociophonetic investigation of the vowels OUT and BIT in the read and spontaneous speech of 16 male Glaswegian speakers (8 boys, 8 men; 8 middle-class, 8 working-class). Auditory and acoustic analysis together confirms social stratification in the realization of the two vowels. OUT is generally fronter in working-class speakers, though middle-class boys also use fronted vowels, suggesting sound change in progress. BIT tends to be low and retracted in working-class speakers, while indications of fronting in middle-class boys again point to sound change in progress in these speakers.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Eremeeva, Viktoria / Stuart-Smith, Jane (2003): "A sociophonetic investigation of the vowels OUT and BIT in Glaswegian", In ICPhS-15, 1205-1208.