Sociophonetics and rhotics

Abstract

The highly variable nature of rhotics is behind their great potential as sociolinguistic variables. The advent of detailed sociophonetic studies has further increased the interest in exploring the many dimensions of r variation. The main focus of this chapter is on three processes involving rhotic variability. Each of these demonstrates the great potential of r for informing theories of variation of change and for testing sociophonetic methodologies. Conversely, they show how the questions sociophoneticians ask and the methods they use shed new light on these processes. A case study of Dutch r variation further illustrates this interplay and makes a case for the studying the social and phonetic dimensions of variability in tandem, and in detail. Looking into the future of rhotic studies, we argue for expanding our scope by collecting detailed data from more languages, as well as incorporating experimental approaches into sociophonetics.