Pulmonic ingressive speech in Shetland English

15 Pages·0.779 MB·English

by  Sundkvist Peter.

WorldEnglishes,Vol.31,No.4,pp.434–448,2012. 0883-2919
PulmonicingressivespeechinShetlandEnglish
∗
PETERSUNDKVIST
ABSTRACT: Thispaperpresentsastudyofpulmonicingressivespeech,aseverelyunderstudiedphe-
nomenonwithinvarietiesofEnglish.Whileingressivespeechhasbeenreportedforseveralpartsofthe
BritishIsles,NewEngland,andeasternCanada,thusfarNewfoundlandappearstobetheonlylocalitywhere
researchershavemanagedtoprovidesubstantialevidencefromaudiorecordings.Thepresentinvestigation
isbasedonadigitalspeechcorpusconsistingofover40hoursofinterviews,recordedbetween1980and
1985throughouttheentireShetlandarchipelago,includingthemostremoteisles;speechsamplesfrom
49menand47womenareincludedinthecorpus.IngressivespeechwasfoundthroughouttheShetland
Isles,andoccurredondiscourseparticlesrepresenting‘yes’and‘no’responses,suchas‘yeah’,‘aye’,‘no’,
and‘mmm’.Itwasattestedfor27percentofmalesand32percentoffemales,althoughsignificantly
moretokenswerecontributedbyfemales.Bothvoicedandvoicelessingressiveswereencountered,which
revealedfurthercluestopotentialgendermarking:72percentofalltokensfrommaleswerevoiceless,
and65percentoftokensfromfemaleswerevoiced.Whilethepaperprovidesfirmevidenceforingressive
speechinShetland,italsodiscussesrecentobservationsindicativeofadeclineiningressivespeechwithin
theisles.
INTRODUCTION
Visitors and newcomers to Scandinavia frequently remark upon a puzzling curiosity in
the speech of locals: during conversations, Swedes, Norwegian, Finns, and Danes may
oftenbehearddrawingtheirbreathinwards,whileutteringawordfor‘yes’or‘no’,asto
indicateagreementwiththespeaker.Layaccounts–aswellasanumberofmorescholarly
ones – have attempted to attribute its usage to such matters as surprise, boredom, a bad
heart, poor respiration, or simply a meek or submissive personality or speaker role; in
addition,itissometimesalsoclaimedtobeanespeciallyfemaletrait.Whileitispopularly
believed to be an exclusively Scandinavian feature, what is less well known is the fact
that it is also a feature of some regional forms of English. Regional variation within
Englishregardingmostformsofnon-segmentalfeatures,includingpragmaticfeaturesand
paralinguisticones,isingeneralunderstudied;andforingressivespeech,theevidenceis
especiallyslight,forreasonstobediscussedbelow.Thesignificanceofthephenomenon
stems not only from its status as a quaint curiosity to those who encounter it for the
firsttime,butalsobecauseithasbeensuggestedtorevealhistoricalconnectionsbetween
regionalvarietiesofEnglish,reflectingearliersettlementpatterns.
PULMONICINGRESSIVESPEECH
Phoneticdefinition
As a basis for a discussion of ingressive speech in Shetland, and an account of the
variationencounteredacrosstheIsles,aphoneticdefinitionofthephenomenonisrequired.
∗DepartmentofEnglish,StockholmUniversity,StockholmS-10691Sweden.E-mail:[email protected]
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PulmonicingressivespeechinShetlandEnglish 435
Speechproductionconsistsofthreebasicorfunctionalcomponents:initiation,articulation,
andphonation.Thegoalofinitiationistogenerateanairstreamsomewhereinthevocal
tract, which is a prerequisite for creating an audible sound. A bellows- or piston-like
movement of one or more organs, such as the lungs or the larynx, is utilized to achieve
an increase or decrease in air pressure in the vocal tract. The air stream consequently
generatedmaybeeither‘egressive’,meaningthatitisdirectedoutwards(outofthevocal
tract), or ‘ingressive’ (into the vocal tract) (cf. Catford 1988). Those speech sounds that
involvethelungsastheinitiatorarereferredtoas‘pulmonic’sounds;thosewithaninitiator
other than the lungs as ‘non-pulmonic’. Non-pulmonic sounds may utilize the larynx as
initiator. Ejectives, or ‘glottalic pressure sounds’, are produced while raising the larynx,
with a closed glottis; and implosives, or ‘glottalic suction sounds’, involve a lowering of
thelarynx.Non-pulmonicsoundsalsoincludeclicks,or‘velaricinitiationsounds’,whose
initiation involves the tongue, in combination with a closure between the tongue and the
velum.
The second component, articulation, concerns the subsequent modification of the
airstream, which is necessary in order to create a wide range of different sound types.
Takingconsonantsasanexample,afurtheraccountofarticulationinvolvesspecifyingthe
type of articulatory event (‘manner of articulation’) as well as the location of the organs
involved within the oral tract (‘place of articulation’). The exact definition of phonation,
the third and final component, varies somewhat, partly depending on whether it is seen
as an optional component or not. Catford (1988: 56) defines it as ‘any of those phonetic
activities of the larynx which have neither initiatory nor articulatory function’. The prin-
cipal phonation types that may be identified through the use of this definition include
‘voiceless’ (glottis wide open), ‘whisper’ (glottis narrowed), ‘voice’ (vocal folds vibrat-
ing),and‘creak’(glottisclosedalongmostofitslength,butwithasmallsegmentofthe
vocal folds vibrating, at a low frequency). In addition, various combinations of these are
possible, yielding for instance ‘breathy voice’, ‘whispery voice’, and ‘creaky voice’ etc.
(cf.Catford1988).Underanydefinition,however,thenatureofphonationisastrikingly
complexmatter.
Thereareseveralbenefitstomakingthecomponentsofspeechproductionexplicit,for
the present investigation. First, it allows for an identification of the crucial components
to the speech sounds treated in this paper, namely, (a) that their initiation, or air stream
mechanism,involvesthelungs(‘pulmonic’)and(b)thattheairstreamgoesinaninward
direction, from the mouth to the lungs (‘ingressive’). Second, it leaves the phonation of
pulmonic ingressive sounds unspecified. As will be seen, drawing a distinction between
‘voiced’and‘voiceless’onesmayinfactbecrucialtofurtheruncovergendermarkingin
theproductionofingressivesintheShetlandIsles.
‘Highlymarked’or‘neglecteduniversal’?
WhilepulmonicingressivespeechisacommonfeatureinScandinavianlanguages,and
alsoreportedforsomeregionalformsofEnglish,onecrucialquestionconcernshowcom-
monitreallyisamongthelanguagesoftheworld.Accordingtooneview,ingressivespeech
is‘highlymarkedfromatypologicalperspective’(ClarkeandMelchers2005:51).Thisis
based on the assumption that it is largely restricted to a region stretching from the Baltic
countriestoMaritimeCanadaandNewEngland.Withinthis‘NorthAtlantic/Balticzone’,
the Scandinavian Peninsula constitutes a ‘hot spot’, where its frequency of occurrence
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undoubtedly is considerably higher than elsewhere. However, several regional varieties
of English are also included, such as Irish English and Newfoundland English. Further
evidence hasbeen forwarded forthesuggestionthatingressive speechisanareal feature
within this zone. Between the various locations, there are clear parallels regarding its
pragmaticfunctionandgender/socialmarking:ittendstooccurondiscourseparticlesfor
‘yes’and‘no’,withhighlysimilardiscoursefunctions,andissupposedlymorecommonly
usedbyfemales(ClarkeandMelchers2005:62).
A contrasting view, centring on the idea of pulmonic ingressive speech as a hitherto
neglected universal, was more recently forwarded (Eklund 2007; 2008). While clearly
admitting that it appears to be especially common within the North Atlantic/Baltic zone,
Eklund(2008)presentsanextensiveoverviewofreportedoccurrencesfromawiderange
oflanguages,manyofwhichareoutsidethiszone.Whilethequalityandreliabilityofthe
reportsvarygreatly,theypointtostrikingparallelsintheoccurrenceofpulmonicingressive
speechevenbetweenlanguagesforwhichnocontactexplanationmayreasonablybesought.
Theytendtooccurondiscourseparticlesfor‘yes’and‘no’,ingenerallysimilardiscourse
contexts. At this stage, further cross-linguistic research is clearly needed to assess the
typologicalstatusofpulmonicingressivespeech.
AstoingressivespeechinregionalformsofEnglish,occurrencesarereportedwithinan
area stretching from the British Isles – including mainland Scotland, Scotland’s Western
Isles,Scotland’sNorthernIsles,northernEngland,IrelandandWales–toeasternCanada,
including Newfoundland, Cape Breton and Ottawa, and New England (Peters 1981;
Steinbergs 1993; Shorrocks 2003; Clarke and Melchers 2005). This regional distribu-
tion lends itself to a historical explanation: settlers from Scandinavia may have brought
ingressivespeechtotheBritishIsles;andsubsequentmigrantsfromtheBritishIslesmayin
theirturnhavetransportedthemtoCanadaandNewEngland(ClarkeandMelchers2005).
Twopredictionswouldseemtofollowfromthisaccount.First,incaseswhereingressive
speech is encountered in regional forms of English, it most likely constitutes a relic fea-
ture, reflective of the region’s settlement history. Second, and more significantly for our
purposes, Shetland would seem to constitute a potential ‘hot spot’ for ingressives in the
BritishIsles,andevenamongvarietiesofEnglishgenerally.AScandinavianlanguage,Old
NorseandsubsequentlyNorn,constitutedthedominantlanguageinShetlandforperhaps
as long as 700–800 years. Native speakers of Norn could probably be found in Shetland
as late as the 18th, or even early 19th century (Barnes 1998). Even after the demise of
Norn, the contact with Scandinavia, and especially Norway, remained close. The fishing
industryhasprovidedcontinualcontact,whichintensifiedduringtheSecondWorldWar,
whenShetlandformedthebaseforrescuemissionsintooccupiedNorway.
Methodologicalresortinthesearchforanelusivegasp
OneproblemhamperingthestudyofingressivespeechinEnglishisthegenerallackof
reliabledata;acrosstheregionswhereitsupposedlyoccurs,therearerelativelyfewfirm
andobjectivedocumentations,withtheexceptionofNewfoundland.Audiorecordingsof
ingressives in English remain dire. While smaller numbers of tokens have been recorded
invariouslocations,theonlypartoftheEnglish-speakingworldwhereithasthusfarbeen
possibletorecordenoughtokenstoconductquantitativecorpusstudiesisNewfoundland
(Steinbergs 1993; Shorrocks 2003; Clarke and Melchers 2005). The paucity of sound
recordingsisnotattributabletoalackoftryingbutrathertotheconsiderabledifficulties
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involvedinthedatacollection,whichare,infact,wellcommentedon.Previousexperience
hasshownthattheiroccurrenceisrestrictedtoanimated,naturalconversationinsituations
such that are difficult to achieve in a recording situation (Shorrocks 2003: 382). Thom’s
(2005a: 55) experience is perhaps symptomatic: ‘a number of examples were uttered in
conversation prior to the informants knowing what aspect of speech I was studying, but
these ceased when the microphone was close’. In light of these practical difficulties,
researchers have naturally resorted to alternative data collection methods. The following
overview of and commentary on such methods, therefore, should not be interpreted as
criticism of previous scholars’ methodological decisions, since, in most cases, they were
made in response to the well-documented difficulties of obtaining sound recordings of
ingressivespeechforvarietiesofEnglish.
Anobservationalor‘notebook’methodhasbeenadoptedbyanumberofscholars.For
instance,itwasusedbyPeters(1981)onalargescaleinVinalhaven,Maine,and,toalesser
extent,inIreland,NorthWales,andEngland.Usingthismethod,theresearcher observes
peopleinnaturally-occurringconversations,andmakesnotesonvariousdetailsconcerning
theingressives,suchastheirphoneticcharacteristics,thewordsonwhichtheyoccur,and
the pragmatic functions of such words, as well as various characteristics of the speaker
and the conversational dynamics (cf. Peters 1981). The notebook method has a number
ofgeneralweaknesses,however.Ofcoursethedatadoesnotallowforrepeatedlistening;
thusitisimpossibletorecheckthedatabytheresearcher,ortoreanalysepartofitasatest
ofintra-observerreliability.Unlessseveralobserversareused,thedataisnotdirectlyopen
for inspection by others. Also, modern acoustic methods may not be applied to the data.
However, experience gained during the present research project points to an additional
problem.Thetechniquetypicallyinvolvesnotingseveralco-occurringaspectswithinthe
situation (such as the word(s) involved, the exact discourse context and structure, and
phonetic detail such as voicing). Experience would lead to a suspicion that it is in some
instanceschallengingtonoteallsuchaspectssimultaneously,withthegreatestreliability.
Arguably, the greatest value of the notebook method lies in its use as a supplementary
method:itallowsfortheobservationofasignificantnumberofpeopleinnaturalsituations,
andmaythusbeusedtoidentifyindividualswithinacommunitywhouseingressives,to
beselectedforfurtherstudy.
Directquestioninghasalsobeenappliedinthestudyofingressives.Apostalquestion-
naire was adopted in a survey of ingressive speech in Scotland (Thom 2005a; 2005b).
It contained a verbal description of the phenomenon, along with questions whether re-
spondents thought they had heard it in their area of residence, what categories of people
they associated its use with, and which words and phrases they thought it occurred on.
Sixty three out of 121 people responded that they had heard ingressive speech in their
particular area or region, which suggested that ingressive speech may be most common
inAberdeenshire,Morayshire,theHighlands,theWesternIsles,andOrkneyandShetland
(Thom 2005a). Although the postal questionnaire was partly adopted as a response to
the difficulty of gaining sound recordings, and its results for Shetland generally support
those of the present study, two points of caution may be brought up against the way in
whichitwasappliedinShetland.First,itisnotentirelyclearthatpeoplecanidentifythe
intended phenomenon from a verbal description alone. If at all practically possible, one
alternativewouldbetomakeasoundclipavailabletorespondents.Second,theinstructions
to the respondents included the statement ‘I believe the origins of this sound are Norse
(...)’(Thom2005a:72).Aspointedoutbyseveralobservers,theScandinavianheritagein
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ShetlandismuchcelebratedandtheattitudetowardsScandinavianmattersisoverwhelm-
ingly positive (Melchers 1980; 1983). In some instances, this spills over into a popular
mythology concerning the Norse origins of the modern Shetland Scots dialect. For in-
stance,inherfieldwork,Melchers(1983:21)foundthat‘thisattitudemakesitdifficultto
keepcool,whenmoreorlesseverystrangesoundorwordisclaimedtobeScandinavian’.
Evenasof2011,afieldworkermayoccasionallybepresentedwithromanticclaimswhich
are highly unlikely to be true. Thus, considering the lingering strength of popular Norse
mythologywithinsomesectionsofShetlandsociety,itmaybepreferabletoomitanysug-
gestionsthatpulmonicingressivespeechisaScandinavianrelicfeature,asitmayincrease
thewillingnesstoansweraffirmativelyandtherebythechancesoffalsepositives.
Finally, in the absence of other forms of data, it is only natural that the only evidence
fortheoccurrenceofingressiveswithinsomeregionsconsistsofvariousobservationsand
attestations by academics, their colleagues and others familiar with those regions, often
reportedas‘personalcommunication’intheliterature(cf.e.g.ClarkeandMelchers2005;
Eklund 2008). Such reports reflect a valuable sharing of information among researchers,
and it is only to be hoped that they may inspire further research into the localities in
question. Nevertheless, the significance of further studies of ingressive speech across
regionalvarietiesofEnglish,basedonaudiorecordings,shouldbynowbeobvious.
DATACORPUS
The present study is based on an extensive corpus of recorded interviews, which were
conductedthroughouttheShetlandIslesbyGunnelMelchers(StockholmUniversity)and
Arne Kjell Foldvik (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU) between
1980and1985.Approximately40hoursofrecordedspeechwerecloselyexaminedinthe
searchforingressives.Thedatawasoriginallycollectedfortheproject‘TheScandinavian
ElementinShetlandDialect’,whichwasfundedbytheSwedishCouncilforResearchin
theHumanitiesandSocialSciences(HSFR)andtheNorwegianResearchCouncil(NAVF)
(Melchers1983:11).Thisprojectaimedtoobtainadenserregionalnetworkthanhadbeen
achieved in previous research in Shetland. Recordings were conducted throughout the
entire Shetland archipelago, including the most remote islands such as Foula and Fair
Isle(Melchers1983:11).Localinformantswererecruitedineachregionthroughtheuse
of a network model, or ‘friend of a friend’ approach (Melchers 1983: 21). The material
examinedforthepresentstudyincludesnearly100informants:49menand47women.1
Most recording sessions were conducted jointly by Gunnel Melchers and Arne Kjell
Foldvik (Melchers 1983: 21). In some instances a local Shetlander was recruited as co-
interviewer.Therecordingsconsistmostlyofnaturalconversations,butalsosomequestions
about local traditions and customs, and linguistic matters. The number of participants in
thesessionsvariessomewhat,fromthreetoaboutsix,asdoestheinterpersonaldynamics.
The absence of a standardized interview protocol has a number of drawbacks. The
numberofspeakersrecordedineachlocalityvaries,asdotheirgenderandagemake-up.
Second, the amount of speech elicited from each participant varies. Finally, informants
were not recorded in identical situations; sometimes other Shetlander(s) were present,
whichmostprobablyhadaneffectupontheirspeech.This,then,makesitmoredifficultto
conductarigorousquantitativestudyofingressivesinordertoassesstheiroccurrencein
relationtovariablessuchasgenderandregionalprovenance.However,whiletheoriginal
methodology admittedly was somewhat lacking in rigor, the fieldworkers undoubtedly
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PulmonicingressivespeechinShetlandEnglish 439
managed to create a relaxed, and even hearty atmosphere in the recording sessions. As a
result, the conversations obtained are typically animated, and rarely stiff or formal. The
experience of previous scholars suggests that such a setting or atmosphere is precisely
whatisrequiredinorderforingressivestooccurinarecordedinterviewinthefirstplace
(Shorrocks2003:382).
The speech corpus will in the first instance be used to establish the occurrence of
ingressivediscourseparticlesinShetland;themainaimhereistoprovidewell-documented
attestations, in the total absence of previous evidence from audio recordings. As far as
the data permits, the aim is also to assess the occurrence of ingressive speech in relation
to the speakers’ gender and regional provenance within the Shetland Isles, as well as the
discourseparticleonwhichitoccurs.
METHODOFANALYSIS
A digital speech corpus was constructed from the audio recordings. All recordings
were listenedtousinghigh-qualityear phones.Potentialoccurrences ofingressives were
segmented and labeled, using the Praat software (Boersma and Weenink 2010), which
enables repeated listening, and provides additional information from the waveform and
spectrogram. The set of potential occurrences were listened to jointly by two trained
phoneticians. The final set of ingressives, on which the following analysis is based, was
arrivedatinthefollowingmanner.Inorderforatokentoenterintothefinalanalysis,both
phoneticians had to agree that it was a pulmonic ingressive, and that it could reliably be
attributed to a Shetlander within the recording. Beginnings of speech turns, which often
containabriefsegmentofindrawnbreath,werenotcounted.Themostproblematiccases
involved overlaps between speakers, an observation reported in previous studies (Peters
1981). The final figure of ingressives, on which the following analysis is based, thus
representsaconservativeestimateofthetruenumberofoccurrencesofingressivesinthe
corpus.
Occurrencesofingressiveswerecategorizedas‘voiced’or‘voiceless’.Avoicedtoken
is defined as one displaying voicing during at least some portion of the total duration of
thediscourseparticle;often,however,thevoicedsectionmaybefairlyshort.Avoiceless
tokenisdefinedasoneshowingnovoicingduringitsduration.Voicingwasdeterminedby
auditoryanalysisandbyinspectionofthewaveformandspectrogram.Experiencegained
from the analysis suggests that the categorization of tokens into ‘voiced’ and ‘voiceless’
onthebasisofthesecriteriacanbemadewithasatisfactorydegreeofreliability.However,
the nature of voicing during pulmonic ingressive speech is currently the subject of more
detailedinvestigation.
THESHETLANDISLES
The Shetland Isles, or simply Shetland, are the northernmost part of the British Isles.
They constitute an archipelago of approximately 100 islands, located in the North Sea.
Approximately15oftheislandsarecurrentlyinhabited,thelargestofwhichisreferredto
as‘Mainland’.ThemaintowninShetland,Lerwick,islocatedontheeastcoastofCentral
Mainland.ThecurrentpopulationofShetlandis21,988;thatofLerwickis6,830(General
Register Office for Scotland). Shetland’s main industry consists of fishing, fish farming,
oil,gas,agriculture(mainlysheepfarming),andtourism.
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440 PeterSundkvist
ArchaeologicalevidencesuggeststhatearlysettlersinShetlandmayhavebeenthePicts.
Vikings colonized the islands from about 800 AD, and Shetland in fact remained part of
NorwayandDenmarkuntil1469,whenitwascededtoScotland.Thismarkedthebeginning
ofincreasinginfluencefrommainlandScotlandinShetland.Ofcourseverylittleisknown
aboutthelanguagespokenbytheearliestsettlers.SubsequentVikingcolonizers,however,
spoke Old Norse, from which a local form, Norn, subsequently developed in Shetland.
The handing over of Shetland to Scotland led to a language shift, from Norn to Scots.
While the exact timing and nature of this shift remains a matter of ongoing debate, the
traditionaldialectthatmaycurrentlybeheardinShetlandisunequivocallyadescendantof
theScotsdialectofearlysettlers,ratherthanNorn,althoughthelattertermisoccasionally
anderroneouslyalsousedformodernShetlandScots.
ThecurrentlanguagesituationinShetlandmaybecharacterizedasabipolarcontinuum,
inabroadlysimilarfashionasthelanguagesituationinLowlandScotland(Aitken1984;
McClure 1994; Melchers and Sundkvist 2010). At one end of the continuum, a local
traditional dialect is to be found. While a number of different terms have been used for
it, including ‘Shetland dialect’, ‘Shetland Scots’, ‘Shetlandic’ or simply ‘Shetlan’, it is
unquestionably to be classified as a form of Lowland Scots. Together with the Orkney
dialectitconstitutesthesubbranchofInsularScots.Attheotherendofthecontinuum,a
localformofScottishStandardEnglish(SSE)isfound.Thenatureoftheendpointsforthis
speechrangeorcontinuumvariesamongShetlanders.IntheScotsdirection,the‘broadest’
or most localizable form may be found among elderly, rural speakers. The nature of the
endpointintheoppositedirection(SSE)dependsonsuchfactorsaswhetheraShetlander
has lived outside Shetland, and how frequently and extensively they have communicated
withoutsiders,forinstanceintheirprofession.Byandlarge,thetwoendpointsaretreated
as separate codes with a functional division: Shetland Scots is mostly used with fellow
Shetlanders, and SSE with outsiders. Although much work remains in order to uncover
thecomplexnatureofthecurrentlanguagesituationinShetland,aswellasthesignificant
changesitispresentlyundergoing,moredetailedaccountsareavailableinCatford(1957),
Melchers(1985;2008),McClure(1994),MelchersandShaw(2003),and,morerecently,
MelchersandSundkvist(2010).
RESULTS
TheresultsforpulmonicingressivespeechintheShetlandIslesarepresentedbelowso
astorevealtheirdistributionwithrespectto(a)thelocalitywithintheShetlandIsles,(b)
speaker gender, (c) discourse particle, and (d) voicing (‘voiced’ vs. ‘voiceless’). Table 1
presentsanoverviewoftheShetlandinformantsinthedatacorpusaswellastheirgender
and regional provenance within the Shetland Isles. For males, the age range is 30–80+,
with a mean of 54; for females the range is 35–80, with a mean of 58.2 As seen in the
table,pulmonicingressivespeechwasattestedfor13outof49males,andfor15outof47
females(27%and32%respectively).
The regional attestations of ingressives within the Shetland Isles are summarized in
Figure2.Asmaybeseenfromthemap,ingressiveswerefoundthroughoutthearchipelago.
They were encountered in the most remote islands, such as Foula, Fair Isle, and Out
Skerries; they also occurred in several Mainland localities, including Shetland’s main
urbancentre,Lerwick.
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PulmonicingressivespeechinShetlandEnglish 441
Table1. Informants:genderandlocality
Informantsinterviewed Ingressiveencounteredb
Localitya Male Female Male Female
Aith 2 1
Bixter 2 2 1 2
Bressay 2 3
Burra 4 4 1
Cunningsburgh 4 3
Dunrossnessc 1 2
EastBurrafirth 3 2 1
FairIsled 5 3 2 1
Fetlard 4 2 1
Foula 2 1
Grutting 3 1
BridgeofWalls 1 1 1
Lerwick 4 3 1
MuckleRoe 1
Ness,Sumburgh 1
Ollaberry 1 1
Raevik 1
Sandness 1 1
Scalloway 1 1
Skerriesd 6 3 1
Spiggie 1 1
Tingwall 1
Unstd 5 6 2 2
Whalsayd 1 3 1 1
Yell 1 2
Unknownlocality 1 1
Total 49 47 13 15
Notes:
aAlthoughmostinformantswerelocaltotheparticularareainquestion,afewhadresidedinmorethanonelocality
withintheShetlandisles.IndividualswhohaveresidedoutsideShetlandforasignificantperiodoftimearenotincluded
inthestudy.
bAtleastoneattestedoccurrenceofpulmonicingressivespeech.
cDunrossness,otherthanSpiggieortheNess.
dAdditionalindividualspresentinsomesessions,whoremainunidentified.
Table 2 presents the results for the discourse particles that were pronounced on an
ingressive pulmonic airstream, including speaker gender and the presence or absence of
voicing.Asreportedinpreviousstudies,thevastmajorityoftheparticlesrepresent‘yes’or
‘no’responses,mostlymadeinagreementwiththespeaker.Astotheiroverallfrequency
of occurrence, by far the most commonly encountered particle was ‘yeah’, followed by
‘aye’,‘no’,thebilabialfricativeorapproximant[F…],and‘Mmm’.Table2containstheraw
figures,whichdonottakeintoaccountthetotalnumberofoccurrenceofeachwordtype,
includingthosespokenonanegressiveairstream.
Astotheirphoneticcharacteristics,bothvoicedandvoicelessingressiveswereattested;
forafewtokens,voicingwasindeterminate.Perhapsthemostsurprisingtypeencountered
is the voiceless bilabial fricative or approximant: [F…]. This type is found in the Nordic
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442 PeterSundkvist
Figure1. MapoftheShetlandIsleswithintheNorthSearegion
countries. In Sweden, a rather similar labialized (or rounded) voiceless bilabial fricative
orapproximantistobeheard.Itrepresentsthewordjo,avariantof‘yes’,andispopularly
associated with the northern provinces of Sweden, and sometimes jokingly referred to
as a ‘Norrland vacuum cleaner’ (cf. e.g. Eklund 2008). Recent research suggests that its
frequencyofusageincreasesthefurthernorthinSwedenyougo(HanellandSalo¨ 2009).
Others have characterized it as ‘a Finnish type of ingressive’ (Peters 1981: 1, 4). To the
best of the author’s knowledge, however, it has thus far not been reported for any variety
of English. While it shares a certain degree of resemblance with the word ‘no’ when
pronounced as a voiceless ingressive, the two are not identical; furthermore, the bilabial
fricativeismostlyutteredasa‘yes’response.Onephonetictype,orperhapsrathertypes,
notencounteredinthedataarethecreakyvoicedones,whicharetobefoundforinstance
inSweden.
A total of 49 ingressives were found for females and 25 for males. In other words,
females contributed nearly twice as many tokens as males, although, again, it should be
keptinmindthatthetotalamountofspeechelicitedfromthetwogendersrespectivelyis
not controlled for. As to voicing, 32/49 tokens (65%) were voiced for females, but only
7/25(28%)formales.
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PulmonicingressivespeechinShetlandEnglish 443
UNST
FETLAR
NE YELL
MAVI
H
RT
O
N
OUT SKERRIEES
NORTH MAINLAND
MUCKKLE ROE
PAPA STOUR
WHALSAY
WEST MAINLLAND CENTRAL MAINLAND
NOSS
TRONDRA
FOULA
BRESSAY
WEST BURRA
Lerwick
EAST BURRA D
N
NLA MOUSSA
MAI
H
UT
SO Male speeaker using inggressive
FAIR ISLE
Female speaker using ingressive
Recordinngs available, nno
ingressivves encountereed
Figure2. MapoftheShetlandIslesandlocalitieswithattestedingressives
Note:FoulaandFairIsleareinlays.
(cid:3)C2012BlackwellPublishingLtd