From ‘preferred’ to ‘peripheral’? A century-long study of linking-r in Standard Southern British English (1920s–2020s)

This paper presents a diachronic trend study of linking-r in non-rhotic Standard Southern British English (SSBE) as a sound change in progress, examining its evolution over an entire 104-year span from the 1920s to the 2020s. The study investigates the changing role of linking-r and glottalization as strategies for resolving hiatus, reflecting broader phonological and sociolinguistic shifts in SSBE. Utilizing a corpus of recorded speech comprising 4,180 potential cases of linking-r (and a smaller set of potential intrusive-r cases), the analysis includes a balanced representation across different decades and gender groups, involving 312 distinct speakers. Acoustic and auditory analyzes were conducted using PRAAT to determine whether linking-r, glottalization, or hiatus were used in each potential case. The findings indicate a significant decline in the use of linking-r over time, with glottalization emerging as the predominant hiatus-resolution strategy. The findings have implications for our broader understanding of the hiatus resolution system in SSBE and other varieties of English, the broader phonological shift towards the use of glottalization in many accents of English, and the loss of rhoticity in those varieties.