Sociophonetic study of substitutional glottalization in native English speakers

The glottal stop, previously labelled as a heavily stigmatized feature of British English pronunciation, has become widely spread across all social classes and the majority of British dialects. Young females are believed to be instrumental in leading the spread and causing the social re-evaluation of the feature. The aim of the present study is to analyze the occurrence of T-glottaling in the speech of British English speakers in relation to sociolinguistic factors, primarily age, gender and speaking style. The theoretical part provides a description of the linguistic and social aspects of T-glottaling. Particular attention is paid to the role of social factors in the process of language change. In addition, a brief overview of previous research is presented. The material for the empirical part of this study consists of 32 recordings of British English speakers. The analysis of the results reveals that gender, age and speaking style play a significant role in the frequency of occurrence of the glottal stop. Young females are shown to be the leaders of the spread of T-glottaling, which leads to the assumption that the language change is still in progress