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Frequency effects over the lifespan: a case study of Attenborough’s r’s

  • Laurel MacKenzie EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 20, 2017
Linguistics Vanguard
From the journal Linguistics Vanguard Volume 3 Issue 1

Abstract

This paper uses a small-scale case study of the speech of a single speaker at two points in time to investigate the question of whether and how speakers’ mental representations change over their lives. Specifically, I test two predictions of usage-based models of phonological representation: that individuals surrounded by a changing community will show the community change in their own production, and that this individual-level change will show an effect of item frequency. The community change under study is the loss in English Received Pronunciation of [ɾ] as a realization of /ɹ/; the speaker studied is Sir David Attenborough, a well-known British nature documentary narrator. I find that Attenborough’s narrations do not show evidence of him participating in the community change away from [ɾ] over time; however, he does show a different sort of change, by which he increases his rate of [ɾ] in high-frequency collocations in later life. I propose that this result may be attributable to Attenborough’s mental representation of high-frequency collocations becoming more word-like over time. The results speak to questions about the malleability of mental representations and the role of the individual language user in cases of community change.

Keywords: language change across the lifespan; phonological representations; usage-based models; Received Pronunciation; sound change

Acknowledgement

Thanks to the reviewers and editors of Linguistics Vanguard and audiences at NWAV 43, FWAV 2 (particularly Tony Kroch and George Walkden), the University of Leeds, the University of Newcastle, Cambridge University, and New York University. Research assistance by Grace Ormerod (funded by a Learning through Research grant from the University of Manchester), Lana Ali, Darian Flowers, and Laura Gallagher is gratefully acknowledged.

Appendix A

The following tables summarize the fixed effects and fit statistics of the models described in Section 6. Accompanying each predictor are coefficient, standard error (in parentheses), and significance level (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001).

Table A:

Both phonological positions combined.

Dependent variable:
/r/ = tap
Position = linking−0.872 (0.232)***
Decade = 2000s0.282 (0.265)
Frequency (Zipf scale)0.058 (0.094)
Speaking rate (vowels per sec.)0.322 (0.051)***
Time in recording [log10(sec.)]−0.821 (0.211)***
(Intercept)0.424 (0.725)
Observations1,627
Log Likelihood−906.569
Akaike Inf. Crit.1,829.139
Bayesian Inf. Crit.1,872.295
Table B:

Internal position only.

Dependent variable:
/r/ = tap
Decade = 2000s−0.027 (0.298)
Frequency (Zipf scale)−0.036 (0.134)
Speaking rate (vowels per sec.)0.479 (0.068)***
Time in recording [log10(sec.)]−0.826 (0.267)**
(Intercept)0.366 (0.924)
Observations1,070
Log Likelihood−554.691
Akaike Inf. Crit.1,123.383
Bayesian Inf. Crit.1,158.210
Table C:

Linking position only.

Dependent variable:
/r/ = tap
Decade = 2000s0.724 (0.307)*
Frequency (Zipf scale)0.162 (0.117)
Speaking rate (vowels per sec.)0.050 (0.074)
Time in recording [log10(sec.)]−0.831 (0.333)*
(Intercept)0.370 (1.104)
Observations557
Log Likelihood−338.327
Akaike Inf. Crit.690.654
Bayesian Inf. Crit.720.912
Table D:

1950s only.

Dependent variable:
/r/ = tap
Position = linking−1.421 (0.286)***
Frequency (Zipf scale)0.099 (0.110)
Speaking rate (vowels per sec.)0.171 (0.072)*
Time in recording [log10(sec.)]−0.937 (0.362)**
(Intercept)1.766 (1.157)
Observations761
Log Likelihood−423.174
Akaike Inf. Crit.860.348
Bayesian Inf. Crit.892.790
Table E:

2000s only.

Dependent variable:
/r/ = tap
Position = linking−0.377 (0.374)
Frequency (Zipf scale)0.074 (0.152)
Speaking rate (vowels per sec.)0.462 (0.079)***
Time in recording [log10(sec.)]−0.916 (0.284)**
(Intercept)−0.027 (1.072)
Observations866
Log Likelihood−467.664
Akaike Inf. Crit.949.328
Bayesian Inf. Crit.982.676
Table F:

Internal position only, with decade*frequency interaction.

Dependent variable:
/r/ = tap
Decade = 2000s0.030 (0.764)
Frequency (Zipf scale)−0.030 (0.158)
Speaking rate (vowels per sec.)0.479 (0.068)***
Time in recording [log10(sec.)]−0.827 (0.267)**
Decade*Frequency−0.014 (0.166)
(Intercept)0.338 (0.986)
Observations1,070
Log Likelihood−554.688
Akaike Inf. Crit.1,125.376
Bayesian Inf. Crit.1,165.179
Table G:

Linking position only, with decade*frequency interaction.

Dependent variable:
/r/ = tap
Decade = 2000s−1.358 (0.812)
Frequency (Zipf scale)−0.021 (0.131)
Speaking rate (vowels per sec.)0.052 (0.073)
Time in recording [log10(sec.)]−0.831 (0.334)*
Decade*Frequency0.472 (0.171)**
(Intercept)1.165 (1.133)
Observations557
Log Likelihood−334.419
Akaike Inf. Crit.684.838
Bayesian Inf. Crit.719.418

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Received: 2017-3-4
Accepted: 2017-6-24
Published Online: 2017-12-20

©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2017-0005
Keywords for this article
language change across the lifespan; phonological representations; usage-based models; Received Pronunciation; sound change

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Editorial
  2. Editorial
  3. Phonetics & Phonology
  4. Acoustic correlates of word stress: A cross-linguistic survey
  5. A two-decade-interval variation in vowel insertion after word-final English and French postvocalic plosives in Korean adaptation: A sociolinguistic account
  6. Methodological issues in the study of word stress correlates
  7. Morphology & Syntax
  8. From the past into the present: From case frames to semantic frames
  9. Valency and expectation in Bantu applicatives
  10. Semantics & Pragmatics
  11. Semantic values as latent parameters: Testing a fixed threshold hypothesis for cardinal readings of few & many
  12. The Role of Prosody in the Identification of Persian Sentence Types: Declarative or Wh-question?
  13. Language Acquisition & Language Learning
  14. Individual differences in second language speech perception across tasks and contrasts: The case of English vowel contrasts by Korean learners
  15. Language Documentation & Typology
  16. Topological Relations in Pohnpeian
  17. Psycholinguistics & Neurolinguistics
  18. Incremental parsing in a continuous dynamical system: sentence processing in Gradient Symbolic Computation
  19. Sociolinguistics & Anthropological Linguistics
  20. Frequency effects over the lifespan: a case study of Attenborough’s r’s
  21. Is like like like?: Evaluating the same variant across multiple variables
  22. The linguist’s Drosophila: Experiments in language change
  23. Seseo, ceceo, and distinción in Andalusian Spanish: Free variation or sociolinguistic variation?
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