English (Scottish) speech development

Abstract

Scottish English is primarily spoken in Scotland, U.K. It is a national quasi-standard variety of English with a range of social and geographical variants. It can be characterized as a highly distinctive accent (or accent group) of English, mainly due to its relationship to Scots. Its strongly distinct character may be more phonetic, prosodic and lexical than strictly phonemic and phonological, so for practical reasons it can be assumed that its inventory and consonant phonotactics overlap sufficiently with other varieties for many “British English” clinical resources to be applicable. Scottish English is, however, rhotic in its prestige varieties, which makes it markedly different from non-rhotic Southern Standard British English and other non-rhotic varieties. There are few specific studies of children’s acquisition of Scottish English, though Scottish children are often incorporated in larger studies in the U.K. Research on Scottish English has focused on social variation, speech production, and remediation techniques augmented with real time visual biofeedback, involving children with speech sound disorders and cleft palate. Commonly-used speech assessments and interventions have not been developed specifically for this variety of English.