Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 4 (2000) - The University of ...

P. KERSWILL & A. WILLIAMS
apparent reinstatement of /h/ by the southern working-class teenagers, who,
especially in Milton Keynes, use it up to 83 per cent of the time. There is,
thus, a massive divergence between North and South on this variable, with the
North retaining the traditional form.
We must look for explanations for these patterns, beginning with
naturalness. TH-fronting and H-dropping are normally thought of as natural;
both lead to a reduction in phoneme inventories and to the loss of a marked
segment. T-glottalling differs in that it is the straightforward replacement of
one stop by another, with no loss of distinctions. Thus, naturalness fails to
group these variables according to their sociolinguistic behaviour: it does not
predict the fact that TH-fronting and T-glottalling behave similarly, while H-
dropping shows a different pattern.
We turn next to Trudgill’s definition of salience to see if this serves to
differentiate them. Trudgill’s first two criteria do not differentiate the features
at all: there is overt stigma attached to the non-RP (Received Pronunciation)
variant in each case, with overt correction by parents and teachers; in each
case the prestige variant is reflected in the orthography. All the variables are
undergoing change at the moment in that there are gradual changes in the
frequency of use of existing variants. Trudgill’s final two criteria, concerned
with linguistic factors, do not help either, since they fail to group T-glottalling
and TH-fronting, differentiating them from H-dropping: variants are
phonetically radically different in the case of T-glottalling and H-dropping, but
less so with TH-fronting. H-dropping and TH-fronting both involve the loss of
a phoneme, while T-glottalling does not.
We are left unable to explain why T-glottalling and TH-fronting are
spreading, while H-dropping appears to be receding in the South. Yet the
pattern we have observed in our data fits in very well with what is known
about changes affecting these consonants in British English more generally.
Glottalling, at least in environments other than the word-internal intervocalic
one, is now very common among younger high-prestige speakers, even those
whose speech is labelled as ‘posh’ by lay listeners (posh is a colloquial term
that can be glossed as ‘upper class’ or ‘snobbish’, and may be used
derogatorily). Glottalling is therefore losing its stigma and, along with
formerly non-standard features like the labiodental [K] for /r/ is now fairly
widespread among young English middle-class speakers (Foulkes &
Docherty 2000, Williams & Kerswill 1999). TH-fronting is likewise
spreading, though at a slower rate. On the other hand, H-dropping is still
extremely rare among middle-class speakers, including those who speak
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