"Whit da heck is 'strut dee lug'?": Evidence for Accent-levelling in the Shetland Isles in an...

“Whit da heck is ‘strut dee lug’?”:

evidence for accent-levelling in the

Shetland Isles in an intergenerational

analysis of variable pre-plosive vowel

mutation

William James Brown

ABSTRACT

In this paper I will be looking at whether the Shetland accent is

changing. The Shetland Isles have been documented as undergoing a

rapid shift from the very distinct regional dialect towards a hybrid

variety consisting of the dialect and Scottish Standard English. While

models put forward by Trudgill (1984) explain such hybridization in

terms of language contact and dialect-levelling I have found that

previous research hasn’t made a clear divide between dialect-levelling

at the lexical-syntactic level and accent-levelling at the

phonological, preferring to treat both as part of the dialect-

levelling model. To demonstrate that such accent-levelling occurs I

will be examining how Soft Mutation, a form of vowel allophony unique

to the Shetland Isles, behaved before recent immigration to the Isles

in the 1970s largely responsible for the dilution of the dialect and

after population mixing which accompanied immigration. I have employed

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an acoustic analysis study of Shetland and Scottish pseudowords to

examine how Soft Mutation behaves in both dialects and whether this

indicates bidialectalism or simply style-shifting in the Isles. My

prediction is that Soft Mutation is a feature of the dialect which

shouldn’t be applied by younger speakers in Scottish words, who have

the choice to use either Shetland or Scottish pronunciation. My

results demonstrate that Soft Mutation is becoming a less frequent

feature of the accent, especially of Well’s DRESS and THOUGHT vowel

sets, which indicates that the accent, like the dialect, is undergoing

accent-levelling.

Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION......................................................3

2. LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................62.1. Language Mixing Theories.......................................6

2.2. Phonological Subsystem Interaction.............................72.3. Contemporary Shetland Phonological Inventory...................9

2.4. Shetland Allophony............................................10

3. METHOD AND PROCEDURE.............................................143.1. Data and Materials............................................14

3.2. Vowel Formant Analysis........................................16

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3.3. Hypotheses....................................................16

4. RESULTS..........................................................184.1. Behaviour of Soft Mutation in ZE and SC environments..........18

4.2. + DRESS Variation.............................................204.3. + THOUGHT Variation...........................................21

5. LIMITATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS......................................22

6. DISCUSSION.......................................................25

6.1. Origin of Soft Mutation.......................................256.2. Future of Soft Mutation.......................................27

7. CONCLUSION.......................................................29

BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................30

1. INTRODUCTION

Figure 1. The Shetland Isles and Fair Isle (source: Google Maps)

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The Shetland Isles (Fig. 1) are an archipelago of over 100

Islands, 15 of which are inhabited, which are situated in the North

Sea roughly equidistant between Aberdeen, Scotland and Bergen, Norway.

As a result of this geographical position the Isles have been exposed

to numerous language shifts in the past characterised by language

contact and mixing which resulted from social mobility to and from the

Isles. Thomason (2001) defines such language contact as “the use of

more than one language in the same place at the same time [when] at

least some people use more than one language” and his proposal that

“all aspects of language structure are subject to transfer from one

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language to another, given the right mix of social and linguistic

circumstances” explains the current optional usage of either Scottish

or Shetland terms presently at work in the Isles. However, this

optional usage is not recent. First evidence of habitation to the

Islands is in the prehistoric era and while discussion is ongoing as

to the specific origin and linguistic situation of the original

settlers the remnants of their culture have been the focus of much

archaeological work in the Isles. During the conquest of Britain

around the first century the Romans also wrote of Islands in the North

Sea which they called “Hermocidae” and “Thule”, but despite such

recorded sightings the Romans never settled. It wasn’t until the 9th

Century that the Islands were first exposed to language mixing when

Viking settlers arrived to settle in Orkney and Shetland and it is

clear, despite a lack of written records from the time, that the

Viking’s culture and Old Norse language eventually supplanted those of

the original population, most clearly seen in that all the placenames

are now Norse which have replaced the names of the original settlers.

Whether this was by force or simply by assimilation is unclear but

some of the Vikings traditions, such as the Up Helly Aa fire festival,

are still practised today and demonstrate the strong association

Islanders owe to their Scandinavian roots. Over the next six centuries

of Viking and subsequent Norwegian rule Old Norse developed into

Shetland Norn and Orkney Norn and the Isles remained monolingual in

their respective dialects until they were ceded to Scotland in the

15th Century. The influence of this Norn language can still be widely

seen in place names with common suffixes denoting geographical or

agricultural characteristics of the settlement. Some of the most

common are -wick (O.N. vik, ‘open bay with little shelter’ e.g.

Lerwick), -voe (O.N. vágr ‘a long narrow sheltered bay’, e.g. Ronas of 48

Voe), -ness (O.N. nes ‘a headland’, e.g. Sandness), -bister (O.N.

bólstaðr ‘farm’, e.g. Westerbister) and Scandinavian genealogies are

also evidenced by the large number of patronymic surnames of the

current population, such as Jamieson, Laurenson and Anderson. This

led to increased trade with Scotland, as well as the Netherlands and

Germany, and a second language mixing when Scottish trade brought with

it the Scots language. As trade increased and Scottish traders

settled, Scots eventually prevailed and replaced Norn as the main

language, which was extinct by the 17th Century (Trudgill 1984). Prior

to this, however, mixing of Scots and Norn meant Norn elements had

already been incorporated into the Shetland Scots dialect which

resulted from from the mixing of these varieties.

The present linguistic context in the Isles owes to a third

mixing of varieties. Population levels have risen 30% from around

17,000 in the 1960s to 23,000 today due to the success of Sullom Voe

oil terminal which brought profitable industry to the islands when oil

was struck during the 1970s1. Sullom Voe brought with it a large number

of Scottish workers from the English-speaking mainland, some of whom

permanently settled in Shetland. As a result, the Shetland Scots

variety of the inhabitants is competing with Standard Scottish English

(StScE), which was brought by immigrants. The dialect appears to be

losing and as a result is in noticeable decline. Smith’s (2009) study

comparing a set of questionnaire results of 13-16 year olds in 1983

and 2010 was the first to demonstrate a real-time shift in use of

unique dialect features, which was also accompanied by a change in

attitude toward both varieties. The result is a 30-year gap in which

time StScE has become much more favourable and Shetland much less

1 http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2014/04/17/boom-time-again-at-sullom-voe of 48

used. “Whereas in 1983 nearly 80 per cent of children could be

expected to have spoken the Shetland dialect at home, now only 65 per

cent might.” The dialect was the only variety spoken in the home in

1983 while at the same time not actively encouraged, and sometimes

openly discouraged, in the education system where marks could be

deducted for spoken dialect use in the classroom. Presently, StScE has

been encouraged, which may be another cause for 'children [who] are

moving away from a diglossic use of the Shetland dialect and English

towards a more mixed use'. Smith proposes that this must be the result

of immigration to the Shetland Isles during the 1970s oil boom and its

subsequent effects on language interaction, accompanied by a sharp

decrease in speakers self-identifying as dialect-only speakers and an

increase of a mixed Shetland-StScE variety.

In the case of language contact in both Original Settlers/Old

Norse and Norn/Scots periods dialect-formation required ‘dialect-

levelling’ (Trudgill 1997) where the loss of L1 features was

concurrent to increased variability in the use of L1 and L2 variants

among speakers. It is clear there has been a marked loss of

distinctive features in younger speakers as opposed to previous

generations (Tait 2001; Van Leyden 2004), thus the dialect may be said

to be levelling in the case of the present Shetland Scots/StScE

language mixing as well. As for attitudes towards this mixing, the

Shetland verb ‘knap’, ‘to speak with affectation, especially

Shetlander trying to speak ‘proper English’’, demonstrates both the

eminence of the present Shetland/StScE mixing and the negative

connotations ascribed thereto2.

2 http://www.shetlanddialect.org.uk/john-j-grahams-shetland-dictionary.php?word=1315 of 48

2. LITERATURE REVIEW2.1. Language Mixing Theories

An analysis of how Norn and Older Scots phonological inventories

historically mixed to result in Shetland Scots is discussed by

Knooihuizen (2009). He agrees with Miller (2008), who explains the mix

in terms of Trudgill’s model of diffusion and intergenerational

transmission in new dialect-formation. Miller categorizes Shetland

Scots as an L2 Scots variety which evolved from Angus, Fife and

Lothian Scots dialects, while owing strong influences to the L1 Norn

variety of the time. The influence of L1 Norn on L2 Shetland Scots

were principally lexical-phonological and include:

● initial and medial-position stopping of /θ, ð/ to /t, d/ (th-

stopping)

● merger of onset /ʍ/ and /kw/ (hw-confusion)

● T/V distinction in second person pronouns du/you

● use of to be as auxiliary verb to construct the perfect tense (be-

perfective)

● COT-GOAT merger

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● prosodic features, which includes Scandinavian Syllable Structure

● gendered anaphoric pronominal reference.

Features attributable to the phonological systems of Older Scots

include:

● the Scottish Vowel Length Rule

● simplification of alveolar clusters /nd/ and /ld/

● BIT variation /ɜ~ɪ/

● Millar’s BUIT vowel /y~ø/, which is represented orthographically

as ö and has traditionally been viewed as a Norn relic

● fronted TRAP vowel /æ/.

However, the date of such change is in doubt. Knooihuizen (2008)

argues that Scots wholly replaced Norn as the functional spoken

language of the Isles before 1774 and that the dialect-formation

process must have begun no later than 1600, since marriage records

from the early 17th century show considerable interethnic marriage

between Scots-speaking immigrants and Norn-speaking Shetlanders

(Knooihuizen 2005). Miller, however, proposes a much later and more

gradual dialect-formation period and places Trudgill’s Stage II at

around 1800.

Disagreement also lies over which parent variety contributed

which features to the daughter variety. The smaller consonant

inventory of Shetland is largely agreed to be Norn, owing to a smaller

consonant inventory in Old Norse, while vowels are largely Scots-

derived since the Older Scots’ richer system of monophthongs (10+) can

more readily explain the number of present Shetland monophthongs

(Section 2.3) than can Old Norse (6-8). However, this has not always

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been certain. Th-stopping, commonly regarded as a Norn feature due to

the absence of voiced fricatives in Old Norse, may in reality be a

feature disconnect from both Scots and Norn influence, owing to

Aitken’s Scottish Vowel Length Rule (1981) from the Scots substratum

which states that in Scottish dialects short vowels, with the

exception of KIT /ɪ/ and STRUT /ʌ/ vowels which are invariably short,

are lengthened when followed by: /v, z, ð, r/; a morpheme boundary or

an inflectional suffix (Millar, 2004). The argument depends on the

fact that meid /mi:d/ has a long /i:/ in an unaffected environment (-

SVLR), and that since meid derives from Old Norse meið, which is an

affected environment (+SVLR), th-stopping must have postdated the

effect of the Scottish Vowel Length Rule. This is also evidence by a

second feature affecting vowel quality: Scandinavian Syllable

Structure from the Norn substratum (Melchers 1991; Bandle et. al:

2004) which is itself a result of the Great Scandinavian Quantity

Shift which caused stressed monosyllables in West Scandinavian

language between 1250-1550 to conform to either CVVC or CVCC syllable

structure. This predicts that meid, if it were unaffected by the

Scottish Vowel Length Rule, should have the realization /mid:/. Since

we do not see this, we have good reason to suppose that th-stopping

postdates Norn influence.

2.2. Phonological Subsystem Interaction

Byers-Heinlein et al (2013) ascertain that “exposure to language

mixing might obscure cues that facilitate young bilingual children’s

separation of their languages and could hinder the functioning of

learning mechanisms that support the early growth of their

vocabularies”, while also allowing the possibility that “some parents

modulate the frequency of their language mixing in response to their of 48

children’s developing vocabularies”. In this way children using a

variety characterised by mixing of Shetland/StScE are exposed to a

kind of linguistic confirmation bias. They are exposed to StScE in

school and thus adopt these forms, then return home and have those

forms reinforced by parents who employ these same forms to accommodate

the heavily-influenced speech of their children. In keeping with this,

Ferguson’s model allows us to understand the influence of StScE in

Shetland by differentiating the H variety of prestige and ruling-class

style, and the L variety of the working classes which is ‘closer to

the real thinking and feeling of the people’ (Ferguson 1972: 247-248).

As Dorian (1994) notes, wherever a hybrid variety exhibits

considerable variation for L-variant x this precludes the loss of x

through supplanting by x’s equivalent H-variant.

Cruickshank argues that this occurred previously in the move

towards StScE in Shetland in the past, which was encouraged by three

primary factors: the spread of English-language education; the

promotion of StScE as H-variety above Scots; and generally favourable

attitudes towards the English language following the union of Scotland

and England. In the case of present-day Shetlanders the effect of

English-language education is seen in high literacy in English (H-

variety), due to promotion of English in education, and general

illiteracy in Shetland3 (L-variety). The question regarding rate of

change is to what extent such changes are taking place within the

speech community itself. Previously, there have been three ways of

examining how Shetland and StScE variants inhabit and interact in the

mental linguistic space:

3 “I mebbe spik Shetlan’ but I dinna read it” 0:36 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v37bgydws0E of 48

● bilingualism: Shetland and StScE occupy two sets of

generally non-overlapping grammars which do not interact;

● bidialectalism: Shetland and StScE occupy the same grammar,

which is characterised by a “mixing of variants” (Smith &

Durham, 2012: 80).

● style-shifting, where there exist multiple context-dependent

forms which may exhibit variation and overlap in a speaker’s

potentially-bidialectal space (Hazen, 2001; Labov, 1994).

This same shift noted in dialect-levelling should, in my mind,

also be applied to phonological categories of dialects which are also

subject to some form of change in a process of ‘accent-levelling’: a

process of phonological change which accompanies lexical, semantic and

syntactic change. This is generally grouped together with dialect-

levelling and is hinted at during Smith & Durham’s analysis of

HOUSE/HOOSE frequency among younger speakers (2012). This research

demonstrates that 50% of younger speakers exhibit style-shifting

between H- and L-variants depending on the linguistic preference of

the interlocutor present, accompanied by a general decrease in the use

of traditional variants in favour of StScE variants by younger

speakers. Three choices are thus available to younger Shetland

speakers, who may: continue to use only Shetland dialect; use StScE

and Shetland dialect in a style-shifting or bidialectal manner;

abandon Shetland dialect and in favour of StScE.

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2.3. Contemporary Shetland Phonological Inventory

While most consonants are similar to their Scottish realizations,

with the exception of dental in place of alveolar placement of

plosives, disagreement on the realization of /l/ sheds light on

confusion of both historical strata influence and present language

mixing. Melchers (2010) argues that /l/ is clear in all positions and

illustrates a phoneme totally distinct from StScE phonology, which has

velarized /ɫ/. Sundkvist (2010) argues the opposition for a

velarized /ɫ/ in all positions, similar to StScE. Catford (1957) has a

more systemic solution and posits that the realization of /l/ may be

conditioned by environment: palatalised following front vowels and

velarised following non-front vowels, giving rise to a clear/dark /l/

allophony illustrated in the minimal pair bell ~ ball [bɛɪɫ ~ bælʲ].

Palatalisation of coda-/l/ matches previous observations of similar

effects on palatalisation of coda-/dʲ, nʲ/. Sundkvist, while arguing

for a general velarised realization, expands on Catford’s coda-

palatalisation and suggests this may also specifically affect

consonants which trigger application of the Scottish Vowel Length Rule

while failing to show /l/-allophony. Catford’s /l/-opposition is

certainly systemic and Sundkvist’s illustration of a preference for

velarized realizations is certainly indicative of accent variation

within the Island speech community.

Disagreement also exists over the exact number of vowels which

should be included in the Shetland vowel system. Catford (1957) adopts

Mather’s system of 12 monophthongs, 9 short and 3 long, and at least 2

diphthongs to propose that the similarity of North Angus and Shetland

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vowel systems is not coincidental but rather serves as evidence of the

Middle Scots vowel system, which has not been preserved in other Scots

dialects. Melchers adds three monophthongs to Mather and Catford’s

original system. The most common canon for examining vowel sets within

Scottish phonological systems has been Wells’ which was adopted by

Aitken (1981) in describing the Scottish Vowel Length Rule. However,

Miller prefer Johnson’s (1997) sets on the basis that Well’s sets are

unhelpful for examining Scots or StScE, since both varieties owe to

separate linguistic histories of English and Scots phonological

inventories. Scottish varieties contain an already greatly reduced set

of vowels from English as the result of multiple mergers, which leads

to far too considerable overlapping of tokens among Well’s sets for

this to be used as a reliable guideline for use in Scottish dialects.

This is most clearly illustrated by Johnson’s BEAT vowel set. The BEAT

set constituted a separate set in Middle Scots preceding a historic

merger with FLEECE which is still retained in Shetland. The digraph

<ea>, present StScE /ɛ/, is preserved by the equivalent digraph in

Shetland <ae> which recognises the original BEAT set. Therefore in

Shetland there exists a threeway distinction which is illustrated by

regional orthographic variations on head to represent regional spoken

variants [hed ~ hid ~ hɛɪd] as the result of three separate mergers

with BEAT:

haed - Mainland DRESS merger, in which [ɛɪ] is the regular hard

mutation of /ɛ/;

heed - North Isles FLEECE merger, as in historic Scots, which

doesn’t undergo soft mutation;

hed - Geographically unspecified BAIT merger (Miller 2004).

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For the present study Wells’ sets have been adopted as they are

suitable for the vowel sets examined and have been done so in previous

explanations of the accent (Sundkvist 2010). The Linguistics Atlas of

Scotland further records:

● -SVLR DRESS lengthening

● +SVLR THOUGHT lengthening preceding nasals and /l/

● +SVLR TRAP lengthening

● compensatory lengthening of vowels resulting from

monophthongization of diphthongs and l-vocalisation.

Regional variation also exists in the exact distribution of vowel

sets within the Shetland isles. Miller’s BUIT vowel may appear on

Burra Isle as /ø/ where in Lerwick it is absent, so school may have two

regional spoken variants [skul ~ skøl]. Further examples of regional

variation of Shetland vowel sets are described by Graham (1993):

● North Isles and Fair Isles AA is rounded to a short O,

demonstrated orthographically by haund in place of haand.

The DRESS vowels merges with FLEECE, e.g. steen for Mainland

stane.

● Whalsay diphthongization of DRESS /steən/,

● Whalsay and Fair Isle long E in MAIN diphthongizes to OI,

eg. doy for day

● Burra Isle, Cunningsburgh and Fair Isles AA becomes short E,

e.g. lesh for lash

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2.4. Shetland Allophony

In Section 2.1. I discussed two features of Shetland Scots

phonology which affect vowel quantity: the Great Scandinavian Quantity

Shift and the Scottish Vowel Length Rule. Here I will describe a

feature which also affects vowel quality. Soft Mutation is a form of

vowel allophony which is unique to Shetland among all Scottish

dialects whereby Wells’ KIT /ɜ/, DRESS /ɛ/, TRAP /a/, THOUGHT /ɔ/ and

STRUT /ʌ/ sets are raised and/or fronted (Figure 1) when preceding

particular voiced consonants (Tait 2000). This is recognised by the

Linguistics Atlas for Scotland (2010) for TRAP mutation which occurs

most frequently preceding voiced alveolar plosives, followed by velar

and labial plosives. Millar (2007) recognises this as it applies to

the DRESS vowel but doesn’t record variation for the others sets,

while Johnson’s Insular Scots Clockwise Vowel Shift (1997) notes the

general direction of the shift to rising and fronting. Tait’s Soft

Mutation (Fig. 2) builds upon this more extensively in documenting the

precise regional realizations of these pre-voiced ‘soft’ allophones

and their pre-voiceless ‘hard’ realizations, which can also be shown

in contrasting minimal pairs in Table 1.

Figure 2. Tait’s Soft Mutation

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Table 1. Minimal pairs for sets in bVt/bVd environments

Two long vowels are also affected: /a: ~ ɑ:/ which mutates to /æ/

and /eə ~ ɛ:/ which mutates to /e:/ while those which do not undergo

Soft Mutation are long /o/ and both short and long /i, u, ø/.

Sundkvist’s recognition of vowel mutation is generally correct but

confusion may arise for Wells’ KIT set, which reflects an earlier

Angus Scots KIT /ɜ/, while the /ɪ/ phoneme is reserved for the hard

KIT mutation. Tait notes that mutation also applies in pre-stop

cluster environments, thus where affected vowels are followed by

/r/, /l/, /m/, /n/ + /stop/ it is the voicing of the second consonant

in the cluster which will determine whether vowel mutation applies.

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While the regular trigger environment is a voiced plosive regional

variation for these triggers exist which produce shibboleths. For

example, in Hamnavoe on Burra Isle bag is affected by Soft Mutation

trigger /g/ and is realized [bɛg] while in Westside /g/ is not a

trigger and so realized as [bag]. Similarly in Hamnavoe voiceless

fricatives act as triggers so that match is realized [mɛt͡ʃ] while in

Westside voiceless fricatives are not regular triggers. This may also

lie behind Graham’s observation that AA becomes E in Burra Isle, which

would mean this isn’t a phonological change affecting AA but rather

allophonic for AA preceding certain fricatives.

While both a grammar and dictionary of the dialect exists (Graham

1993) the lack of regulated written standard, both past and present,

may explain why neither quantitative nor qualitative distinctions are

recognised orthographically, while in West Scandinavian languages

which have both a written standard some form of allophony we see this

represented orthographically, e.g. Norwegian tak~takk /ta:k~tak:/,

demonstrating Scandinavian Syllable Structure. The lack of written

standard, and the failure to show this in the orthography, would also

explain why most Shetland speakers are not consciously aware of either

quantitative or qualitative changes which apply to the dialect.

However, Tait argues this is not necessary due to the unconscious

recognition of Soft Mutation vowel quality in pre-voiced environments,

which is confirmed by the success of the methodology used in this

study.

All discussion of dialect-levelling thus far has been employed

only for lexical, semantic or syntactic variants. Auer et al. (1998)

assert that those features of a phonological system which are least

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salient are those most likely to be lost and since it is clear that

Soft Mutation (Section 2.4) is not a salient feature for Shetland

speakers the prediction is that Soft Mutation will be employed with a

reduced frequency or lost entirely by younger speakers. Thus,

examining how non-salient vowel allophony behaves in StScE and

Shetland contexts offers the best look at how the mental language

space treats both varieties in terms of both phonological subsystem

content and interaction which affects accent-levelling. This is based

in Smith & Durham’s (2012) assertion that th-stopping’s allophonic

usage is considered “below the level of the speaker’s social

awareness”. If younger speakers do exhibit bidialectalism this may

suggest separate phonological inventories, however if Soft Mutation is

not applied this still requires explanation. Are vowels unaffected due

to the speaker’s subsystem:

1. inhibiting Soft Mutation in only a number of Shetland

environments, which may simply be either accent-levelling or

regional variation;

2. not extending Soft Mutation in any Shetland environments

where expected, which supports non-salience of Soft Mutation

and;

3. inhibiting Soft Mutation to facilitate comprehension on

behalf of non-Shetlander interlocutors, i.e. ‘knappin’’?

To remove option 3 I remained absent from the recordings and had

personal Shetland locals gather data on my behalf. To limit regional

variation of individual lexical tokens a list of pseudowords

containing KIT, DRESS, TRAP, LOT and STRUT vowels in hard and soft

mutated environments were used. Participants were told that these of 48

lists contained a mixture of old Shetland words and old Scottish

words. While this was true insofar as the Shetland set contained no

obviously Scottish words and vice versa in reality both sets contained

a mixture of English words and pseudo tokens. By disguising these

false words as local or non-local I expected to see authentic and

natural application of Soft Mutation to both Shetland and non-Shetland

environments without the risk of speakers moulding pronunciation on

previous exposure to tokens. Two Scottish participants with no ties to

Shetland who did not use any form of pre-voiced vowel allophony were

used as controls to give mean values against which Shetland speaker

values were compared. However, my focus is not to categorize speakers

as speaking either specifically Shetland or StScE but rather whether

expected features are absent, which will serve both as evidence that

the accent is changing concurrent to the dialect and that these less

salient features are more likely to erode. Since Soft Mutation is not

a generally salient feature of the accent, or at least one which like

th-stopping is above the level of conscious awareness, I have chosen it

as the principal variable to analyse accent change in Shetland. This

will also serve as an insight into the relationship between accent

change compared with previously documented dialect-levelling.

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3. METHOD AND PROCEDURE3.1. Data and Materials

This study employs standard acoustic analysis methodology

performed in PRAAT speech analysis software (Boersma & Weenink 2005)

and all diagrams in this section were made either in Microsoft Excel,

R statistical software’s phonR package (2008; package update March

2014) or NORM (2014) and inserted from Window’s Snipping tool. The

data consists of one exercise containing two words lists of numerous

stressed monosyllable tokens primarily concerning isolated speech.

This was intended to show whether participants contained two separate

phonological systems for Shetland (ZE) and Scottish (SC) words or one

into which all tokens fell. All tokens were uttered in carrier phrases

“Shö kens ___ laekly (ZE) / She knows ___ likely (SC)” to frame tokens

in appropriate Shetland/Scottish environments (Torre & Barlow: 2006).

While this didn’t ensure whether Soft Mutation would be extended, it

is clear from the results (Section 4) that this difference had a

successful and noticeable effect. Participants were also told to

discuss whether they found token words familiar, firstly to elicit

connected speech, which wasn’t used in recordings, and to distract

participants from the true purpose of the study into thinking the

study examined lexical knowledge or recognition. The majority of

tokens were pseudowords to remove any speaker bias towards

pronunciation, with the occasional authentic word to give participants

the impression that real, albeit unfamiliar, Shetland had been chosen,

and also to examine how regularly Soft Mutation was extended in tokens

which the participants believed were of Shetland or Scottish origin.

In discussing the effect of Soft Mutation in ZE/SC environments my own

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notation for Soft Mutation environments will show hard unaffected

environments (-DRESS) and soft affected environments (+DRESS). This

does not indicate actual realized vowel quality but rather expected

vowel quality. Recordings were collected by three trusted contacts in

Shetland who sampled participants according to age group and oversaw

both the recording and completion of ethical forms. Contacts informed

participants of the purpose of the study retrospectively and did not

pass on personal information of participants to myself. Participants,

after sampling, completed a consent form with tick boxes to provide

information on age (<18; >50), gender (Male/Female) and parental

heritage (Both Shetland, One Shetland, Both Scottish). Participants

were divided into two age groups based on likelihood of exposure to

Scottish tokens: Old speakers (O) aged over 50, with the assumption

that pre-1970s speakers who were born, raised and still settled in the

Isles were far less likely to have been affected by immigrant

varieties and more likely to preserve historical variants; and Young

(Y) speakers, who were aged under 18 to represent the post-

immigration, mixed-parentage, and thus mixed-variety generation. The

total number of participants after completion of data analysis was 16

whose gender, age and parental origin are shown in Fig. 3, as well as

the distribution of O/Y speakers in Fig. 4.

Figure 3. Graph illustrating participants’ age, gender and parentage

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Figure 4. Participants’ age as a percentage of total (N=16)

Contacts presented participants with consent forms and exercise

sheets which were completed before being recorded as audio files onto

a smartphone microphone. This were then sent to me and imported into

of 48

PRAAT on default settings where F1 and F2 values were taken and noted

into an excel spreadsheet document, before being analysed in phonR and

NORM. F3 was to be measured for THOUGHT and STRUT vowels, which

undergo rounding shown by a simultaneous drop of 400Hz in F2 and F3

(Raphael et al. 1978), but this was not uniformly applied to all

participants due to time constraints. Therefore, all values in Section

4 only demonstrate vowel fronting and height rather than rounding.

This was not expected to be problematic, since both THOUGHT and STRUT

undergo both rounding and fronting. All contacts were present at the

time of recording and were fellow Shetlanders with noticeable accents,

which was intended to remove style-shifting as a variable. The

presence of native islanders and accents was expected to place

participants, especially younger participants, at greater ease during

the recording (Souza et. al: 2013).

3.2. Vowel Formant Analysis

Monophthong values were taken according to Ladefoged (2003) in

what was perceived to be the midpoint of the vowel’s duration, rather

than in either the middle of a period where there is little change, or

“central tendency”, or as the mean value of the vowel over a specified

duration. However, the presence of voiced coda consonants incurred

formant transitions which proved especially difficult in the case of

KIT tokens, which appeared to be more greatly affected by offset

consonant transitions while still not being perceived as diphthongs.

KIT was thus measured at the central point of what was perceived to be

its central tendency. Diphthong values were only expected for +DRESS

but also showed notably for +THOUGHT. Here, the first vowel in the

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diphthong was measured either as close to the initial point of the

vowel unaffected by onset transitions as possible or in what was

perceived to be the point which showed the least effects from

transitions of the onset consonant. The second element was measured in

the same way at a point which was perceived to be unaffected by offset

formant transitions.

3.3. Hypotheses

H Y will show a general reduced frequency of Soft Mutation in

soft environments compared with O, which will support the premise

that dialect-levelling at the lexical level in Shetland is also

accompanied by phonological accent-levelling.

H0 Y will show no significant change from O, in which case

future research is required to analyse how and whether the pace

of accent change accompanies dialect change.

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4. RESULTS4.1. Behaviour of Soft Mutation in ZE and SC

environments

Here I will be analysing how Soft Mutation behaves in ZE and SC

environments. Fig. 5 illustrates a vowel plot for mean vowels in hard

environments according to age group with control values added, which

will be taken as the default unaffected values against which Y and O

values will be examined. These control values predictably did not

change depending on hard or soft environments and were thus suitable

controls. What can be seen is that -TRAP, -DRESS and -THOUGHT largely

overlap across age groups with accompanying control values. The

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position of /ɪ/ for -KIT vowel seems to imply a mean loss of /ɜ/ for Y, who instead adopt a similar phoneme to Scottish speakers, while O

clearly employ a separate /ɜ/ phoneme. -STRUT is also generally raisedfor Shetland speakers compared to Scottish speakers, which illustrates

a phonological change in point of articulation rather than mutated

variation. What this illustrates is that even in hard environments

Shetland speakers employ the same Shetland phonology regardless of age

with the exception of -KIT which has been replaced by Scottish values

in Y. Thus, already in the hard phonology we can see the effect of

accent influence.

Mean +SC values illustrated in Fig. 6 demonstrate that +TRAP,

+DRESS and +STRUT don’t have greatly differing values compared to

their -SC equivalents. +DRESS and +KIT have mean values which are

raised in the vowel space by around 100 Hz compared to hard

environments, but overall only +THOUGHT appears to indicate any

notable movement, with far more pronounced fronting in hard Scottish

environments for Shetland speakers which overlaps with +STRUT.

Mean +ZE values illustrate in Fig. 7 were expected to show the

greatest change, with Soft Mutation most greatly applied across

speakers. This does not appear to apply to +KIT, which demonstrates

little change from its +SC values. O shows a pronounced fronted +TRAP

vowel /æ/ and raises +DRESS vowel to overlap with +KIT, which

indicates diphthongization. Both Y and O fronted +THOUGHT and raised

+STRUT with little variation.

What may be concluded for +SC/+ZE environments is that all vowel

sets appear to undergo change, most visibly here are +TRAP, +DRESS and

+THOUGHT, with less pronounced differences for +KIT and +STRUT.

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However, this change is not uniform and only +THOUGHT illustrates

shift for both +SC and +ZE environments. This seems to support the

claim that speakers possess multiple phonological subsystems which

affect Soft Mutation realization.

Figure 5. Mean positions for - environments Figure 6. Means positions for +SC

environments

Figure 7. Mean positions for +ZE environments

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What is clear from the previous results is that three vowels

illustrate the most notable change dependent on environments: +TRAP,

+DRESS and +THOUGHT. +TRAP fronting in +ZE environments but not in +SC

environments has been clearly demonstrated in Fig. 7, which at least

suggests some level of phonological subsystem dichotomy. I will here

analyse the behaviour of the two further sets which showed most

promising variation between +SC and +ZE environments: +DRESS and

+THOUGHT. All individual values in diagrams for Sections 4.2 and 4.3

are Lobanov normalized and portray vowel spaces situated between

Catford’s (1988) mean vowel positions for /i, a, u/, which are

highlighted, to give an indication of relative position of vowels

within the vowel space.

4.2. + DRESS Variation

Figure 8. Individual O speakers’ +DRESS values Figure 9. Individual Y speakers’ +DRESS values

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Table 2. Percentage of monophthongs/diphthongs for +DRESS environments

+DRESS O (N=32) Y (N=40)

Monophthong[ɛ]

17 (53%) 32 (80%)

Diphthong[ɛɪ]

15 (47%) 6 (20%)

All hard environments for both speaker groups contained 100%

monophthongs as expected and Fig’s 8 and 9 demonstrate +DRESS values

for individual O and Y speakers in both +ZE and +SC environments. The

distinction is most clearly seen in the application and frequency of

monophthongs to diphthongs. While O employed diphthongs in 47% of soft

environments, Y only did so in 20% of soft environments. Thus, Y are

using Soft Mutation with 27% less frequency than O. However, this

figure is more dramatic when considering that the 47% value appears to

be based on triggers, rather than simply random variation. This is

seen where O speakers have diphthong [ɛɪ] in 100% of pre-/d/

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environments and monophthong [ɛ] in 100% of pre-/b/ environments. It

could then be concluded that /b/ is not a Soft Mutation trigger at all

while /d/ is a trigger which affects 100% of values. The effect of

this pre-/b~d/ environment trigger also applies to 66% of Y values

while the remaining 33% were used by one speaker for 100% of ZE

tokens. While the data set is admittedly small we may conclude that

for 100% of O participants a distinction between +/-DRESS was

preserved which applies to both +ZE and +SC values, while for Y

speakers the same distinction only applies for 20% speakers and 10%

apply Soft Mutation in only ZE environments, indicating loss of

expected +DRESS along and age gradient.

4.3. + THOUGHT Variation

Figure 10. Individual O speakers’ +THOUGHT values Figure 11. Individual Y speakers’ +THOUGHT values

Table 3. Percentage of monophthongs/diphthongs for +THOUGHT environments

+THOUGHT O (N=31) Y (N=38)

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Monophthong[ɔ]

5 (19.2%) 27 (71.1%)

Diphthong[œ͡ɛ/œ͡ə]

26 (83.8%) 11 (28.9%)

All hard environments for both speaker groups contained 100%

monophthongs as expected and Fig’s 10 and 11 demonstrate +THOUGHT

values for individual O and Y speakers in both +ZE and +SC

environments. The position of the second diphthong element seems to

have two main variants for both speakers: either fronting towards /ɔ͡ɛ/

or centralizing towards /ɔ͡ə/. Due to the absence of F3 it is difficult

to tell whether these values are rounded or unrounded, however in

vowel analysis there was perceived to be a general tendency for

diphthong values to be rounded, thus producing variants [œ͡ɛ] and [œ͡ə]

All tokens occurred preceding /d/ triggers, therefore we may conclude

that for both age groups two variants for +THOUGHT a common rising

diphthong and less common centralizing diphthong, may occur

irrespective of environment with frequency of diphthongizations

reducing along an age gradient.

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5. LIMITATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS

The largest constraint on this study was time management

surrounding compilation and analysis of data. Exercises were finalized

one month into research after several trials on participants whose

results were not included in the study in order to do background

reading to select proper variables for research, while the following

month was spent sending exercises to colleagues and giving colleagues

time to gather and return the data from participants. The following

month was spent performing formant analysis, where transcription

averaged one hour per participant. The intended final number was 30

participants: 10 each in Old, Middle and Young age groups, however a

smaller number was received than expected and after removing the one

Middle group speaker, which was to analyse speakers aged 25 to 50 to

give greater indication of the speed of accent loss, the final number

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of speakers reached only 16. This speaker’s results largely matched

those of the Old group, which would indicate that + values have been

lost most rapidly within the past generation, however this doesn’t say

anything for the remainder of the age group and is therefore

inconclusive.

Originally a duration analysis test was considered which was

expected to demonstrate that if Soft Mutation weren’t extended by

Young speakers, which would serve as evidence of accent-levelling,

that this would be accompanied by a drop in the frequency of

Scandinavian Syllable Structure application. Young speakers were

expected to both omit Soft Mutation and adopt non-allophonic Scottish

syllable structures instead. In order to test for such change I

adopted Van Leyden’s (2004) method and guidelines for measuring

boundaries between the nucleus-vowel and the coda-consonant. My method

differed in that minimal pairs were primarily based on vowel quality

affection rather than quantity affection and thus consisted primarily

of VCC environments. The only VVC environments expected were in

diphthong +DRESS and +THOUGHT environments. This study also differed

by examining age range. While vowel duration is a contrasting feature

of Shetland speech (Tait 2000) the reliance on pseudowords should have

excluded this as a variable, however pseudowords may have been

mistaken for actual Shetland words with the result that participants

mistook final consonants for a +SVLR past tense morpheme boundary,

such that trid may have been understood as tri#d. This may also have been

mistaken for lexical exceptions where vowel contrast applies, e.g.

/lumi ~ lu:mi/, and thus have unexpected syllable structures. All

tokens qualified for examination and were plosive-final, in –SVLR

environments and thus expected to be regularly VCC or VVC. However, of 48

analysis was dropped due to both time constraints and a lack of

significant variation to display. After mapping syllable length for

several participants in both age categories it was concluded that

VVC/VCC structure exhibits considerably less, if any, variation

compared to Soft Mutation for younger speakers. This may mean syllable

length is a more salient feature of which speakers which according to

Auer determines more resilience to change, however when asking several

Shetland-speaking contacts about the feature they seemed relatively

unaware of Scandinavian Syllable Structure as a general principle and

far less so in their own speech until it was pointed out to them.

Future research is required on the behaviour of Scandinavian Syllable

Structure and whether this varies across generations which would be

beneficial to understanding the interaction of dialect- and accent-

levelling in Shetland. In the end this was deemed beyond the scope of

this study.

Another potential limitation for this study was my choice to

employ apparent-time methodology to examine generational accent change

where real-time studies have also been employed to study generational

dialect change in Shetland. Thus far apparent-time studies have been

the most common method in sociolinguistic research as they demand less

time, however the results are less revealing. Apparent-time

observations may demonstrate either stable variation within a speech

community which is unaffected by external influence or external

influence and unnatural speech variation. (Bailey Guy et. al, 1991).

Eckert (in Coulmas 1997) comments that “increasing age correlates with

increasing conservatism in speech, however in that case it is not

clear whether or not age-stratified patterns of variation actually

reflect any change in progress or can be seen as a stable variable.” of 48

In this light Coulmas (1997) advises that “only real-time studies can

unequivocally deliver clear-cut results for changes in progress”.

Durham and Smith’s real-time analysis over a 30-year period (2009)

comes close to delivering this. Ideally, this present study would have

combined both apparent and real-time data to show both that accent

change is occurring across an age gradient and the lesser likelihood

that this change is simply stable variation in a speech community.

Suppose that a real time study concludes the older generation ‘knap’

to the same frequency as younger speakers, presumably to encourage

communication between speakers of different backgrounds. It would

still be logical to presume the younger generation have built upon

changes in the older generation’s speech concurrent to blending

external imports in speech. An example of variation which is not

attributable to purely internal variation in Shetland would be the

HERD/BIRD/CURD merger, which was present in the connected speech of

some younger Shetlander’s speech in this study. Since such a merger is

regarded as a specifically Scottish feature with no parallel in other

language varieties affective in Shetland this is likely to be the

result of external influence.

In his study on age-related real-time variation Harrington (2006)

concludes the Queen’s use of the KIT vowel shows raising over time

which may be the result of Cockney influence. He argues that vowels in

multiple sets may overlap in positions where they are not obliged to

contrast phonemically. It is to be expected from this that such

overlapping leads to increased variation between vowels in such

positions. The pseudo words used in this study were crafted under the

assumption that Soft Mutation was a uniform change which occurred

generally in pre-voiced plosive environments. However, both data from of 48

the Linguistics Atlas of Scotland and the present results for +DRESS

suggest that plosive place of articulation may affect Soft Mutation

values in a regular way. In the absence of information on speaker

origin it is difficult to ascertain whether this is simply regional

variation or a general trend.

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6. DISCUSSION6.1. Origin of Soft Mutation

Of most interest regarding Soft Mutation is that no published

literature examines how it emerged in the first place. Here I believe

I have a satisfactory explanation which treats Soft Mutation as an

instance of I-mutation triggered by palatalisation of coda-position

/lʲ, nʲ, dʲ/. Evidence of I-mutation, a process whereby the vowel in

Syllable x may be fronted and raised where Syllable x+1 contains /i, ɪ,

j/ or a palatalised consonant /Cʲ/, may be most strongly seen by the

presence of /ɪ/ in +DRESS mutation /ɛɪ/, where palatalisation has

introduced an /ɪ/ preceding the coda consonant, and for +KIT by the

supplanting of /ɜ/ by /ɪ/. Why /ɪ/ isn’t retained for the remaining

sets may have an explanation in variants for +THOUGHT which has

standard hard mutation [œ͡ɛ] and common variant [œ͡ə]. Retention of

/ɛ~ə/ schwa in the both variants may indicate former /i/ which has

gradually been lowered. While identifying palatalised final consonants

was not the principle exercise of this study, Catford’s claim that

coda-position /l, n, d/ were palatalised to /lʲ, nʲ, dʲ/ may be

accepted as an example of historical realization. Sundkvist also

notes that “/d, n, ŋ/ are palatalised in contexts that overlap with

the application of Shetland Vowel Mutation: bad [bædʲ], ban [bænʲ],

bang [bæŋʲ]” (2008). Thus, where /d, l, n, ŋ/ are all [+voiced] and

thus predictable triggers for Soft Mutation and where these

environments were historically /lʲ, nʲ, dʲ/, of which this study

observes /d/ to be the most reliable trigger, a plausible history for

all the mutation of all sets is shown in Table 4 where original

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palatalised coda-consonants insert /ɪ/ preceding the coda which

triggers mutations before /ɪ/ is either lowered in +THOUGHT, replaces

original vowel in +KIT, retained in +DRESS or lost in +TRAP and

+STRUT. It should be noted that in results one O speaker contained

+TRAP diphthong /æə/, which was disregarded as an exception, however

this may indicate retention of /ə/ preceding loss in O speakers.

Palatalisation of coda-consonants was not observed for all speakers,

therefore an added stage of loss of coda palatalization may be

suggested.

Table 4. Proposed historical development of Soft Mutation

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Further evidence is required to validate this hypothesis and my

solution is not conclusive. For example, if /l, n/ have always been

palatalised why has previous literature concluded there exists more

considerable regional variation for these in soft environments than

for /d/? Further questions demand research regarding the exclusivity

of historical palatalisation of /l, n, d/, in which case the extension

of Soft Mutation to other pre-voiced environments, e.g. /g/, requires

explanation. Regional variation in pre-/g/ and pre-fricative

environments in 2.4 may shed light on this.

6.2. Future of Soft Mutation

This study has sought to demonstrate that the Shetland

accent is being lost at a similar rate to the dialect and that Sullom

Voe oil terminal has played a major role in such change. These results

support this hypothesis. As a result of the data compiled here across

two age groups we may plot a future projection for the frequency of

Soft Mutation as it will be applied in successive generations over the

of 48

next 30 years that Sullom Voe is projected to be profitable, which

places the present study at roughly half-way through the present

period of expected immigration. By the end of the profitability in

2045 Soft Mutation may cease to exist as a standard feature in the

accent of younger speakeres, as indicated in Fig. 12. While this

forecast is obviously not conclusive and in the absence of a middle

age group to compare values it may be that the rate has slowed down in

recent years it does illustrate that the accent is losing distinctive

forms of the phonology which may disappear within the next few years

and be entirely lost by the next generation.

Figure 12. Predictions for future application of Soft Mutation

1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 2025 2035 2045020406080100

Forecast for +DRESS and +THOUGHT diphthongization

DRESS Linear (DRESS)THOUGHT Linear (THOUGHT)

of 48

7. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, these results support the claim that the Shetland

accent is changing and the results of this study specifically give

evidence which supports hypothesis H: that Soft Mutation varies

according to age and environment and that these may be due to accent-

levelling.

For hard environments there are no visible affects of age for -

TRAP, -DRESS and -THOUGHT vowels, which also broadly overlapped with

Scottish control values and indicated no separate of phonological

subsystems. -KIT values give reasons to suppose that while older

speakers retain /ɜ/ younger speakers are replacing this with Scottish

KIT value /ɪ/. This preference for the H-variant supports accent-

levelling. Also evident was that -STRUT has a raised /ʌ/ irrespective

of age, which does not appear in the literature. For soft Shetland

of 48

environments there was no great change to the +KIT vowel compared to

hard environments, which would indicate that +KIT does not undergo

mutation although perception to the contrary suggests that this is not

conclusive. Shetland speakers of both ages treated +THOUGHT and +STRUT

similarly, generally fronting +THOUGHT with a raised +STRUT, although

without F3 values it is unclear whether this undergoes mutation for

both sets. However, age appeared to affect +TRAP, which older speakers

realized as predicted /æ/, and +DRESS which showed diphthong values.

For soft Scottish environments there was no change across age groups

to +TRAP, +DRESS and +STRUT when compared with hard environments,

indicating that these do not undergo change. +DRESS and +KIT exhibited

a lowered F1 of around 100 Hz for both ages, however +THOUGHT appeared

to be fronted, and possibly rounded, in hard environments for Shetland

speakers.

Also presented was a possible account for the development of Soft

Mutation which resulted from palatalisation of voiced coda-position

consonants. This study also makes it possible to dismiss certain

claims as either false or at the very least no longer valid. For

example LAS, which notes lengthening of -DRESS and of +TRAP, neither

of which were evident in results.

of 48

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