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

P. KERSWILL & A. WILLIAMS
regard it as ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘country’. In Hull, we do not have sufficient
information on speakers’ awareness of the two allophones of PRICE, but it is a
feature frequently commented upon by incomers to the city.
The phonetic distance criterion applies in a rather less obvious way to
Reading PRICE, the variants of which are distributed along a relatively small
phonetic continuum. Despite this, the Reading vernacular vowel is quite
strongly stereotyped in the south-east, and contributes specifically to the
perception of Reading speakers as ‘rural’ (see Kerswill & Williams
forthcoming). Incomers to Reading frequently comment upon it, and
adolescent users may get teased for it. Yet there is a way in which the
linguistic predictors of salience hold up: it may be that the older variants are
heard by other speakers as the vowel of CHOICE – in which case we are
dealing with a contrast. However, there is no merger for the Reading users of
the back vowel, so far as we are aware.
What we are left with is three highly salient features which fulfil the
‘phonetic difference’ criterion for salience, but to differing degrees, and
which turn out to pattern very differently in their degree of change and in
whether the variants are discrete or placed on a phonetic continuum. None of
this can easily be predicted by the two linguistic factors favouring salience.
On the the other hand, as with consonants, sociodemographic factors play a
part (though not the same ones: the maintenance of the complex Hull PRICE
allophony can be ascribed to the relative isolation of this group of speakers
rather than regional – i.e., North–South – identity factors).
The position for vowels can be summarised in the following way:
Summary for vowels
• The salience factors of phonological contrast and phonetic difference do
not (i) correlate with degree of overt stigma or (ii) mirror sociolinguistic
patterning in any clear way. All three vowels are overtly stigmatised, but
only Hull PRICE and Reading MOUTH show discrete variants. Against
expectations, it is with these vowels that no phonological contrast is at
stake for either speakers or outsiders (Reading PRICE may be heard as
CHOICE)
• Phonetic difference does, however, appear to cause (i) switching between
discrete variants and (ii) a relatively sharp stratification in terms of class
and/or age.
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