Linguists seek to gain a better understanding of what language users know and intuit about the social meaning of variable linguistic features, in order to explain how they are used. This project investigates a selection of sociolinguistic variables in Manchester English. It explores their social meanings, in particular in relation to the factor of age. Perception tests and focus groups will be used to uncover social meanings associated with variation in variables such as the t-sound in words like what, the th-sound in words like think, and the word ending -ing Their perceived social meanings will shed light on how these variables are used by different age groups in Manchester. The perception and focus group data will then be complemented by conversational data in order to construct indexical fields for the variables under investigation. Indexical fields are visual representations of potential social meanings of variable features. They will provide a summative explanation for age-related and stylistic variation in Manchester.

Perception tests were carried out using perceptual stimuli that differ in respect to only one variable. Audio excerpts, which included a sufficient number of appropriate variables, were selected for acoustic manipulation. For each excerpt a manipulated copy was created, for example, one in which all occurrences of (t) are released and one in which four tokens of (t) are glottalled. After hearing each stimulus, listeners were invited to rate it on a selection of features. A list of words were given, often in the form of semantic differential scales, and informants were asked to indicate to what degree these words applied to the speaker they were listening to. A total of five online surveys were carried out, each included four excerpts with a different variant (see column M).