Individual variation in allophonic processes of /t/ in Standard Southern British English
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v23i1.26870Keywords:
forensic phonetics, individual variation, t-tapping, t-glottaling, frication of /t/, idiolectal styleAbstract
Several studies have demonstrated that the analysis of features that show sociolinguistic variation provides important information about speakers and, therefore, they are useful to be considered in forensic contexts (Moosmüller 1997; Loakes and McDougall 2004, 2007, 2010; de Jong et al 2007a and 2007b). The present research analyses the discriminatory potential of three allophonic processes of /t/ that show variation in SSBE: tapping, glottaling and frication. Nine categorical variables that consider these processes were formulated and compared by means of the Chi-square test in a corpus containing real time data from 10 different speakers (five males and five females). Results show that these processes are speaker and context-specific since they exhibit high discriminatory potential only in certain linguistic contexts, where intra-speaker variation is low and inter-speaker variation is high. Therefore, the study presented here highlights the relevance of the analysis of sociolinguistic variation in forensic contexts.References
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Baldwin, J. (1979) Phonetics and speaker identification. Medicine, Science and the Law 19: 231–232
Buizza, E. (2011) Frication and affrication of /t/ in RP English. In Z. Absi, M. Althobaiti, V. Heyer, M. Ogawa, C. Patterson and T. Soultatis (eds) Language at the University of Essex (LangUE) 2010 Proceedings 16-28. Colchester: Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex.
Butler, C. (1985) Statistics in Linguistics. New York: Blackwell.
Carr, P. (1999) English Phonetics and Phonology: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Coulthard, M. (2004) Author identification, idiolect, and linguistic uniqueness. Applied Linguistics 25(4): 431–447. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.4.431
Chaski, C. E. (2001) Empirical evaluations of language-based author identification techniques. Forensic Linguistics 8: 1–65.
Cruttenden, A. (2001) Gimson’s Pronunciation of English. London: Arnold.
de Jong, G. M., McDougall, K., Hudson, T. and Nolan, F. (2007a) The speaker-discriminating power of sounds undergoing historical change: a formant-based study. In J. Trouvain and W. Barry (eds) Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 6–10 August 2007, Saarbrücken: 1813–1816.
de Jong, G. M., McDougall, K. and Nolan, F. (2007b) Sound change and speaker identity: an acoustic study. In C. Müller (ed.) Speaker Classification II: Selected Projects 130–141. Berlin: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74122-0_12
Elliott, A. C. and Woodward, W. A. (2007) Statistical Analysis: Quick Reference Guidebook with SPSS Examples. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Fabricius, A. H. (2000) T-glottalling between stigma and prestige: a sociolinguistic study of modern RP. Unpublished PhD thesis, Copenhagen Business School. Retrieved on 4 February 2015 from http://www.akira.ruc.dk/~fabri/fabricius-2000-phd-thesis.pdf
Hannisdal, B. (2006) Variability and change in Received Pronunciation. A study of six phonological variables in the speech of television newsreaders. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Bergen. Retrieved on 4 February 2015 from https://bora.uib.no/bitstream/handle/1956/2335/Dr.Avh.Bente%20Hannisdal.pdf?sequence=1
Harris, J. (1994) English Sound Structure. Oxford: Blackwell.
Haslerud, V. (1995) The variable (t) in Sydney adolescent speech. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Bergen.
Hickey, R. (1999) Dublin English: current changes and their motivation. In P. Foulkes and G. Docherty (eds) Urban Voices: Variation and Change in British Accents 265–281. London: Arnold.
Holmes, J. (1994) New Zealand flappers: an analysis of T Voicing in New Zealand English. English World-Wide 15(2): 195–224. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.15.2.03hol
Johnstone, B. (1996) The Linguistic Individual: Self-Expression in Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jones, M. and Llamas, C. (2008) Fricated realisations of /t/ in Dublin and Middlesbrough English: an acoustic analysis of plosive frication and surface fricative contrasts. English Language and Linguistics 12(3): 419–443. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1360674308002700
Jones, M. and McDougall, K. (2009) The acoustic character of fricated /t/ in Australian English: a comparison with /s/ and /?/. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 39(3): 265–289. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025100309990132
Jones, M. J. and McDougall, K. (2006) A comparative acoustic study of Australian English fricated /t/: Assessing the Irish (English) link. In P. Warren and C.I. Watson (eds) Proceedings of the 11th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, 6–8 December 2006 6-12. Auckland: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association.
Labov, W. (1966) The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington. DC: Centre for Applied Linguistics.
Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Labov, W. (1982) Building on empirical foundations. In W. P. Lehmann and Y. Malkiel (eds) Perspectives on Historical Linguistics 72–92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cilt.24.06lab
Labov, W. (1989) The exact description of a speech community: short a in Philadelphia. In R. W. Fasold and D. Schiffrin (eds) Language change and variation 1-58. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Loakes, D. (2006) A forensic phonetic investigation into the speech patterns of identical and non-identical twins. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Melbourne.
Loakes, D. and McDougall, K. (2004) Frication of /k/ and /p/ in Australian English: inter- and intra-speaker variation. In S. C. Cassidy (ed.) Proceedings of the 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology 171–176. Sydney: Australian Speech Science and Technology Association.
Loakes, D. and McDougall, K. (2007) Frication of Australian English /p t k/: group tendencies and individual differences. In J. Trouvain (ed.) Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 1445–1448. Saarbrücken: Universität des Saarlandes.
Loakes, D. and McDougall, K. (2010) Individual variation in the frication of voiceless plosives in Australian English: a study of twins’ speech. Australian Journal of Linguistics 30(2): 155–181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07268601003678601
Marotta, G. and Barth, M. (2006) Acoustic and sociolinguistic aspects of lenition in Liverpool English. Studi Linguistici e Filologici Online 3(2): 377–410.
McMenamin, G. (2002) Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1201/9781420041170
Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (1977) Speech community and language variety in Belfast. Report to the Social Science Research Council, London.
Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (1978) Belfast: change and variation in an urban vernacular. In P. Trudgill (ed.) Sociolinguistic Patterns in British English 19–36. London: Eduard Arnold.
Moosmüller, S. (1997) Phonological variation in speaker identification. Forensic Linguistics 4(1): 29–47.
Oakes, M. P. (1998) Statistics for Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Payne, A. (1980) Factors controlling the acquisition of the Philadelphia dialect by out-of-state children. In W. Labov (ed.) Locating Language in Time and Space 143–178. New York: New York Academic Press.
Shockey, L. (2003) Sound Patterns of Spoken English. Oxford: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470758397
Smith, W. (1994) Computers, statistics and disputed authorship. In J. Gibbons (ed.) Language and the Law 374–413 New York: Longman.
Svartvik, J. (1968) The Evans Statements: A Case for Forensic Linguistics. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Tollfree, L. (1999) South-East London English: discrete versus continual modelling of consonantal reduction. In P. D. Foulkes and G. Docherty (eds) Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles 163–184. London: Arnold.
Tollfree, L. (2001) Variation and change in Australian English consonants: reduction of /t/. In D. Blair and B. Collins (eds) English in Australia 45–67. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Turell, M. T. (2010) The use of textual, grammatical and sociolinguistic evidence in forensic text comparison. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 17(2): 211–250.
Watson, K. (2007) Illustrations of the IPA: Liverpool English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37(3): 351–360. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025100307003180
Watt, D. and Milroy, L. (1999) Patterns of variation and change in three Newcastle vowels: is this dialect levelling? In P. D. Foulkes and G. Docherty (eds) Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles 25–46. London: Arnold.
Wells, J. (1982) Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611759
Woods, A., Fletcher, P. and Hughes, A. (1986) Statistics in Language Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165891
Woods, H. B. (1991) Social differentiation in Ottawa English. In J. Cheshire (ed.) English around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives 134–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511611889.010
Ashby, M. and Przedlacka, J. (2011) The stops that aren’t. Journal of the English Phonetic Society of Japan 1: 14–15.
Baldwin, J. (1979) Phonetics and speaker identification. Medicine, Science and the Law 19: 231–232
Buizza, E. (2011) Frication and affrication of /t/ in RP English. In Z. Absi, M. Althobaiti, V. Heyer, M. Ogawa, C. Patterson and T. Soultatis (eds) Language at the University of Essex (LangUE) 2010 Proceedings 16-28. Colchester: Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex.
Butler, C. (1985) Statistics in Linguistics. New York: Blackwell.
Carr, P. (1999) English Phonetics and Phonology: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Coulthard, M. (2004) Author identification, idiolect, and linguistic uniqueness. Applied Linguistics 25(4): 431–447. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.4.431
Chaski, C. E. (2001) Empirical evaluations of language-based author identification techniques. Forensic Linguistics 8: 1–65.
Cruttenden, A. (2001) Gimson’s Pronunciation of English. London: Arnold.
de Jong, G. M., McDougall, K., Hudson, T. and Nolan, F. (2007a) The speaker-discriminating power of sounds undergoing historical change: a formant-based study. In J. Trouvain and W. Barry (eds) Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 6–10 August 2007, Saarbrücken: 1813–1816.
de Jong, G. M., McDougall, K. and Nolan, F. (2007b) Sound change and speaker identity: an acoustic study. In C. Müller (ed.) Speaker Classification II: Selected Projects 130–141. Berlin: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74122-0_12
Elliott, A. C. and Woodward, W. A. (2007) Statistical Analysis: Quick Reference Guidebook with SPSS Examples. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Fabricius, A. H. (2000) T-glottalling between stigma and prestige: a sociolinguistic study of modern RP. Unpublished PhD thesis, Copenhagen Business School. Retrieved on 4 February 2015 from http://www.akira.ruc.dk/~fabri/fabricius-2000-phd-thesis.pdf
Hannisdal, B. (2006) Variability and change in Received Pronunciation. A study of six phonological variables in the speech of television newsreaders. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Bergen. Retrieved on 4 February 2015 from https://bora.uib.no/bitstream/handle/1956/2335/Dr.Avh.Bente%20Hannisdal.pdf?sequence=1
Harris, J. (1994) English Sound Structure. Oxford: Blackwell.
Haslerud, V. (1995) The variable (t) in Sydney adolescent speech. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Bergen.
Hickey, R. (1999) Dublin English: current changes and their motivation. In P. Foulkes and G. Docherty (eds) Urban Voices: Variation and Change in British Accents 265–281. London: Arnold.
Holmes, J. (1994) New Zealand flappers: an analysis of T Voicing in New Zealand English. English World-Wide 15(2): 195–224. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.15.2.03hol
Johnstone, B. (1996) The Linguistic Individual: Self-Expression in Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jones, M. and Llamas, C. (2008) Fricated realisations of /t/ in Dublin and Middlesbrough English: an acoustic analysis of plosive frication and surface fricative contrasts. English Language and Linguistics 12(3): 419–443. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1360674308002700
Jones, M. and McDougall, K. (2009) The acoustic character of fricated /t/ in Australian English: a comparison with /s/ and /?/. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 39(3): 265–289. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025100309990132
Jones, M. J. and McDougall, K. (2006) A comparative acoustic study of Australian English fricated /t/: Assessing the Irish (English) link. In P. Warren and C.I. Watson (eds) Proceedings of the 11th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, 6–8 December 2006 6-12. Auckland: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association.
Labov, W. (1966) The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington. DC: Centre for Applied Linguistics.
Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Labov, W. (1982) Building on empirical foundations. In W. P. Lehmann and Y. Malkiel (eds) Perspectives on Historical Linguistics 72–92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cilt.24.06lab
Labov, W. (1989) The exact description of a speech community: short a in Philadelphia. In R. W. Fasold and D. Schiffrin (eds) Language change and variation 1-58. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Loakes, D. (2006) A forensic phonetic investigation into the speech patterns of identical and non-identical twins. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Melbourne.
Loakes, D. and McDougall, K. (2004) Frication of /k/ and /p/ in Australian English: inter- and intra-speaker variation. In S. C. Cassidy (ed.) Proceedings of the 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology 171–176. Sydney: Australian Speech Science and Technology Association.
Loakes, D. and McDougall, K. (2007) Frication of Australian English /p t k/: group tendencies and individual differences. In J. Trouvain (ed.) Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 1445–1448. Saarbrücken: Universität des Saarlandes.
Loakes, D. and McDougall, K. (2010) Individual variation in the frication of voiceless plosives in Australian English: a study of twins’ speech. Australian Journal of Linguistics 30(2): 155–181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07268601003678601
Marotta, G. and Barth, M. (2006) Acoustic and sociolinguistic aspects of lenition in Liverpool English. Studi Linguistici e Filologici Online 3(2): 377–410.
McMenamin, G. (2002) Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1201/9781420041170
Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (1977) Speech community and language variety in Belfast. Report to the Social Science Research Council, London.
Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (1978) Belfast: change and variation in an urban vernacular. In P. Trudgill (ed.) Sociolinguistic Patterns in British English 19–36. London: Eduard Arnold.
Moosmüller, S. (1997) Phonological variation in speaker identification. Forensic Linguistics 4(1): 29–47.
Oakes, M. P. (1998) Statistics for Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Payne, A. (1980) Factors controlling the acquisition of the Philadelphia dialect by out-of-state children. In W. Labov (ed.) Locating Language in Time and Space 143–178. New York: New York Academic Press.
Shockey, L. (2003) Sound Patterns of Spoken English. Oxford: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470758397
Smith, W. (1994) Computers, statistics and disputed authorship. In J. Gibbons (ed.) Language and the Law 374–413 New York: Longman.
Svartvik, J. (1968) The Evans Statements: A Case for Forensic Linguistics. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Tollfree, L. (1999) South-East London English: discrete versus continual modelling of consonantal reduction. In P. D. Foulkes and G. Docherty (eds) Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles 163–184. London: Arnold.
Tollfree, L. (2001) Variation and change in Australian English consonants: reduction of /t/. In D. Blair and B. Collins (eds) English in Australia 45–67. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Turell, M. T. (2010) The use of textual, grammatical and sociolinguistic evidence in forensic text comparison. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 17(2): 211–250.
Watson, K. (2007) Illustrations of the IPA: Liverpool English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37(3): 351–360. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025100307003180
Watt, D. and Milroy, L. (1999) Patterns of variation and change in three Newcastle vowels: is this dialect levelling? In P. D. Foulkes and G. Docherty (eds) Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles 25–46. London: Arnold.
Wells, J. (1982) Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611759
Woods, A., Fletcher, P. and Hughes, A. (1986) Statistics in Language Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165891
Woods, H. B. (1991) Social differentiation in Ottawa English. In J. Cheshire (ed.) English around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives 134–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511611889.010
Published
2016-07-08
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Gavaldà, N. (2016). Individual variation in allophonic processes of /t/ in Standard Southern British English. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 23(1), 43-69. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v23i1.26870
