ter of the island of Jamaica. While different sites of contact, both loca- tions are settings for the use of stigmatized varieties that have become badges of local pride for some members of the communities. These studies suggest that within one geographical area the same variant may index different identities for different groups. 2. Theoretical Framework Although data from both studies are analyzed within a tradition- ally variationist paradigm, the interpretation of the results was con- ducted within a language ideology framework (Silverstein, 1992, 1995; Milroy, 1999; Irvine and Gal, 2000; Woolard, 1992). Linguistic anthropologists have criticized much sociolinguistic work for assuming a direct correlation between linguistic features and social factors, a correlation Silverstein refers to as first-order indexi- cality. In Silverstein’s view sociolinguists need to investigate second- order indexicality, that is, how speakers frame their understanding of linguistic varieties and map those understandings onto people, events, and activities significant to them (Irvine and Gal, 2000). These sec- ond-order indexical reactions are evident in language behavior (hyper- correction, style shifting) and in overt comments about language, as well as, we suggest, about other social phenomena. Thus, in this framework, speakers’ own comments about language and other social phenomena are used as a means of interpreting and understanding lin- guistic variation in a community. 3. Corby, United Kingdom 3.1. Study Background Corby, located 100 miles north of London and 400 miles south of Glasgow, Scotland, grew from a village of 1500 inhabitants with its own rural English accent in the 1930s, to the main steel-producing town in the UK with a population of 36,000 by the 1960s. With the steel plant, owned by a Scottish company from Glasgow, came workers from closing plants, mainly in the Glasgow area. Up until the 1970s Scottish families continued to migrate south to work in Corby, but in 1980 the plant closed, and the migration of Scottish families also ceased. The aim of the original study (Dyer, 2000) was to discover the extent of Scottish influence on the Corby dialect. In fact, the only remaining traditional Corby dialect speakers are the oldest members Dyer, J., Wassink, A.B. 289 25 288 Taakin Braad and Talking Broad: Changing Indexicality of Phonetic Variants in Two Contact Situations Judy Dyer University of Michigan Alicia Beckford Wassink University of Washington In this paper we consider the changing indexicality of phonological variants in two different contact situations— Corby, England, and Kingston, Jamaica. We suggest that similar sociolinguistic phenomena may be observed in both places. Using a language ideology framework, acoustic and auditory phonetic data are interpreted through respondents’ own metalinguistic comments about their dialect. This socially embedded interpretation of the data reveals that in both Corby and Kingston one phono- logical variant may in fact index distinct and different iden- tities for speakers in the respective communities, thereby questioning the discreteness of “independent” variables, such as place or social class in sociolinguistic studies. 1. Introduction In this paper we consider the changing indexicality of phonolog- ical variants in two contact situations: Corby, a former steel town in the English Midlands, and Kingston, the capital and commercial cen- 250 Texas Linguistic Forum 44(2): 288-301 Proceedings from the Ninth Annual Symposium about Language and Society—Austin April 20-22, 2001