‘Standard English’ as spoken in Shetland's capital

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper deals with the local accent of Standard English spoken in Lerwick, the main town or capital in the Shetland Islands, in contrast to previous research on Shetland speech which focused on the local Scots dialect, commonly referred to as ‘Shetland dialect’. The account is based on data collected for a phonological study, in which a judgment sample of bidialectal, middle‐aged, middle‐class speakers was obtained through a network model. It is also informed by data collected in an earlier regional survey, as well as observations made over a ten year period. An analysis is presented of systemic, distributional and realizational aspects of the vowel and consonant systems. It may be concluded that the accent displays a number of localized features, especially regarding phonetic realization, but also standardized features, including various consonant contrasts and the lexical distribution of phonemes. An overview is also provided of grammatical and lexical features, which further supports the suggestion that the speech accounted for constitutes a form of (Scottish) Standard English.