The SQUARE-NURSE merger in Greater Manchester : the impact of social and spatial identity on phonological variation
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Date
2006Item status
Restricted AccessAuthor
Barras, William
Metadata
Abstract
This study examines the SQUARE/NURSE merger in three neighbouring locations in
Greater Manchester. Several approaches are used to provide explanations for the
geographical patterns of variation that are observed. These include traditional
dialectological approaches and more recent ideas of dialect geography that take
speakers’ perception of their social and geographical identities into account. A usage
based approach to accounting for phonological variation and change is applied to the
data by considering word-frequency as a variable. The implications of variation in the
SQUARE/NURSE merger for speakers’ phonological systems are considered by
comparing the situation for Greater Manchester SQUARE/NURSE with other
phonological mergers and splits.