Vowel changes in the speech of Sir David Attenborough

Abstract

Cho, Juhyung. 2022. Vowel changes in the speech of Sir David Attenborough. SNU Working Papers in English Language and Linguistics 18, 1-13. This paper investigates the vowel changes in the longitudinal data of Sir David Attenborough, a globally well-known narrator who speaks Received Pronunciation (RP). Harrington et al. (2000) showed that even the conservative RP speaker as the Queen has changed the vowel towards the community, showing the influence of younger speakers. To see whether other RP speakers adapt the community change, the vowel changes of Attenborough between two time periods were compared to the Queens and Southern Standard British (SSB) male accent data. The results showed that Attenborough has changed his vowels which were mostly in the same direction as the Queens. Low back vowels were in a different direction, where it showed the merger between the two vowels. However, when compared directly to the SSB data, even the low back vowels were moving towards the mainstream. The result provides evidence for lifespan changes, where adult speakers change their pronunciation after the critical period and the speaker makes a shift towards the community level. (Seoul National University)