The nature of the change: Language-internal and external aspects of derhotacization in young urban Scottish English (YUScE)

Scottish English is generally referred to as a rhotic variety of English, i.e. one in which /r/ isarticulated both prevocalically as in red and merry, as well as postvocalically as in far, farmer, andsimilar. However, recent research in the field of sociophonetics (Lawson et al. 2014b, Celata &Calamai, 2014, Schützler, 2015) suggests that a process of derhotacization, that is, a gradual lossor lenition of postvocalic /r/, is taking place among young urban speakers of Scottish English. Thepresent article presents the results of an auditory study of reading tasks performed by 80 informantsfrom Glasgow and Edinburgh during the spring and summer 2016. By looking into the extent towhich the 80 speakers produced derhotacized realizations during the reading task, it is found that ifthe process of derhotacization in YUScE could eventually result in full non-rhoticity, then theprocess is clearly in its early stage: speakers of YUScE are still to a large extent rhotic, and evenfor the few speakers who produce a considerable number of derhotacized realizations, the instancesin which these realizations are completely non-rhotic are rather few. The article, furthermore,investigates the nature of derhotacization in YUScE with respect to two aspects: the languageexternaland language-internal aspects of the change. In terms of the language-external aspects ofthe change, derhotacization is examined in relation to the extra-linguistic variables of gender,socio-economic status, and geographic affiliation. In terms of the language-internal aspects of thechange, derhotacization is examined in relation to a number of language-internal variables: thevowel preceding /r/, the tautosyllabic consonant following /r/, the position of /r/ in a word, i.e.whether /r/ is in word-final or pre-consonantal position in utterance-final words, and in relation toprosodic stress, i.e. whether /r/ is found in accented or deaccented words. It is found that the natureof derhotacization in YUScE is rather systematic in the sense that the change occurs according toseveral underlying social factors, and happens more frequently among some speakers of YUScEthan others depending on gender, socio-economic status, and geographic affiliation, as well asaccording to several underlying language-internal factors, by which the change occurs morefrequently in some phonetic and phonological contexts than in others. It is, furthermore, found thatthe process of derhotacization in YUScE possibly follows a natural law of articulatory economy,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 retainedin contexts in which the reduction of articulatory effort is lowest