Accommodation or political identity: Scottish members of the UK Parliament

Hall-Lew, L., Friskney, R. and Scobbie, J. M. (2017) Accommodation or political identity: Scottish members of the UK Parliament. Language Variation and Change, 29(3), pp. 341-363. (doi: 10.1017/S0954394517000175)

Abstract

Phonetic variation among Scottish members of the UK Parliament may be influenced by convergence to Southern English norms (Carr & Brulard, 2006) or political identity (e.g., Hall-Lew, Coppock, & Starr, 2010). Drawing on a year's worth of political speeches (2011–2012) from 10 Scottish members of the UK Parliament (MPs), we find no acoustic evidence for the adoption of a Southern English low vowel system; rather, we find that vowel height is significantly correlated with political party: Scottish Labour Party MPs produce a higher CAT vowel (Johnston, 1997) than do Scottish National Party MPs. The results contradict claims that Scottish MPs acquire Anglo-English features while serving in the UK Parliament. Rather, we suggest that the variation indexes political meaning, with a subset of individuals drawing on that indexicality in production.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Friskney, Dr Ruth
• Authors: Hall-Lew, L., Friskney, R., and Scobbie, J. M.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Journal Name: Language Variation and Change
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISSN: 0954-3945
• ISSN (Online): 1469-8021
• Published Online: 24 November 2017