Third Popular City in Scotland: Aberdeen Dialect

The three features of the Aberdeen dialect looked at in the course of this essay are all phonological. The first feature looks at the usage of glottalization in the recording. The second phonological feature looks at the rhoticity of the accent and how this is realized in the recording. The third phonological feature explores the vowel system differences and the realization of /ʍ/ as [f] or [ɸ].

Aberdeen is a city located in Northeast Scotland. Its is Scotland’s third most popular city, with many incomers arriving to Aberdeen from elsewhere in Scotland. Other incomers originate in the UK and from North America. This is due to the city’s expansion which occurred in the 1970s, influenced by the discovery of oilfields in the North Sea, which brought a new trade to the City. Aberdeen is seen as ‘the capital of the region’. The English of Aberdeen has been heavily influenced by the ‘Doric’ dialect of Northeast Scotland. The speech of younger speakers is influenced by those of the central belt- Glasgow and Edinburgh. However, despite this, younger speakers also use authentic ‘Doric’ alongside pseudo-Glasgow.

Hendry conducted a study into the use of ‘Doric’ in primary school children’s speech, specifically in the North East of Scotland. Hendry studied the level of use and the knowledge of Doric. In addition to this, he looked at the school curriculum and how this affected the status of the language as a direct effect. He looked at the attitudes of 900 ten-year-old school children based across the North East, as well those of their teachers and parents. In his study, Hendry was able to devise four vocabulary measures, he then used a 5% sub-sample of 50 children over five geographical areas. This was carried out using a formal interview which contained an oral test specializing in Doric. Teachers were given an 8-point questionnaire to determine how often they used resources, policy, events, etc. which encouraged North East Culture in particular. Hendry’s results showed only 35% of the schools were involved with cultural events, specifically those that encourage linguistic skills. Hendry also identifies rural areas such as Gordon, which had higher status and use of North East Scots, rather than areas such as Aberdeen city and Kincardine and Deeside. These areas have much higher rates of commuters due to the employment opportunities and city industry. This may affect the attitudes people hold about rural dialect.

The speaker in the provided recording is a woman in her forties. The woman has lived in Aberdeen -or towns close to the city- all her life. Due to this, her dialect is definite to her area as this is what she has been surrounded by in her upbringing. The woman uses many features typical of Aberdeen or ‘Doric’ dialect.

Young speakers of North-East Dialects are influenced by their surrounding dialects. In their casual speech, they routinely use /ʔ/. Glottalisation has been widely studied in the United Kingdom, with research specifically looking at Scotland, and how widespread this feature has become. T-Glottaling respectively has been a point of interest for linguistics since the 19th Century. Further research elucidates the impression that the use of this feature is spreading. Uses the term 'T-Glottaling' in order to describe the linguistic phenomenon of the replacement of /t/ with a glottal stop. This can be seen in the recording when the speaker pronounces words such as paper or butter. The speaker says [ bʌʔɚ] which contains a clear glottalized t. In addition to the glottalization occurring in the intervocalic positions (paper and butter) of /p/ and /t/, in also is heard in phrases such as ‘brought up’. The speaker uses glottalization throughout the spontaneous recording which gives the impression that this feature is typical of her particular dialect.

Throughout the recording, we can hear in the woman’s speech that her accent is rhotic. Rhotic varieties of English include the dialects of Scotland, Ireland, and most of the United States whereas non-rhotic varieties include most of the dialects of modern England and Wales. Although Scottish dialects may be influenced by modern England due to incomers and industry, they have continued to use a rhotic accent despite this. Not all dialects of Scottish English are rhotic which shows that it is a variable feature. The deletion of r or variation of the pronunciation is optional in Scottish English dialects. Non-rhoticity has been reported in Edinburgh and Glasgow which may be due to their popularity as the two largest cities. They have seen considerable movement to the area due to the industry opportunities there. There are many variants of the postalveolar approximant /ɹ/ used by the speaker. The accent is consistently rhotic with /ɾ/ being realized in words such as brought, three, and horrified. This pronunciation is the alveolar flap /ɹ/ which is common in most Scottish English dialects. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the speaker, in her spontaneous speech uses this realization as this is heard in dialects, she is familiar with. /ɻ/ is heard in words, for example, beer, bear, and cards. In addition, it can be heard in the phrase ‘top-floor’. In the realization of bird, fir, and fur, the alveolar trill /r/ can be perceived. This is a feature, that is not as common in Scottish English, opposing the common opinion that this is a typical feature. This feature is often ascribed to emphatic pronunciations. The word list that is provided with the spontaneous recording, does not have as much variation in the pronunciation of /ɹ/. This may be due to the spontaneous nature of the recording; the speaker does not have time to consider other pronunciations. However, in the recording of the word list the speaker is able to carefully consider how he is pronouncing each word, specifically the /ɹ/.

Features that are used in the recording vary from stereotypically Aberdonian to fairly uncommon in Scottish English. The realization of /ʍ/ as [f] or [ɸ], a stereotypically Aberdonian/North-Eastern Scottish English more generally. Due to many differences in the vowel system, means that when North-East Scots have various pronunciation differences, in comparison to British English. For example, when the realization who is said it is /fuː/. /faɹ/ for where and the usually attributed /fɪt/ for what. These realizations are accredited to North-East Scottish English dialects. Many have said the realizations of ‘whereabouts?’ for British English speakers is realized as ‘furry boots’, both producing extremely similar-sounding phrases. The speaker in the recording uses this phenomenon when she says ‘when’ and ‘what’. This is another example of the speaker of the recording using typically Aberdonian/North-Eastern Scottish dialect lexical choices. It can be implicated this the speaker does this due to both the spontaneous nature of the recording and her upbringing being based in the North-East.

The recording uses many Aberdonian/North-Eastern features such as the pronunciation of certain words and sounds. Both speakers are from Aberdeen or surrounding towns in the North East. However, the woman in the spontaneous recording has more variation in her pronunciations whereas the man in the word list has less variation. This implies that the nature of the spontaneous compared to the reading of a wordlist influenced how a speaker uses the same dialect. The woman has an obvious North-Eastern accent in comparison to the word list speaker and uses more variants typically associated with Aberdeen English. Due to the male speaker using a word list, in his recording, he, therefore has less opportunity to use any regionally marked dialect. This can especially be noticed in the rhoticity feature as the word list contains a much wider variety of pronunciations compared to the wide variation in the spontaneous recording.