Language change in action - Variation in Scottish English

Several typical Scottish features currently display considerable variability, and may be undergoing change. This article presents empirical findings from Ayrshire, and focuses on two significant features : rhoticity and vowel length. Rhotics are particularly variable, in both pre-vocalic and non-prevocalic positions. While [r] is extremely rare, [ɾ] and [ɹ] are both frequent, and [ɹ] is probably a sociolinguistic marker of (young) female speech. Yet, phonological environment and syllable stress are the principal factors determining the realisation of /r/ ; in addition, for coda /r/ -with a particular large range of variability, comprising full vocalization – age differences may indicate derhoticisation in progress. Vowel length is also variable : while the duration of /i/ and /u/ is correctly predicted by the Scottish Vowel-length Rule (SVLR) and depend on the morpho-phonological environment, this is not the case for the other monophthongs. Our data seem to suggest complex vowel length : short /i u ɪ ʌ/ vs. long /ɛ e o ɔ a/ monophthongs, absence of the voicing effect for short vowels, SVLR-lengthening of /i u/, and moderate voicing effect for long vowels.