Language and identity in a Scottish-English community: A phonological and discoursal analysis.

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the formation of a new dialect in a British contact context. An apparent time study of the speech of three generations currently living in Corby, a former steel town in the English Midlands, provides the test site for investigating contact between two distinct groups---a transplanted Scottish community and an indigenous English one. A quantitative analysis of reflexes of phonological variables characteristic of Scottish English reveals the focusing of a dialect, the English-born third generation speaking a koine characterized by both Scottish and more general South East English variants. In the analysis of the phonological data a language ideology framework is applied as a means of understanding and interpreting variation in the community. An exploration of speakers' ideologies suggests that, in line with current research on dialect leveling, regionally or socially marked forms are either being eradicated or reallocated to different sociolinguistic functions in the new dialect, with characteristically Scottish variants being perceived by younger speakers as Corby rather than Scottish norms. A discourse analysis of the speech of three generations of Corby people supports this interpretation, additionally revealing a shift in perceptions of salient social categories from ethnic group to town community. The combined analysis of phonology and discourse further suggests that speakers exploit available resources on two distinct linguistic levels to index and construct similar community identities.