A spectrographic analysis of EnglishWorld-Wide 22:2 (2001), 269–302. issn 0172–8865 © 2001 JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany vowel fronting in Bradford English * DominicWattandJenniferTillotson UniversityofYork The/o/vowelintheEnglishofBradfordisproducedbymanyspeakersasa monophthongwithaclearlyfrontedorcentralquality.Descriptionofsucha pronunciationis,however,allbutabsentfromtheliterature,suggestingthat suchpronunciationsarearelativelyrecentdevelopmentinBradfordspeech. Theacousticcharacteristicsof337tokensof/o/areinvestigated,withaview tomatchingacousticcuestotheauditoryimpressionoffronting.Thefind- ingsareassessedwithrespecttosimilarfrontingpatternsinthevowelsys- temsofvarietiesofEnglishelsewhereintheUKandworldwide,andtothe principlesofsoundchangeelucidatedbyLabov(1991,1994).Weconclude that“internal”factorsaloneareinadequatetoexplainthecurrenttendency forvarietiesofEnglishinnorthernEnglandtofeature/o/fronting,and suggestthattheappearanceofthisvariantinBradfordEnglishistheconse- quenceofcontact-inducedspread. 1. Introduction Thispaperoutlinesapreliminarystudymadeofthe/o/vowelintheEnglishof Bradford, a city of approximately 300000 inhabitants in West Yorkshire. Bradford English (henceforth BfdE) exhibits many of the general features of northern accents of British English, though to date the pronunciation of the variety has been investigated in detail only by Petyt (1985). In this paper we focusononespecificvariable:thevowelfoundinwordsoftheGOATset,such *WewouldliketothankPaulFoulkes,TonyFoxandGhadaKhattabfortheirhelpfulcommentsand suggestions,BarryHeselwoodandSaliTagliamonteforreviewinganearlierdraftofthispaper,andLee Davidsonforadviceandassistance.Ourthanksgoalsototheinformantswhoagreedtoparticipateinthe recordingsessions.