Frequency effects over the lifespan: a case study of Attenborough’s r’s
-
Laurel MacKenzie
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.
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).
Both phonological positions combined.
| Dependent variable: | |
|---|---|
| /r/ = tap | |
| Position = linking | −0.872 (0.232)*** |
| Decade = 2000s | 0.282 (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) |
| Observations | 1,627 |
| Log Likelihood | −906.569 |
| Akaike Inf. Crit. | 1,829.139 |
| Bayesian Inf. Crit. | 1,872.295 |
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) |
| Observations | 1,070 |
| Log Likelihood | −554.691 |
| Akaike Inf. Crit. | 1,123.383 |
| Bayesian Inf. Crit. | 1,158.210 |
Linking position only.
| Dependent variable: | |
|---|---|
| /r/ = tap | |
| Decade = 2000s | 0.724 (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) |
| Observations | 557 |
| Log Likelihood | −338.327 |
| Akaike Inf. Crit. | 690.654 |
| Bayesian Inf. Crit. | 720.912 |
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) |
| Observations | 761 |
| Log Likelihood | −423.174 |
| Akaike Inf. Crit. | 860.348 |
| Bayesian Inf. Crit. | 892.790 |
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) |
| Observations | 866 |
| Log Likelihood | −467.664 |
| Akaike Inf. Crit. | 949.328 |
| Bayesian Inf. Crit. | 982.676 |
Internal position only, with decade*frequency interaction.
| Dependent variable: | |
|---|---|
| /r/ = tap | |
| Decade = 2000s | 0.030 (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) |
| Observations | 1,070 |
| Log Likelihood | −554.688 |
| Akaike Inf. Crit. | 1,125.376 |
| Bayesian Inf. Crit. | 1,165.179 |
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*Frequency | 0.472 (0.171)** |
| (Intercept) | 1.165 (1.133) |
| Observations | 557 |
| Log Likelihood | −334.419 |
| Akaike Inf. Crit. | 684.838 |
| Bayesian Inf. Crit. | 719.418 |
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©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
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- Morphology & Syntax
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- Semantics & Pragmatics
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- Language Acquisition & Language Learning
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- Topological Relations in Pohnpeian
- Psycholinguistics & Neurolinguistics
- Incremental parsing in a continuous dynamical system: sentence processing in Gradient Symbolic Computation
- Sociolinguistics & Anthropological Linguistics
- Frequency effects over the lifespan: a case study of Attenborough’s r’s
- Is like like like?: Evaluating the same variant across multiple variables
- The linguist’s Drosophila: Experiments in language change
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Phonetics & Phonology
- Acoustic correlates of word stress: A cross-linguistic survey
- A two-decade-interval variation in vowel insertion after word-final English and French postvocalic plosives in Korean adaptation: A sociolinguistic account
- Methodological issues in the study of word stress correlates
- Morphology & Syntax
- From the past into the present: From case frames to semantic frames
- Valency and expectation in Bantu applicatives
- Semantics & Pragmatics
- Semantic values as latent parameters: Testing a fixed threshold hypothesis for cardinal readings of few & many
- The Role of Prosody in the Identification of Persian Sentence Types: Declarative or Wh-question?
- Language Acquisition & Language Learning
- Individual differences in second language speech perception across tasks and contrasts: The case of English vowel contrasts by Korean learners
- Language Documentation & Typology
- Topological Relations in Pohnpeian
- Psycholinguistics & Neurolinguistics
- Incremental parsing in a continuous dynamical system: sentence processing in Gradient Symbolic Computation
- Sociolinguistics & Anthropological Linguistics
- Frequency effects over the lifespan: a case study of Attenborough’s r’s
- Is like like like?: Evaluating the same variant across multiple variables
- The linguist’s Drosophila: Experiments in language change
- Seseo, ceceo, and distinción in Andalusian Spanish: Free variation or sociolinguistic variation?
