Identity and Ethnicity in /t/ in Glasgow-Pakistani High-school Girls

This paper presents an acoustic phonetic analysis of Glasgow Asian syllable-initial /t/, in speech data collected from Pakistani-Muslim girls in a Glasgow high school after a long-term participant observation into their shared and differing social practices. The results show differences in spectral energy and shape according to following phonetic segment, and to membership in two contrasting Communities of Practice, more conservative girls maintaining traditional cultural practices, and more rebellious girls whose behaviour challenges such norms. The findings demonstrate that ethnicity is integrally linked with locally-salient identity, and hence that fine phonetic variation which indexes ethnicity is in fact indexical of local ethnic identity.