Scientists are using Taylor Swift interviews to crack the secrets of human language

Taylor Swift has had many different eras during her two-decade-long career, and now they're at the centre of a language study which could influence the next generation of scientific findings.

The pop star's speech patterns over the years from interviews have been analysed at the University of Minnesota by researchers Miski Mohamed and Matthew Winn to gain further understanding as to how and why people adopt accents and regional dialects, as well as how social groups, age, and leadership status can impact the way we talk.

These findings have since been published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America on Tuesday.

“When we perceive speech, we don’t just perceive the words, we perceive the person and the character traits that they want to convey,” Winn said in an interview. “Not everybody changes their speech after moving to a new city, so it’s interesting to think about what motivates the people who do change.”

Why does Swift make the "perfect" candidate for this kind of study?

"Taylor Swift is perfect for this type of longitudinal analysis because she has been interviewed and recorded many times over the years and had motivations for changing her accent at specific times," explained Winn.

Over 1,400 vowel sounds from Swift's interviews from 2008 and 2019 were analysed by the researchers, who used software to measure and trace changes in pronunciation and vocal resonance.

To track these changes, the pair honed in on three shifting factors in Swift's life: her music output, where she lived and growing up from a teenage country singer into an adult pop star.

Vocal changes throughout Swift's career

(L-R) Swift from her early days as a country artist in 2006, to transitioning into pop in 2012, and being an established pop star during her 'Lover' era in 2019.Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images

Swift first began her music career back in 2003 at the age of 14 as a country artist, and moved from her home state of Pennsylvania to Nashville during this time, and a southern twang can be heard in her singing voice.

Researchers also noted this was clear to hear in her speaking voice during interviews too, in particular she had an /ai/ vowel shift, which led to her pronouncing words such as "ride" like "rod," as well as fronting of the /u/ vowel, causing her to pronounce “two” more like “tee-you."

As her career progressed, Swift moved back to Pennsylvania during her 'Red' album era, resulting in her losing this southern dialect, and this was also reflected in her music as she transitioned from making country music to pop music, which experts reckon was a strategic move on Swift's part.

Following this, Swift would go on to move to New York during her '1989' era, which produced pop bangers such as 'Shake It Off', 'Blank Space' and 'Out of the Woods', cementing her pop star status.

Fast forward seven years to 2019, when Swift is in her "Lover" era, where another dialect change was highlighted by researchers; for example, she expanded the distinction between low-back vowels in words like “cot” and “caught”.

At this time, the singer was a well-established pop star at this point in her career; she had been living in New York and was more outspoken about her social and political beliefs.

Getty

(She broke her political silence in 2018 when she voiced her support for Tennessee Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives, and criticised Republican Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn).

With this, researchers picked up on how Swift's speech was lower in pitch, which they believe was purposeful.

"Sometimes people with a lower pitch are perceived as a voice of authority, and it is possible that she was making use of that tendency to ensure her message was received," he said.

What did researchers say?

It's fair to say Swift has had a music career like no other musician, and both Mohamed and Winn acknowledge these results couldn't be replicated in a "controlled laboratory study."

They described how the results "have broad implications for our understanding of the combined influences of place, profession, and leadership goals on an individual's dialect adaptation later in life, suggesting that the ways people use language for conveying identity and community belonging are malleable within specific timeframes and goals."

"I didn’t know much about Taylor before this project began, except that she is a Philadelphia Eagles fan,” Winn admitted, who perhaps could now rival Swifties' knowledge with his research.

Elsewhere from Indy100, Will Taylor Swift finally play the Super Bowl halftime show? and Travis Kelce addresses engagement to Taylor Swift for the first time.

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.