Rachel Barry

• BA (Hons) English Language
• Language Change and Continuous Gender: investigating Tyneside phonological changes in people of nonbinary gender identities

This study investigates the occurrence of the SVLR rule in Tyneside speakers, specifically comparing usage among speakers of varying gender identities. The Scottish Vowel Length Rule (SVLR) is a lengthening of all vowels bar /ɪ/ and /ʌ/ in certain contexts: before a voiced fricative or morpheme boundary; a vowel in a word-final open syllable; and vowels with a following /r/. Common in Scottish English, it has also been changing in use in North-Eastern dialects of English, and I focus on the noticeably lengthened vowels /i:/ and /aɪ/ (Watt, French and Roberts, 2011).

I emphasise that my study is on people of non-binary gender identities, compared with male and female speakers. An important note is that people whose identified gender is non-binary (not conforming to the distinct ‘male’ or ‘female’ gender identities) are invariably excluded from linguistic research. My study contributes to the research of the SVLR rule, and broadens the study of gender in linguistics.

Funding source: Newcastle University

Supervisor: Dr Joel C Wallenberg