The Sociolinguistics of English Syllabic Consonants and the Fulfilment of Rules of Production

Abstract

The constant presence of English syllabic consonants in speech and the lack of agreement amongst phoneticians regarding their usage (Cohen 1957; Wells 1965; Gimson 1970; Alvarez 1980; Monroy 1980; Jones 1992; Roach 2000; Toft 2002) make them an eligible topic for further exploration. Unlike some phoneticians who have focused on the production of potential syllabic consonants at the word level, we will be concerned with the behaviour of such elements at discourse level. We will study samples of real language, so as to find out whether the production of syllabic vs. non-syllabic consonants complies consistently with Monroy's rules (2008 - 2009). This phonetician assigns one pronunciation (either schwa or syllabic consonant) to each rule. We will be interested in knowing the listeners' reactions to the presence of syllabic consonants or schwa, which has not been sufficiently addressed either (van Bergem 1995; Deterding 2006). The informants were 80 (40 males/40 females) non-rhotic English newsreaders from the BBC Learning English website (2009). Three naive female referees had to decide whether they perceived a syllabic consonant or a schwa plus liquid/nasal in specific words. After collecting their data and transcribing all the information, we analysed the results with the help of SPSS. The statistical procedure used was the contingency table analysis. The study reveals that the judges’ reactions to the presence/non-presence of syllabic consonants in the samples studied give support to most of Monroy's rules. The only exception is rule 2, whose scope and characteristics are discussed in this study. Despite the solidity of the findings, it would be advisable to deal with a wider sample of informants and referees, as well as to explore whether other factors such as accent and speaking rate affect the production of syllabic consonants vs. schwa.