Voice quality as a sociolinguistic marker: Glasgow

Glasgow is one of the major cities of Scotland, with a strong Scottish and distinctively Glaswegian identity. Glasgow English is one of the few varieties of English whose voice quality has been systematically studied (Stuart-Smith, in Foulkes and Docherty 1999). This study showed that voice quality in Glasgow varies with age, gender and class. Male speakers overall are more creaky than female speakers.

There are also differences in ‘articulatory settings’ – that is, in the habitual postures that speakers use throughout their speech. Here we list some of the main ones. Male speakers have overall a more nasalized setting than female speakers: they keep the velum slightly lowered, allowing nasal escape of air. Working-class speakers tend to speak with a more open jaw, with a more raised and backed tongue body, perhaps also with their tongue roots more retracted: this gives the auditory effect of a constriction in the throat and makes speech sound lower in pitch and harsher in tone. Middle-class speakers have no particular traits, just an absence of working-class ones.

Voice quality’, then, can be used as a sociolinguistic marker, but it is worth noting that the description of voice quality for Glasgow does not just involve laryngeal settings: it involves a cluster of features involving the whole vocal tract.