Cover not available

Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 35:1 (2014) ► pp.68–93

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

‘Don’t even [θ/f/h]ink aboot it’

An ethnographic investigation of social meaning, social identity and (θ) variation in Glasgow

 | Birmingham City University
Published online: 21 February 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.35.1.05law
As a relatively new phenomenon in the phonology of Scottish English, TH-fronting has surprised sociolinguists by its rapid spread in the urban heartlands of Scotland. While attempts have been made to understand and model the influence of lexical effects, media effects and frequency effects, far less understood is the role of social identity. Using data collected as part of an ethnographic study of a high school in the south side of Glasgow, Scotland, this article addresses this gap in the literature by considering how TH-fronting is patterned across three all-male, working-class, adolescent Communities of Practice, and how this innovative variant is integrated within a system of the more established variants [θ] and [h]. Drawing on recent work on linguistic variation and social meaning, the article also explores some of the social meanings of (θ), particularly those variants which previous research has reported as being associated with ‘toughness’, and suggests how these meanings are utilised in speakers’ construction of social identity.
References (43)
Anderson, Elijah. 1997. “Violence and the inner-city street code”. In Joan McCord, ed. Violence and Childhood in the Inner-City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braber, Natalie and Zoe Butterfint. 2008. “Local identity and sound change in Glasgow: a pilot study”. Leeds Working Articles in Linguistics 131: 22–43.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brato, Thorsten. 2012. “A sociophonetic study of Aberdeen English: innovation and conservatism”. Ph.D. thesis, University of Gießen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall. 2005. “Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach”. Discourse Studies 71: 585–614. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
California Style Collective. 1993. “Variation and personal / group style”. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 22, Ottawa.
Clark, Lynn. 2009. “Variation, change and the usage-based approach”. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Lynn and Graham Trousdale. 2009. “Exploring the role of token frequency in phonological change: evidence from th-Fronting in east-central Scotland”. English Language and Linguistics 131: 33–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, Andrew. 2007. “Glasgow’s ‘Reign of Terror’: street gangs, racketeering and intimidation in the 1920s and 1930s”. Contemporary British History 211: 405–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2000. Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Identity in Belten High. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. “Constructing meaning in sociolinguistic variation”. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, Louisiana.
. 2005. “Variation, convention, and social meaning”. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Oakland, California.
. 2008. “Variation and the indexical field”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 121: 453–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 1992. “Think practically and look locally: language and gender as community-based practice”. Annual Review of Anthropology 211: 461–90. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 1999. “New generalizations and explanations in language and gender research”. Language in Society 281:185–201. . Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foulkes, Paul and Gerry Docherty. 1999. “Urban voices: an overview”. In Foulkes and Docherty, eds. Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles. London: Hodder Arnold, 1–24.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subcultures. London: Methuen. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra. 2009. “Getting off the GoldVarb standard: introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis”. Language and Linguistics Compass 31: 359–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Ronnie and Arthur McIvor. 2004. “Oral history subjectivity and environmental reality: occupational health histories in twentieth-century Scotland”. Osiris 191: 234–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Narratives from the urban workplace: oral testomonies and the reconstruction of men’s work in the heavy industries in Glasgow”. In Richard Rodger and Joanna Herbert, eds. Testimonies of the City: Identity, Community and Change in a Contemporary Urban World. Aldershot: Ashgate, 23–44.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul. 2003. “Dialect levelling and geographical diffusion in British English”. In David Britain and Jenny Cheshire, eds. Social Dialectology: In Honour of Peter Trudgill. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 223–43.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kiesling, Scott. 1998. “Men’s identities and sociolinguistic variation: the case of fraternity men”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21: 69–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lawson, Robert. 2009. “Constructions of social identity among adolescent males in Glasgow.” Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Glasgow.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Patterns of linguistic variation among Glaswegian adolescent males”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 151: 226–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “The construction of ‘tough’ masculinity: negotiation, alignment and rejection.” Gender and Language 71: 369–395.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levon, Erez. 2010. Language and the Politics of Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays in Israel. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macafee, Caroline. 1983. Glasgow. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macaulay, Ronald. 1977. Language, Social Class, and Education: A Glasgow Study. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mendoza-Denton, Norma. 2008. Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practices among Latina Youth Gangs. London: Wiley-Blackwell.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milroy, Lesley. 1987. Language and Social Networks. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moore, Emma. 2003. “Learning style and identity: a sociolinguistic analysis of a Bolton high school”. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parker, Howard. 1992. A View from the Boys: A Sociology of Down-Town Adolescents. Aldershot: Gregg Revivals.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robinson, Christine. 2005. “Changes in the dialect of Livingston”. Language and Literature 141: 181–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schleef, Erik and Michael Ramsammy. 2013. “Labio-dental fronting of /θ/ in London and Edinburgh: a cross-dialectal study”. English Language and Linguistics 171: 25–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane and Claire Timmins. 2006. “‘Tell her to shut her moof’: the role of the lexicon in th-fronting in Glaswegian”. In Christian Kay, Graham Caie, Carole Hough and Irene Wotherspoon, eds. The Power of Words: Essays in Lexicography, Lexicology and Semantics. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 171–183.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “The role of the individual in language variation and change”. In Carmen Llamas and Dominic Watt, eds. Language and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 39–54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane, Claire Timmins and Fiona Tweedie. 2007. “Talkin’ Jockney? Variation and change in Glaswegian accent”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 111: 221–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 1972. “Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich”. Language and Society 11: 179–95. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. “On the irrelevance of prestige, stigma and identity in the development of New Zealand English”. New Zealand English Journal 151: 42–6.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. “Colonial dialect contact in the history of European languages: on the irrelevance of identity to new-dialect formation”. Language in Society 371: 241–54.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wells, John. 1982. Accents of English 1: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (11)

Cited by 11 other publications

Fraiese, Lucía
2025. First Nations women in an Australian boarding school: A sociolinguistic ethnography. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 35:3 DOI logo
Fraiese, Lucía, Celeste Rodríguez Louro, Matt Hunt Gardner, Glenys Dale Collard & James Walker
2025. Freakin’ Swimming and Everythink: School Practices and Variable (ING) in an Australian Indigenous Boarding School. Journal of Sociolinguistics DOI logo
Smith, Jennifer, Jane Stuart-Smith, Rachel Macdonald & E Jamieson
2024. Scots and Scottish Standard English. In Language in Britain and Ireland, ► pp. 151 ff. DOI logo
Kendall, Tyler, Nicolai Pharao, Jane Stuart-Smith & Charlotte Vaughn
2023. Advancements of phonetics in the 21st century: Theoretical issues in sociophonetics. Journal of Phonetics 98 ► pp. 101226 ff. DOI logo
ILBURY, CHRISTIAN
2021. ‘Ey, wait, wait, gully!’ Style, stance and the social meaning of attention signals in East London adolescent speech. English Language and Linguistics 25:3 ► pp. 621 ff. DOI logo
Moody, Andrew
2019. World Englishes in the Media. In The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes, ► pp. 652 ff. DOI logo
Moody, Andrew
2025. Global Media and World Englishes. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Dzokoto, Vivian, Nicole Senft, Lily Kpobi & Princess-Melissa Washington-Nortey
2016. Their Hands Have Lost Their Bones: Exploring Cultural Scripts in Two West African Affect Lexica. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 45:6 ► pp. 1473 ff. DOI logo
Lawson, Robert
2014. What Can Ethnography Tell us about Sociolinguistic Variation over Time? Some Insights from Glasgow. In Sociolinguistics in Scotland, ► pp. 197 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. The Sociophonetics of Dublin English [Studies in Language Variation, 30], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2024. English. In Language in Britain and Ireland, ► pp. 9 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue