Glossary

Illustrative examples have been transcribed orthographically.

Dark /l/

Refers to the sound of ‘l’ when it follows a vowel in the same syllable, for example in ‘feel’ or ‘school’. In these cases, the back of the tongue is drawn towards the roof of the mouth, which gives it a different quality to when it precedes a vowel, e.g. in the words ‘leaf’ or ‘late’

Diphthong

A long vowel sound formed by combining two vowels together in a single syllable. The first vowel gradually changes into the second, as the tongue moves from one position to another. Consider, for example, the difference between the double vowel sound in ‘play’ and the single vowel sound in ‘plan’.

Elision

The omission of a sound or syllable in everyday speech that would be present in very careful pronunciation. For example, the common pronunciation of library as 2 syllables rather than 3 (‘libry’), or the loss of ‘t’ in ‘mostly’.

Glottalisation

Where a particular consonant is replaced by a sound produced in the throat, in the space between the vocal folds known as the glottis. In British English this often occurs with ‘t’, e.g. when ‘butter’ is pronounced like ‘bu’er’. It can also occur with ‘k’, for example when ‘actually’ sounds like ‘a’tually’, as well as with ‘p’, though this is less common.

H-dropping

Dropping the ‘h’ at the start of words like ‘harm’ or ‘horse’. In lexical items such as these, H-dropping is often stigmatised, whereas in function words such as ‘he’ or ‘her’ it is quite common, and far less stigmatised.

happY-vowel

The vowel at the end of words such as ‘happy’ is now more commonly considered to be a tense vowel, which would be a long vowel sound like in ‘happee’. Historically, however, a shorter vowel, as in ‘kit’ would have been the considered to be the standard pronunciation; thus sounding more like ‘happi’.

L-vocalisation

Where the final ‘l’ in a word like ‘pool’ is pronounced more like a ‘w’. This makes it sound more like a vowel; i.e. it is vocalised

Lexical set

A group of words which commonly share the same vowel. Each set is labelled with a keyword that contains the shared vowel; for example, the BATH lexical set would contain all words that are pronounced with the same vowel as the word ‘bath’. The sets enable us to compare vowels in different accents of English.

Monophthongisation

Where a vowel sound that would usually be pronounced as a diphthong (see glossary entry for Diphthong) is pronounced with only one vowel sound (i.e. as a monophthong) in a particular accent. For example, where ‘my’ is pronounced more like ‘ma’.

Non-agreement of number

Where singular and plural forms of verbs and/or nouns are used in a non-standard way, as in forty year(instead of forty years) or they was (instead of they were).

Non-release of plosive

In English there are six plosive consonant sounds: /p, b, t, d, k, g/. When we make these sounds we bring together the lips or the tongue and roof of the mouth, before releasing a puff of air. Where a plosive is not ‘released’, we start to make the sound but do not release the puff of air that follows.

Non-standard… (e.g. relative pronoun, etc)

This is used to highlight where a particular word or construction does not follow the current standard British English grammatical rules. An example would be the use of ‘what’ instead of ‘that’ in ‘the people what stood outside’.

RP or Received Pronunciation

A British English accent (mainly of England) that is usually associated with speakers of higher social class and is not restricted to a particular geographical area. This accent is used by linguists as a ‘standard’ reference point when comparing different accents of English.

Re-syllabification

Where the boundaries of syllables in a word change, or where additional syllables are inserted, e.g. pronouncing ‘school’ as ‘schoo-wul’. 

Rhoticity

An accent is referred to as ‘rhotic’ if the speaker pronounces the ‘r’ after a vowel in words like ‘car’ or ‘farm’. This is a common feature of Scottish English, and American English

Th-fronting

This is where the ‘th’ in words like ‘think’ or ‘brother’ is pronounced as ‘f’ or ‘v’, respectively.

Word-initial (or -medial, or –final)

Indicates whether a particular feature occurs at the beginning, middle or end of a word (or syllable). For example, a ‘dark l’ usually occurs word-finally.

Zero… (e.g. article, etc)

Where a word belonging to a particular grammatical category is omitted, e.g. in ‘I’m going to shops’ the definite article ‘the’ is left out where it would normally be used in standard British English.