Taylor Swift’s Speech Sample Modified over Time, Linguistics Examine Reveals

Scientists Tackle Taylor Swift’s Linguistic Eras

By Mohana Basu & Nature journal

Researchers have confirmed what Taylor Swift followers have lengthy suspected: the music megastar’s dialect and pitch have shifted all through her profession.

Within the early levels of Swift’s music profession, whereas she was dwelling close to Nashville, Tennessee, her speech had the hallmarks of a southern US accent. When she launched her pop album Purple in 2012, the southern twang had pale, recommend researchers who’ve analysed her voice. It modified once more when she moved to New York Metropolis, they are saying.

An individual’s dialect is often related to the area they’re from, though it could possibly change all through their lifetime. However having the ability to research how they modify is uncommon, says Matthew Winn, an audiologist on the College of Minnesota Twin Cities in Minneapolis. “We can not usually observe somebody round with a microphone,” he says.

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Enter Tay Tay. “Taylor Swift has basically been adopted round with the microphone for many of her grownup life,” says Winn.

Swift interviews

Within the research printed right this moment in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Winn and his colleague analysed greater than 100 minutes of Swift’s interviews throughout three distinct eras of her profession. In 2008, Swift launched Fearless whereas dwelling close to Nashville; in 2012, she launched Purple; and in 2019, Lover was launched when she lived in New York Metropolis.

The pair used pc software program to trace how the pronunciation of Swift’s vowels modified. “As an individual modifications dialects — inside English not less than — principally these modifications are mirrored within the vowels,” says Winn.

Early in her profession, Swift’s pronunciation of ‘i’ in phrases corresponding to ‘trip’ turned shorter, saying the phrase extra like ‘rod’, which the researchers say is a traditional southern US function. The ‘oo’ sound in phrases like ‘two’ additionally modified to sound like ‘tee-you’, one other southern signature.

Swift’s vowels lengthened across the time she began singing extra pop music, with a clearer distinction between phrases corresponding to ‘cot’ and ‘caught’, which the authors say is a function of dialects in Pennsylvania, the place Swift grew up, and New York.

The researchers recommend that these modifications replicate Swift’s need to be a part of these communities. “I used to be a type of individuals who considered dialects primarily as reflecting the place you come from, however they clearly additionally replicate what sort of neighborhood you need to be part of,” says Winn.

Alice Gaby, a linguist at Monash College in Melbourne, Australia, says that the research confirms what individuals have famous — that Swift had a reasonably marked shift in her pronunciation as soon as she moved to Tennessee after which again to Pennsylvania once more.

However Swift is not any totally different from many different individuals who adapt their dialect all through their lives, says Gaby. “It’s attention-grabbing to notice that the change isn’t just particular to the placement but in addition how she’s positioning herself,” she provides.

The researchers additionally discovered that the pitch of Swift’s voice bought decrease when she moved to New York Metropolis, a change that they recommend coincided along with her emergence as a vocal advocate on social points. However they acknowledge that this modification may be age associated.

Nature has reached out to Swift for touch upon the research outcomes.

This text is reproduced with permission and was first printed on September 23, 2025.

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