The phenomenon of an ongoing sound change leads in some cases to the pronunciation of short ö becoming more like that of short u. This thesis examines the relationship between short ö and u in Uppland Swedish. The localities included in the investigation were Uppsala, Norrtälje, Östervåla and Gräsö. In particular, the thesis examines the effects of age, gender and social status on the acquisition of a pronunciation where the phonemes are produced in a similar way, and whether the change occurs earlier in some words than others.

The informants on Gräsö appear to have the highest occurrence of the merger, while those in Norrtälje are best at keeping ö and u apart. In general, men have a smaller difference between ö and u than women. Three different age groups were analysed and the results show that the oldest informants have the largest difference between ö and u and the youngest informants have the smallest difference. There are no significant differences between the three social status groups, but there is a tendency for those with the lowest social status to be better at keeping the phonemes apart than those with the highest social status.

13 minimal (or near-minimal) pairs were analysed to investigate whether the phonetic context has an effect on the degree to which ö and u are becoming more similar. The study shows that the smallest phonetic difference is found for word pairs with r occurring in the preceding or following context. The largest phonetic distance was found in word pairs beginning with a vowel.

The study also examined whether there is a relationship between production, perception and attitude to u-sounding ö in Uppsala. By combining the production test results with the informants’ categorisation of u and ö in the perception test, the study shows that the informants with a small phonetic distance in their own speech were better at categorising stimuli correctly than the speakers who had a larger phonetic distance between ö and u in their own speech.