ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a brief description of the Glasgow accent, and then turns to an important aspect of accent which is rarely discussed by either phoneticians or sociolinguists voice quality. Glasgow, like much of lowland Scotland, is generally regarded linguistically as a traditional dialect area, where an alternative variety of English exists alongside a standard variety. In the Scottish context, the standard spoken variety of English of many educated, middle-class speakers is Scottish Standard English(SSE). SSE is a variety of English whose grammar is very similar to that of standard English, but which is spoken with a Scottish accent to a greater or lesser degree. Glasgow vernacular is well known for its distinctive voice quality. The investigation of Glaswegian voice quality presented in the chapter seems to be the first comprehensive sociophonetic examination of voice quality in a British urban accent since the mid-1980s.
