Accent Variation in Scotland

 The distinctive sound of Scottish accents. 

Scottish accents are characterised by a use of distinctive sounds. We use fine-phonetic analysis as well as instrumental techniques (such as Ultrasound Tongue Imaging) to document how Scottish accents are produced in different communities and across generations.

 How accents shape speech communities. 

Accents are a powerful way to signal relationships and belonging. Accents can also set apart. We consider how Scottish accents are used, perceived and acquired by those who have grown up in Scotland and by those who have moved to Scotland later in life.

 Aptitude or attitude? The factors that determine accent switching and accent adaptations. 

Most speakers will adapt their accent on occasion, depending on the situation and the conversation partner. Some speakers will even 'switch' between accents in certain contexts. We investigate the cognitive and social factors that determine who adapts their accents and when.

Dr Sonja Schaeffler

Prof Jim Scobbie

Janet Coulson (PhD student)

Ciera Haggar (PhD student)

Scobbie, J., Cleland, J. Lawson, E., Schaeffler, S. (in press). English (Scottish) Speech Development. In: McLeod, S. (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. Oxford University Press.

Haggar, C., Schaeffler, S., Schaeffler, F., Kirk, N. (2025). How Vocal Characteristics Influence Listener Perceptions of Personality. In Proceedings of UKLVC15, Lancaster.

Coulson, J., Schaeffler, S., Scobbie, J.M. Smith, J. (2025). Caught in the Act: Capturing Interactional Style-Shifting in Bidialectal Speakers Through Improvisation. In Proceedings of UKLVC15, Lancaster.

Schaeffler, S. Scobbie, J. , Coulson, J. (2023). Cannae or Dinnae Want Tae? - New Approaches to Eliciting and Predicting Phonetic and Prosodic Adaptations in Bidialectal Speakers. Proceedings of UKLVC14, Edinburgh.

Mousikou, P., Strycharczuk, P., Turk, A. & Scobbie, J. M. (2021) Coarticulation across morpheme boundaries: An ultrasound study of past-tense inflection in Scottish English. Journal of Phonetics, 88:101101.

Schaeffler, S., Scobbie, J., Drummond, C. (2020). Sounding out the Extremes of Bi-dialectal Edinburgh Adolescents. Proceedings of BAAP 2020, York (pdf)

Lawson, E., Stuart-Smith, J. & Scobbie, J. M. (2018) The role of gesture delay in coda /r/ weakening: An articulatory, auditory and acoustic study. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 143 (3), pp. 1646-1657.

Thomas, S. & Scobbie, J. M. (2015) Mixed accents: Scottish children with English parents. In: Mompean, J. A. & Fouz-González, J. (eds.) Investigating English Pronunciation: Trends and Directions. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 83-104.

Lawson, E., Stuart-Smith, J., Scobbie, J., Nakai, S., Beavan, D., Edmonds, F., Edmonds, I., Turk, A., Timmins, C., Beck, J., Esling, J., Leplatre, G., Cowen, S., Barras, W. & Durham, M. (2015) Dynamic Dialects: an articulatory web resource for the study of accents [website].

Stuart-Smith, J., Lawson, E. & Scobbie, J. M. (2014) Derhoticisation in Scottish English: a sociophonetic journey. In: Celata, C. & Calamai, S. (eds.) Advances in Sociophonetics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 59-96.

Lawson E., Scobbie J. M., Stuart-Smith J. (2014) A socio-articulatory study of Scottish rhoticity. In: Lawson, R. (ed.) Sociolinguistics in Scotland. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 53-78.

Gordeeva, O. B. & Scobbie, J. M. (2013) A phonetically versatile contrast: Pulmonic and glottalic voicelessness in Scottish English obstruents and voice quality. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (3) [Non-pulmonic sounds in European languages], pp. 249-271.

Lawson, E., Scobbie, J. & Stuart-Smith, J. (2013) Bunched /r/ promotes vowel merger to schwar: An Ultrasound Tongue Imaging study of Scottish sociophonetic variation. Journal of Phonetics, 41 (3-4), pp. 198-210.

Thomas, S. & Scobbie, J. (2013) Speech Development in Scottish Children: a comparative study of the influence of local vs. non-local parental dialect on vowel acquisition, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices (EPIP3), pp. 108-111.

Scobbie, J., Lawson, E. & Stuart-Smith, J. (2012) Back to front: a socially-stratified ultrasound tongue imaging study of Scottish English /u/, Rivista di Linguistica / Italian Journal of Linguistics, Special Issue: Articulatory techniques for sociophonetic research, vol. 24, pp. 103-148.

Lawson, E., Scobbie, J.M. and Stuart-Smith, J. (2011) ‘The social stratification of tongue shape for postvocalic /r/ in Scottish English 1: Social Stratification of Tongue Shape, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(2), pp. 256–268.

Gordeeva, O. & Scobbie, J. (2011) Laryngeal Variation in the Scottish English Voice Contrast: Glottalisation, Ejectivisation and Aspiration. QMU Speech Science Research Centre Working Papers.

Gordeeva, O. & Scobbie, J. (2010) Preaspiration as a correlate of word-final voice in Scottish English fricatives. In Turbulent Sounds: An Interdisciplinary Guide, pp. 167-207, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Scobbie, J., Stuart-Smith, J. & Lawson, E. (2008-06) Looking variation and change in the mouth: developing the sociolinguistic potential of Ultrasound Tongue Imaging., no. 32, Edinburgh.

Lawson, E., Stuart-Smith, J. & Scobbie, J. (2008) Articulatory insights into language variation and change : preliminary findings from an ultrasound study of derhoticization in Scottish English, University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 14.

Scobbie, James M. and Stuart-Smith, Jane. "Quasi-phonemic contrast and the fuzzy inventory: Examples from Scottish English". Contrast in Phonology: Theory, Perception, Acquisition, edited by Peter Avery, B. Elan Dresher and Keren Rice, Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 2008, pp. 87-114. 

Scobbie, J. (2007) Biological and social grounding of phonology : variation as a research tool, Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of the ICPhS, pp. 225-228.

Gordeeva, O. & Scobbie, J. (2007) Non-normative preaspirated voiceless fricatives in Scottish English: Phonetic and phonological characteristics, QMU Speech Science Research Centre Working Papers.

Scobbie, J. M., Gordeeva, O. B., & Mathews, B. (2007). Scottish English speech acquisition. The International Guide to Speech Acquisition. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning, 221-240.

Scobbie, J. (2006). (R) as a variable. Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition.

Scobbie, J., Gordeeva, O. & Matthews, B. (2006) Acquisition of Scottish English Phonology: an overview, QMU Speech Science Research Centre Working Papers.

Scobbie, J. & Stuart-Smith, J. (2006) Quasi-phonemic contrast and the fuzzy inventory: examples from Scottish English, QMU Speech Science Research Centre Working Papers.

Scobbie, J. (2005) Interspeaker variation among Shetland Islanders as the long term outcome of dialectally varied input : speech production evidence for fine-grained linguistic plasticity, QMU Speech Science Research Centre Working Papers.

Scobbie, J. & Wrench, A. (2003) An articulatory investigation of word final /l/ and /l/-sandhi in three dialects of English. In Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, pp. 1871-1874.

Gordeeva, O., Mennen, I. & Scobbie, J. (2003) Vowel Duration and Spectral Balance in Scottish English and Russian, Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona, pp. 3193-3196.

Scobbie, J. M. (2000). Onset-rime coarticulation in the production of/dai/and/stai/by four year old Scottish English speaking children: preliminary results. Les Cahiers de l'ICP, Bulletin de la Communication Parle.

Scobbie, J., Turk, A. & Hewlett, N. (1999) Morphemes, Phonetics and Lexical Items: The Case of the Scottish Vowel Length Rule., Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. vol. 2, pp. 1617-1620.

Hewlett, N., Matthews, B. & Scobbie, J. (1999) Vowel duration in Scottish English speaking children, Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. vol. 3, pp. 2157-2160.

Scobbie, J. M., Hewlett, N., & Turk, A. E. (1999). Standard English in Edinburgh and Glasgow: the Scottish vowel length rule revealed. Urban voices: Variation and change in British accents.

We have long-standing collaborations with colleagues at the University of Glasgow (Prof Jane-Stuart Smith, Prof Jennifer Smith), Strathclyde University (Prof Joanne Cleland, Dr Eleanor Lawson) and the University of Edinburgh (Prof Alice Turk). These collaborations have primarily focussed on the documentation of Scottish accents and their (typical and atypical) acquisition. We are also also forging new collaborative links with colleagues at QMU's Institute for Global Health and Development in order to develop a focus on the role Scottish accents may play for New Scots and their sense of belonging. 

QMU PhD bursary (Ciera Haggar): The impact of personality on accent and voice adaptations. 

QMU PhD bursary (Janet Coulson): Accent adaptions in professionally trained Scottish speakers. 

CASL small-project funding: “Exploring the ability and motivation of Edinburgh adolescent bi-dialectals to produce an English and a Scottish accent” (Dr Sonja Schaeffler)

ESRC: "Changes in shape, space and time: the impact of position on the spatiotemporal and configurational articulatory properties of liquid consonants”. (QMU & Glasgow, £194,727, fEC £243,408, ES/N008189/1). Sep 2016 – Aug 2018. P.I. Dr Eleanor Lawson, Co-I Prof Jane Stuart-Smith (Glasgow).

AHRC: "Dynamic Dialects”: Integrating articulatory video to reveal the complexity of speech." (£232,382, AH/L010380/1) Jan 2014-June 2015. P.I. Prof Jane Stuart-Smith (Glasgow), with co-award holders at UCL and Napier Universities.

EPSRC: “An Edinburgh Speech Production Facility”.(£102,986  EP/E016359/1 fEC to QMU). Mar 2007-Feb 2010. Main partner University of Edinburgh, EP/E01609X/1. (fEC to UoEapprox £600,000) Co-P.I. Dr Turk (Edinburgh)

"Accentism" is now sometimes referred to as the last legal form of discrimination. Using regional, so-called 'non-standard', accents can be (perceived as) a barrier to success.

Our research seeks to raise awareness on the rich detail and variation accents in Scotland boast and the important functions any accent will serve for a speaker's sense of identity and belonging.