@article{Le Duc_2017, title={The nature of the change: Language-internal and external aspects of derhotacization in young urban Scottish English (YUScE)}, volume={2}, url={https://tidsskrift.dk/lwo/article/view/96009}, abstractNote={Scottish English is generally referred to as a rhotic variety of English, i.e. one in which /r/ is<br />articulated both prevocalically as in red and merry, as well as postvocalically as in far, farmer, and<br />similar. However, recent research in the field of sociophonetics (Lawson et al. 2014b, Celata &<br />Calamai, 2014, Schützler, 2015) suggests that a process of derhotacization, that is, a gradual loss<br />or lenition of postvocalic /r/, is taking place among young urban speakers of Scottish English. The<br />present article presents the results of an auditory study of reading tasks performed by 80 informants<br />from Glasgow and Edinburgh during the spring and summer 2016. By looking into the extent to<br />which the 80 speakers produced derhotacized realizations during the reading task, it is found that if<br />the process of derhotacization in YUScE could eventually result in full non-rhoticity, then the<br />process is clearly in its early stage: speakers of YUScE are still to a large extent rhotic, and even<br />for the few speakers who produce a considerable number of derhotacized realizations, the instances<br />in which these realizations are completely non-rhotic are rather few. The article, furthermore,<br />investigates the nature of derhotacization in YUScE with respect to two aspects: the languageexternal<br />and language-internal aspects of the change. In terms of the language-external aspects of<br />the change, derhotacization is examined in relation to the extra-linguistic variables of gender,<br />socio-economic status, and geographic affiliation. In terms of the language-internal aspects of the<br />change, derhotacization is examined in relation to a number of language-internal variables: the<br />vowel preceding /r/, the tautosyllabic consonant following /r/, the position of /r/ in a word, i.e.<br />whether /r/ is in word-final or pre-consonantal position in utterance-final words, and in relation to<br />prosodic stress, i.e. whether /r/ is found in accented or deaccented words. It is found that the nature<br />of derhotacization in YUScE is rather systematic in the sense that the change occurs according to<br />several underlying social factors, and happens more frequently among some speakers of YUScE<br />than others depending on gender, socio-economic status, and geographic affiliation, as well as<br />according to several underlying language-internal factors, by which the change occurs more<br />frequently in some phonetic and phonological contexts than in others. It is, furthermore, found that<br />the process of derhotacization in YUScE possibly follows a natural law of articulatory economy,<br />meaning that /r/ is first lost in phonetic and phonological contexts in which the reduction of articulatory effort is highest, and that rhoticity, at least in this stage of the process, is still retained<br />in contexts in which the reduction of articulatory effort is lowest.}, number={2}, journal={Journal of Language Works - Sprogvidenskabeligt Studentertidsskrift}, author={Le Duc, Estelle}, year={2017}, month={Jul.}, pages={66–86} }