Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T11:59:53.467Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“A place between places”: Language and identities in a border town

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2007

CARMEN LLAMAS
CARMEN LLAMAS
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK, cl558@york.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article investigates variation in the use of glottalling and glottalization of the voiceless stops (p t k) in an urban variety of British English. Middlesbrough, the locality in question, lies on a regional border in the North of England and has been subject to repeated redrawing of local administrative boundaries and shifting orientations in terms of popular culture. Linguistic trends that converge with North Eastern varieties and diverge from those associated with Yorkshire are correlated with attitudinal information and informants' shifting sense of the identity of the area. Findings reveal socially conditioned variation in perceptions of language and community identity that have clear connections with both the changing sociogeographic status of the urban center and with the linguistic trends uncovered. Results emerging from the attitudinal data offer insight into both the indexical function of the linguistic forms of interest and the motivation for the change in progress in the voiceless stops.

Keywords

language variationregional identityshifting orientationNorth East England
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 579 - 604
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Rev. ed. London: Verso.
Anderson, Bridget, & Milroy, Lesley (1999). Southern sound changes and the Detroit AAVE vowel system. Paper presented at NWAV 28, Toronto. http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ling/detroit/balm99nwave.pdf
Britain, David (2002). Space and spatial diffusion. In J. K. Chambers Peter Trudgill & Nathalie Schilling-Estes (eds.), The handbook of language variation and change, 603–37. Oxford: Blackwell.
Branscombe, Nyla R.; Ellemers, Naomi; Spears, Russell; & Doosje, Bertjan (1999). The context and content of social identity threat. In Naomi Ellemers Russell Spears & Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Social identity: Context, commitment, content, 35–58. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chambers, J. K. (2003). Sociolinguistic theory: Linguistic variation and its social significance. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cohen, Anthony P. (1985). The symbolic construction of community. Chichester: Ellis Horwood.
Docherty, Gerard J.; Foulkes, Paul; Milroy, James; Milroy, Lesley; & Walshaw, David (1997). Descriptive adequacy in phonology: A variationist perspective. Journal of Linguistics 33:275–31.Google Scholar
Docherty, Gerard J., & Foulkes, Paul (1999). Derby and Newcastle: Instrumental phonetics and variationist studies. In Paul Foulkes & Gerard J. Docherty (eds.), Urban voices: Accent studies in the British Isles, 47–71. London: Arnold.
Dyer, Judith, A. (2000). Language and identity in a Scottish-English community: A phonological and discoursal analysis. Dissertation, University of Michigan.
Dyer, Judith, A. (2002). ‘We all speak the same round here’: Dialect levelling in a Scottish English community. Journal of Sociolinguistics 6(2):99–116.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (2000). Linguistic variation as social practice: The linguistic construction of identity in Belten High. Oxford: Blackwell.
Foulkes, Paul; Docherty, Gerard J.; & Watt, Dominic (1999). Tracking the emergence of structured variation – realisations of (t) by Newcastle children. Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics 7:1–25. Department of Linguistics and Phonetics, University of Leeds.Google Scholar
Giegerich, H. J. (1992). English phonology: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gimson, A. C. (1989). An introduction to the pronunciation of English. 4th ed. London: Arnold.
Irvine, Judith T., & Gal, Susan (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Paul Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of language, 35–83. Santa Fe: School of American Research.
Johnstone, Barbara (2004). Place, globalization, and linguistic variation. In Carmen Fought (ed.), Critical reflections on sociolinguistic variation, 65–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Johnstone, Barbara; Andrus, Jennifer; & Danielson, Andrew E. (2006). Mobility, indexicality, and the enregisterment of “Pittsburghese.” Journal of English Linguistics 34(2):77–104.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara, & Baumgardt, Dan (2004) “Pittsburghese” online: Vernacular norming in conversation. American Speech 79:115–45.Google Scholar
Jones, Mark J., & Llamas, Carmen (2003). Fricated pre-aspirated /t/ in Middlesbrough English: An acoustic study. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 123–35.
Kerswill, Paul (1987). Levels of linguistic variation in Durham. Journal of Linguistics 23:25–49.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul, & Williams, A. (1997). Creating a new town koine: Children and language change in Milton Keynes. Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 3:205–57.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Le Page, Robert B., & Tabouret-Keller, Andrée (1985). Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Llamas, Carmen (1999). A new methodology: Data elicitation for social and regional language variation studies. Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics 7:95–118.Google Scholar
Llamas, Carmen (2001). Language variation and innovation in Teesside English. Dissertation, University of Leeds.
Milroy, Lesley (2000). Two nations divided by the same language (and different language ideologies). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9:1–34.Google Scholar
Milroy, Lesley (2001). Internally and externally motivated language change: Assessing the effects of “nature” and “nurture.” Keynote address presented at the Third UK Language Variation and Change Conference, University of York.
Milroy, Lesley (2003). Social and linguistic dimensions of phonological change: Fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. In David Britain & Jenny Cheshire (eds.), Sociolinguistic dialectology, 155–71. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Milroy, Lesley (2004). Language ideologies and linguistic change. In Carmen Fought (ed.), Critical reflections on sociolinguistic variation, 161–77. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Milroy, James; Milroy, Lesley; & Hartley, Sue (1994). Local and supra-local change in British English: The case of glottalization. English World Wide 15:1–33.Google Scholar
Moorsom, Norman (1996). Middlesbrough re-born: The evolution of a local authority. Middlesbrough: Moorsom.
Newbrook, Mark (1999). West Wirral: Norms, self reports and usage. In Paul Foulkes & Gerard J. Docherty (eds.), Urban voices: Accent studies in the British Isles, 90–106. London: Arnold.
Orton, Harold; Sanderson, Stewart; & Widdowson, J. D. A. (1978). The linguistic atlas of England. London: Croom Helm.
Public Relations Department, Middlesbrough Borough Council (1997). Middlesbrough official guide.
Silverstein, Michael (1979). Language structure and linguistic ideology. In Paul R. Clyne William F. Hanks & Carol L. Hofbauer (eds.), The elements: A parasession on linguistic units and levels, 193–247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Silverstein, Michael (1992). The uses and utility of ideology: Some reflections. Pragmatics 2:311–23.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of social life. Language and Communication 23:193–229.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter (1990). The dialects of England. Oxford: Blackwell.
Trudgill, Peter (1999). Norwich: Endogenous and exogenous linguistic change. In Paul Foulkes & Gerard J. Docherty (eds.), Urban voices: Accent studies in the British Isles, 124–40. London: Arnold.
Turner, John C. (1999). Some current issues in research on social identity and self-categorization theories. In Naomi Ellemers Russell Spears & Bertjam Doosje (eds.), Social identity: Context, commitment, content, 6–34. Oxford: Blackwell.
Turner, John C., & Brown, R. (1978). Social status, cognitive alternatives, and intergroup relations. In Henri Tajfel (ed.), Differentiation between social groups, 201–34. London: Academic Press.
Watt, Dominic J. L., & Allen, Will (2003). Tyneside English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33:267–71.Google Scholar
Watt, Dominic J. L., & Milroy, Lesley (1999). Patterns of variation and change in three Tyneside vowels: Is this dialect levelling? In Paul Foulkes & Gerard J. Docherty (eds.), Urban voices: Accent studies in the British Isles, 25–46. London: Arnold.
Wells, John, C. (1982). Accents of English. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Woolard, Kathryn A. (1992). Language ideology: Issues and approaches. Pragmatics 2:235–49.Google Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A., & Schieffelin, Bambi B. (1994). Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23:55–82.Google Scholar