Identities, attitudes and their effects on the variation of T-gllottalling and glottalization in Hartlepool English

Abstract

The present study is a sociophonetic account of variation and change in glottal variants of /t/ in inter-sonorant word boundary, word-internal and pre-pausal environments, in the speech of people in Hartlepool, a town in North East England. The study aims to find out to what extent variation and change in the use of these variants across sex and age groups can be accounted for by considering attitudinal information collected via an Identity Questionnaire. Main findings indicate an increased use of the glottal stop over apparent time which is especially noticeable in the speech of females and that a glottalized variant of /t/ is stable in at least one phonological environment in the speech of males. It is concluded that sense of identity as a variable is not as significant a factor in Hartlepool English as sex and age although it does have some influence on the speech of people aged 18-25 and particularly females.