Sheffield

This chapter presents results from a variationist study of middle-class Sheffield English (Finnegan 2011). Twenty-four Sheffield-born participants from three age groups were interviewed using the Survey of Regional English method of data elicitation (Llamas 2001, 2007). The chapter focuses on the apparent-time distribution of face and goat variants. The results show parallel variation in both variables, with [ɛɪ]/[oʊ] being favoured over [eː]/[ɔː]. Use of the closing diphthongs is at a very advanced stage, while the use of [ɵː] is a more recent innovation. The different variants are hypothesised as indexing different types of identity. The closing diphthongs are interpreted as indices of a middle-class Sheffield identity, while the fronted goat monophthong is interpreted as indexing a Yorkshire identity.