XIV Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2022

Southern Scotland was under Anglo-Saxon control by the 7th century and by the end of the 11th century the Normans had spread their power to Scotland after defeating the English in 1066. The crowns of England and Scotland were united under James The sixth of Scotland or James The first of England. In 1707 the Act of Union was passed creating the United Kingdom. All of this made the linguistic links between England and Scotland stronger. Scottish English resulted from language contact between Scots and the `Standard English” only after the 17^th century. So, it was developed three centuries ago. It is one of the “newest” accents in the British Isles.

It’s obvious that the accent is spread in Scotland but in case of migrations it can be found almost all over the world.

Although pronunciation features vary among speakers (depending on region and social status - in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen are different characteristics), there are a number of common phonological features of Scottish accent.

Distinctive features: consonants

tapped[ɾ]- a sound produced by flicking (i.e. tapping) the tip of the tongue very quickly against the roof of the mouth. In some areas trilled ‘r’ is common – a sound commonly associated with a stereotypical Scottish accent.

/r/ before /l/ isstrong - an epenthetic vowel may appear between /r/ and /l/ so that girl [gɛ̝ɾəl] and world[wɔɾəld] are two-syllable words.

Velarised /l/ or “Dark /l/ ” and The phoneme /x/ are common features of Scottish English. They can be observed in the word loch [lɔx].

The glottal stopmay be an allophone of /t/ after a vowel, as in butter [ˈbʌʔər].

Distinctive features of accent.Vowels

Lack of trap-bath slip (there is no /æ/-/ɑː/ distinction) – therefore, bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel - /tɾɑːp/ /mɑːn/ /bɑːθ/ /lɑːf/.

Scottish English has no /ʊ/, instead transferring Scots /u/. In this case, pull and pool are homophones.

/ɪ/ sound may be more open [ɛ] The bright example: winner /wɛnər/.

To sum it all up, the Scottish accent as we know it is the newest accent in the British Isles. We have analyzed its history and geography and described some distinctive features of the accent.

List of references:

S.P. Khoroshilova Theoretical phonetics of the English language: Segment level, Novosibirsk: NSPU, 2019, pp 70-77, 91-96

Scottish Standard English and Scots [Электронныйресурс] URL:- https://web.archive.org/web/20140421081915/http://ifla.uni-stuttgart.de/institut/mitarbeiter/jilka/teaching/dialectology/d8_Scotland.pdf

English Accents. Section Two: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland [Электронныйресурс] URL: https://www.uv.es/anglotic/accents_of_english/02/examples_of_scottish_english.html

How To Speak With A Scottish Accent by Gareth Jameson [Электронныйресурс] URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mALkCGVA2BU