Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Department of English Studies

Winter term 2020/121
Varieties of English
Diana Wengler

Rhoticity in Scottish English:

A sociolinguistic study of
Parliamentary Speech

Elena Margarete Kohde

Siebenbürgenstraße 3d, 85368 Moosburg; 015228984676; Matr.Nr.: 11811387
elena.kohde.studium@gmx.de
Varieties of English
5. Semester
 Table of contents
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1

2. Theoretical background ................................................................................... 2

3. Methodology .................................................................................................... 4

4. Results and Discussion .................................................................................... 6

5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 10

6. References ...................................................................................................... 11
 1. Introduction
Scottish English is a rather complex term describing the linguistic situation in
Scotland (Meer et al., 2021, p. 2). Apart from Gaelic, which is considered a separate
language, Scots and Standard Scottish English (SSE) fall under the term Scottish
English and include an array of varieties beginning with aforementioned SSE and
ending with broad Scots (Stuart-Smith, 2008, p. 48; Machaň, 2013, p. 1; Meer et
al., 2021, p. 2). While the latter comprises several dialects varying from town to
town, SSE can be seen as the standard variety of English in Scotland. In fact, Scots
and Standard Scottish English function as “two opposite poles of a bipolar language
continuum” (Meer et al., p. 2). According to Aitken’s model, speakers
unconsciously shift between points on the continuum (Aitken, 1984). However,
Scots is usually spoken by the working class and amongst family and friends; SSE
on the other hand is preferred by middle-class speakers and/or used for rather formal
occasions. Boundaries between the two language plus Received Pronunciation,
which only forms a small percentage of speakers, are overlapping and ambiguous
(Stuart-Smith, 2008, p. 48).
As other varieties of English, Scottish English provides distinctive features,
which are frequently used yet not always. Highest discrepancy with Received
Pronunciation, which serves as the status quo, is the pronunciation. Alongside with
the shortening of vowel length and th-fronting, rhoticity displays a marker for
Scottish varieties (Knudsen, 2012). Akin to other languages, /r/ “is particularly
variable and exhibits several phonetic realizations” (Jauriberry, Sock, & Hamm, p.
1). This is the case in Scotland where rhotic consonants are “extremely variable”
(Jauriberry, Sock, & Hamm, p. 1) and in contrast to other varieties of English most
commonly rhotic. The likelihood of a rhotic pronunciation is, though, dependant on
social as well as intra-linguistic factors (Jauriberry, Sock, & Hamm, p. 1f).
In this paper, rhoticity in Scotland and gender differences in realization are
in the focus. Particularly of interest is whether Scottish is proved to be mostly rhotic
and whether there is a discrepancy between male and female speakers in rhoticity,
as well as in type of realization. First, the theoretical background on the variable in
question is provided and important existing studies on this topic introduced.
Subsequently, methodological procedure and collection of the envelope of variation
are explained. Finally, the results on rhoticity are displayed and discussed against

1
the backdrop of similar findings giving insight into the language situation in
Scotland.

2. Theoretical background
Together with other striking features like for example t-glottalization and the
shortening of diphthongized vowels, rhoticity is one of the major distinctive
phonological characteristics of Scottish English (Knudsen, 2012)
Rhoticity refers to the pronunciation of the consonant or semi-vowel /r/ in
all environments. Especially the realization of /r/ in coda position1 in non-
prevocalic, postvocalic surroundings i.e. in preconsonantal (/VrC/) and word-final
(/Vr#/) positions, differentiates Scottish varieties from other English varieties such
as Received Pronunciation (Jauriberry, Sock, & Hamm, p. 2f). Indeed, rhoticity
displays one prominent factor that distinguish these two English varieties. Whereas
Scottish English is described “generally rhotic” (Stuart-Smith, 2008, p. 64) and is
well-attested as the standard variant in Scottish English varieties, RP or else called
Standard Southern British English mostly non-rhotic (Romaine, 1978, p. 154;
Scobbie, 2006, p. 339; Schützler, 2010, p. 12; Meer et al., 2021, p. 2f). However,
non-rhoticity does not exclude the pronunciation of /r/ in prevocalic positions which
include initial position, linking position and in onset clusters like f.e. [tr].
Reasons for this rhotic distinction can be found in the linguistic history.
Received Pronunciation has undergone transformation processes such as Pre-R
Breaking, Pre-Schwa Laxing and R-Dropping2 (Cao & Jin, 2017) which Scottish
varieties have not undergone. Pronouncing the /r/ in all instances has become a
symbol of prestige or at least standard in most parts and socioeconomic classes in
Scotland (Scobbie, 2006). Furthermore, a variety of non-prevocalic /r/ allophones
are present in Scottish speech (Dickson & Hall-Lew, 2017). Following table shows
the possible realizations of /r/ according to their level of rhoticity.

1
Coda position refers to the last syllable of a word
2
Pre-R Breaking refers to the insertion of a schwa sound between vowels /i:/, /e:/, /u:/ and the
following /r/. Pre-Schwa Laxing means a modification of the vowels “from tense to lax”, e.g. from
long to short. R-Dropping refers to the omittion of /r/ pre-consonantal or in final position (Cao &
Jin, 2017, p. 124f)

2
Table 1: Categories of Non-Prevocalic /r/ Along an Auditory-Rhotic Continuum (Adapted
from Lawson, Scobbie, & Stuart-Smith, 2014:. 63; Victoria Dickson, 2017:240)
No realization → Derhoticized → Alveolar → Retroflex → Schwar → Tap → trill
approximant approximant
∅ [Vˤ] [ɹ] [ɻ] [ɚ] [ɾ] [r]

Least rhotic Most rhotic

The variants to be investigated in this study will be categorized as the terms not not
realized, approximants or tap.
In both pre-vocalic and pre-consonantal, rhoticity seems to be particularly
variable (Jauriberry, Sock, & Hamm, p. 1f). Lindau supports this statement: “[E]ven
in languages where a possible realization is a trill, not all speakers use a trill, and
the speakers that do, have tap and approximant allophones as well as the trill” (1985,
p. 161). However, trills and taps are usually referred to as ‘traditionally Scottish’
by Johnston (1997) and Stuart-Smith (2008; Meer et al., 2021, p. 15). According to
Lawson, Scobbie & Stuart-Smith the stereotypical trill [r] (which falls under the
umbrella of taps in this study) is rarely present in coda-position (2013, p.3). In
contrast, tapped variants still exist, predominantly in male speech (Romaine, 1978;
Speitel and Johnston, 1983 and Stuart-Smith, 2007; Lawson, Scobbie, & Stuart-
Smith, 2013, p.3), while approximant /r/ “has become increasingly common in
middle-class speech, replacing traditional tapped and trilled variants.” (Stuart-
Smith & Lawson, 2017, p. 12). Stuart-Smith and Lawson also stated that the
distribution of /r/ is more complex in the vernacular than in Scottish Standard
English, as the /r/ variation is much phonotactically conditioned (2017, p.11f).
The most prominent factor of such variation is governed by the phonological
environment (Jauriberry, Sock, & Hamm).
Nonetheless, the pronunciation and distribution of rhoticity also hinges on
social elements such as age, socio-economic class, amount of contact with SSBE
speaker (Stuart-Smith 2008, p.65; Lawson et al 2013, p.11f; Meer et al., 2021, p.
2). An additional important factor in predicting the realization of pre-consonantal
/r/ has been identified as gender (Jauriberry, Sock, & Hamm). While some studies
have found an effect on rhoticity (Schützler, 2015), other could not trace back any
effects to gender itself (Meer et al., 2021, p.4). Though, an interaction with
socioeconomic class was identified (Dickson & Hall-Lew, 2017; Meer et al., 2021,

3
p.4). Speitel and Johnston (1983, p.28) discovered that women favoured the
alveolar approximant, regardless of their class affiliation, while class-stratification
was more evident in men. Additionally, they found that middle-class women show
a higher rate of alveolar approximants, as derivable from the statement before,
whereas middle-class men prefer the usage of alveolar taps and trills. This finding
is echoed by Jauriberry, Sock, & Hamm’s study as well.
Nonetheless, the realization and distribution of rhoticity of Standard
Scottish English is still generally unexplored. Indeed, studies often only focus on
examining language-internal factors such as the sound environment including
aspects like preceding sound, stress and syllable structure for instance (Meer et al.,
2021, p. 4). Especially obvious is a lack of analysing gender as an important single
factor mostly being interpreted against the backdrop of social class unexceptionally/
concomitantly. Other studies in the field of sociolinguistics such as Labov’s
foundational work in the social stratification of rhoticity in New York (1966) has
pointed out the necessity of going beyond the structural, internal scope, though, and
instead investigate rhoticity in the context of gender.
On the basis of the studies and background mentioned, this paper will explore
following hypothesis concerning rhoticity in Scottish (Standard) English, as well as
in the distribution and realization of /r/ by gender:
i) H1: SSE is rhotic (the majority of postvocalic, non-linking coda, non-
prevocalic realized)

ii) H2: The realization of /r/ in SSE underlies gender differences

iii) H3: Women are prone to use weaker forms of /r/, namely approximants,
while men prefer taps

3. Methodology
The data utilized in this study were sourced from recordings of internal meetings
published by the Scottish Parliament on their website (The Scottish Parliament,
2020). The data comprises several formal speeches given before the Scottish
parliament in a debate on 30th January in 2020. More recent performances of the
Parliament were not analysed since most were held online during the COVID-19
pandemic and were hence more difficult to decode due to limited video and audio
quality. This type of data was opted for as it supplies the most nationalist and formal

4
setting and induces the usage of national standard language (Meer et al, 2021, p. 5).
Furthermore, it provides the reduction of variation in the realization of the analysed
consonant /r/ as differences in speech according to the interlocutor were eliminated.
The analyse includes four speakers, two females and two males originating
from all over Scotland such as Dundee, Ayr, Cunningham, and Glasgow. All four
of them were Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) at the time of recording
part of the weekly “Debate” format, in which Members of the Scottish Parliament
discuss current selected issues within a six minutes speech each. Comparability was
guaranteed by giving each of the four members the same amount of time. In order
to not go beyond the scope of this paper, the contributions were reduced to 3
minutes for each of the four speakers. Moreover, a shared vocabulary or at least a
set of the same lexical fields was ensured since all speeches given concerned the
same topic: Alcohol and drugs: preventing and reducing harms.
An auditory analysis was carried out by carefully listening and decoding all
words with the relevant phoneme /r/ in an Excel spreadsheet. In the following,
words with /r/ in a postvocalic, prevocalic phonological context or in an initial
position were excluded from the envelope of variation as no variation in rhoticity
can be made. Afterwards, the tokens (words containing the analysed variable) were
assigned firstly to whether they were pronounced or not and additionally, in case of
a rhotic realization – the envelope of variation was adjusted to rhotic realizations
only – to one of the following categories:
i) Approximant [ɹ]
ii) Tap [ɾ]
These three categories were used in order to capture the realizations of the variable.
Also, finer classifications for the realization of rhotics describing the place of
production or tongue position of the sound were omitted due to the limited scope of
this thesis but also because choices were based on mere hearing. Therefore, this
would not allow to distinguish small differences in the realization without further
investigation. Accordingly, weakly rhotic realisations will henceforth be
summarized as not realized; stronger articulations will be referred to as either taps
or approximants (see table 1 above). Consequently, the present paper aims at
capturing whether the realisation of rhotics are a factor of SSE and if so whether
the traditional Scottish realization or a rather less-rhotic variants were used.

5
Furthermore, it targets at pointing out differences of rhoticity and their type of
articulation between female and male speakers.
A total of 245 occurrences of /r/ were analysed, which make up 7,2% of the
corpus and an average of 61,3 tokens per speaker. All of the MSP speakers analysed
can be considered upper/middle-class based on their profession and their
background. Hence, due to the fact that no working-class members were examined,
this paper investigates whether there are any gender differences in realization within
one socioeconomic group (upper middle class).
However, due to the limited frame of this paper, this study cannot give full
insight into all factors of rhoticity. Intra-linguistic factors such as phonological
environment cannot be taken into account, respectively. Since it only focusses on a
small sample, it only provides information of one extralinguistic factors – gender
differences in this case. Thus, conclusions on the occurrences of /r/ holistically
cannot be drawn.

4. Results and Discussion

The results of the corpus study will be presented in sections according to the
constraints/hypothesises and at the same time discussed against the context of
existing studies on these topics.

Rhoticity
As suggested in research, Scottish English is found to be rhotic in most pre-
consonantal, postvocalic situations, regardless of socioeconomic class and gender
of the speaker and phonological environment of the variant. From the 245 relevant
tokens of rhoticity in Scottish English as depicted in Table 2, the majority were
realized rhotic (86,9%) and only a small number of /r/ (13.1%) were omitted or de-
rhoticized3.

3
Derhoticization describes an auditorily weak, but not omitted, preconsonantal /r/ (Dickson & Hall-
Lew, 2017) but was counted towards not realized here.

6
Table 2: Raw frequencies of rhoticity

Rhoticity Number of uses %

Rhotic realization 213 86,9

Not realized 32 13,1

Total 245 100,0

The findings coincide with Victoria Dickson’s and Lauren Hall-Lew’s

statement that “varieties of Scottish English have long been established as rhotic”
(2017, p.230). Furthermore, it’s comparable to Stuart-Smith’s study in Glasgow
1997 which proved that a total of 90% of all postvocalic variants were articulated
by middle-class speakers (2008; 2003, p. 128f).

Gender differences in rhoticity

Moreover, rhotic realizations are governed by gender differences. Table 3 reveals
that female speakers almost always pronounce the consonant /r/ (95,0%), whereas
males are slightly less likely to do so (79,0%). The men’s tendency of dropping the
/r/ is with 21,0% more than four times higher than that of women (5,0%). Though
rhotic realisations are the norm, men deviate from it significantly more often.

Table 3: Raw frequencies of rhoticity by gender

Female Male

Frequency % Frequency %

Rhoticity
Rhotic realisation 115 95,0 98 79,0

Not realised 6 5,0 26 21,0

Total 121 100,0 124 100,0

The given corpus data differs from Schützler’s outcome that indicated a
higher percentage of non-rhoticity among women (2013, pp. 215-228). Conversely,
he also states that language-conscious or more formal situations result in an
increased awareness for the Standard Scottish English norm thus leading to a
standard language compliance (Schützler, 2013, p. 226; Dickson & Hall-Lew, 2017,
7
p. 235). Similar finding were observed by Speitel and Johnston who found “that all
speakers, even RP-like speakers, favored the SSE variant in formal styles, ‘which
implies that high-status SSE, and not the foreign RP, is viewed as the model
variety.’” (1983, p. 28). Figure 1 further illustrates this effect.

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50% not realized

40% rhotic realisation

30%

20%

10%

0%
women men

Figure 1: Percentage of rhotic realizations by gender

Gender differences in realization

As the corpus analysis already suggested that there are differences in rhoticity by
gender, further divergences are displayed by Table 4. It shows that women prefer
the use of approximants by far (88,7%); only 11,3% of their rhotic variants are
articulated as taps. Men, in contrast, vary between approximants and trills equally
(50:50).

Table 4: Raw frequencies of variants by gender and realization

Female Male

Frequency % Frequency %

Realization
Approximant 102 88,7 49 50,0

Tap 13 11,3 49 50,0

Total 115 100,0 98 100,0

8
 Jane Stuart-Smith (2008) claims that taps are more commonly articulated in
male working-class speech but reduced in middle class language. Furthermore,
these findings correspond to Speitel’s study which observed that approximants are
an indicator of female speech in Edinburgh (Romaine, 1978, p. 150). The findings
are visually exemplified in Figure 2.

100%
6
90% 26 13
80%

70%

60% 49
not realized
50% tap
tap
102 approximant
40%
approximant
30%

20% 49
10%

0%
men women

Figure 2: Distribution of /r/ realizations by gender and variant

Romaine explains the differences in articulation as follows:

[…] women constantly produce forms nearer to the prestige form or produce these
forms more frequently than men (cf. e.g. Fischer’s 1985 study of New England
schoolchildren). This is so because the difference between men’s and women’s
speech, in Western societies at any rate, is believed to be related to women’s greater
consciousness of social status and awareness of the prestige associated with certain
forms of speech. Men, on the other hand, are more favourably disposed to non-
standard or less prestigious forms of speech which carry the connotation of
’toughness’ or masculinity (1978, p. 154)

Discussion

The analysis of rhoticity in Scottish English provides evidence that the majority of
non-prevocalic, preconsonantal /r/ is realized. Hypothesis 1 can thus be accepted.
With regard to the investigated sociolinguistic parameter gender, rhoticity
appears more frequently among women, although it represents the majority among
men as well. This finding goes in line with studies that revealed that women are
more likely to use the standard variant – a rhotic one in the case of Scottish English.

9
Hypothesis 2 can be seen as accepted, though it must be considered that men do not
deviate from the norm after all. They’re, however, more likely to omit rhotic
consonants by 16%.
As for gender differences in rhotic variants, women indeed prefer weaker ones
(approximants), rather than taps, whereas men use both, taps and approximants,
equally often. Consequently, hypothesis 3 must be partly rejected since men do not
favour taps in this study. However, the findings indicate an ongoing change towards
generally weaker variants by both genders, especially women.

5. Conclusion
All in all, Scottish as a variety of English definitely diverges from Standard
Southern British English in its phonological distinctive feature rhoticity as in this
paper outlined. Furthermore, differences in gender were found as expected; whereas
women are generally more likely to orientate towards the norm, men tend to deviate
from it. Trudgill has recently called attention to the “importance of sex
differentiation as an agent in linguistic change” (1972, p. 179). He states that such
deviating from the norm which can be attributed to gender patterns imply that
change is taking place (Romaine, 1978, p. 155; Trudgill, 1972, p. 179). Indeed,
many studies have reported an ongoing trend of rhoticity, i.e. the loss of /r in coda
position, spreading from Glasgow along the Central Belt (Scobbie, 2006). Given
that “linguistic change originating in the Central Belt cities will have a tendency to
diffuse through-out Scotland in the long term” (Lawson et al. 2014, p.56), the future
development of rhoticity might be of interest for further investigations.

10
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1