310 Lynn Clark and Graeme Trousdale
It seems reasonable to suggest then that in this community, TH-Fronting is
perceived as ‘meaning’ a number of different things. Some speakers view it
as a local (Fife) feature, some associate it more with younger speakers and
to some it indexes ‘roughness’. It is no surprise then to find that the groups
of speakers which favour the labiodental variant in the multivariate analysis
are those which are perceived by others in the band as youthful and/or
‘rough’ (see Table 4).
Table 4. Friendship groups that strongly favor the labiodental fricative
Factor
weight% of
(th): [f]NB “Tiny wee pipers” (youth/inexperienced) 0.95 93 56
C “The new folk” (youth/inexperienced) 0.89 85 59
F “Fun/up for a laugh, not very serious” (youth) 0.75 75 24
P “Novice tenor section ‘WILD’!!” (rough) 0.79 78 45
A “They act hard all the time”/ “fancy tune folk”
(rough/experienced)0.71 67 49Table 5. Friendship groups that strongly disfavor the labiodental fricative
Factor weight % of (th): [f] N
D “Pipe band geeks”/ “Ex-Dream Valley” 0.10 7 27
H “Senior drummers”/ “Pipe band geeks” 0.09 9 76The ‘tiny wee pipers’ and ‘the new folk’ are two friendship groups that
consist of the youngest and most inexperienced pipers in the band. The
‘tiny wee pipers’ are between 12-13 years old and none of them have yet
played with the band in competition^17. Because of their inexperience, they
are often asked to sit to the side when the band is practicing and so they
have formed their own friendship clique by default. ‘The new folk’ are a
little older (13-14) but have been in the band less than a year and are still
on the periphery. The group labelled ‘fun, up for a laugh, not very serious’
consists of three men who range in age from 20-33 but who typically enjoy
living a bachelor lifestyle. The group labelled ‘Novice tenor section
WILD!!’ is a group of four 13 year old girls who play the tenor drum in the
band and who are best friends both in and out of band (two of them are
twin sisters). The majority of their conversations consist of stories of un-