madonna's vowels and f0 in real time

DEFYING AGE CLASSIFICATION? MADONNA’S VOWELS AND F0

IN REAL TIME

Míša HejnáAnna Jespersen

https://www.flickr.com/photos/choupigloupi/474653884

Phonetics & Phonology in Denmark 2Aarhus 2020

BACKGROUNDProblems with age

How does Madonna negotiate age?

• via vowel quality variation

• via f0?

“To age is a sin.”

“People say I’m so controversial, but I think the most controversial thing I have ever done is to stick around.”– Madonna (Billboard Women in Music award acceptance speech, 2016)

“Are you supposed to just die when you’re 40?”- Madonna (“Erotica” interview with Jonathan Ross, 1992)

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RESEARCH QUESTION

o we’re focusing on social aspects of ageing primarily

o but make inferences about biological aspects of ageing

à contrast with the traditional LVC approach to age as chronological (date of birth)

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METHODOLOGY

Why Madonna?

• data available

• known to defy expectations (on various levels)

• criticised for (gender-)age inappropriate behaviour

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/105201341267589516/

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METHODOLOGY

Why Madonna?

•

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/6679620/Why-can-t-Madonna-handle-ageing

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[6, p. 289]

METHODOLOGY

Linguistic variables

• f0

• vowels• TRAP, LOT/CLOTH, STRUT, KIT, DRESS, THOUGHT/NORTH/FORCE • Northern Cities Shift• California Vowel Shift• Short Front Vowel Lowering (and more)

Why these?

• sufficient research on f0 and ageing (for our purposes)

• regions relevant for Madonna fairly well-researched for vocalic variation

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METHODOLOGY

f0

• in females, we expect f0 to drop [1, p. 451]

• around the age of 50 - menopause [2-3]

Formants

• the older the speaker, the lower the F1 [1, 3-4]

• other formants mixed tendencies across studies [3]

• assumed to be constant across phonemes

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METHODOLOGY

Madonna’s bio

• born in 1958, Detroit (Northern Cities Shift)

• moved to NY in 1978 (caught lowering; TRAP nasal split)

• in London in 1990s (various phenomena)

• in California in 2003-2013 (California vowel shift)

• moved to Lisbon in 2017By Joey McCoy - Flickr, CC BY-

SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6334338

3

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METHODOLOGYVowels

• all relevant phonemes

F0

• midpoint within each vowel (à 835 tokens)

• normalisation not necessary

• manual coding in Praat [5]

TRAP DRESS KIT LOT THOUGHT STRUT TOTAL

147 238 111 125 135 79 835

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METHODOLOGY

Dataset

• interviewers all male

• interviewers all American

• topics as comparable as possible

• quality as comparable as possible

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RESULTS: VOWELS• F1 •1980’s < 2000’s à F1 rises (=lower vowels)• no other decade contrasts significant• no phoneme-specific effects• LOT no change in real time

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↓ moved to California

F1 drops but NS

RESULTS: VOWELS

F2

• 1980’s < other decades à F2 rises (=fronter vowels)

• no phoneme-specific effects (interaction doesn’t improve fit)• sharpest changes from the 80’s to the 90’s• recent DRESS ns different from 80’s DRESS (returns to the starting point)• LOT no change in real time

• THOUGHT stat. different across the least decades + smallest effect

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F2 drops but NS

RESULTS: F0

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• 1980’s 167 Hz (mean)• 1990’s 182 Hz• 2000’s 175 Hz• 2010’s 158 Hz• recent 183 Hz

DISCUSSION

Vowels

• lower vowels (F1)• F1 profile globally & locally younger rather than older

• F2 shows more fronting • unlike the global (or local) changes

F0

• rises rather than lowers at the post-menopausal stage

• highest f0 in the most recent interviews à attractive/pre-menopausal voice profile?

• Possibly a socially motivated biological explanation?• Social pressure to sound young/attractive• Hormonal Replacement Therapy = biological, but with a social motivation https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Madonna_Rebel_He

art_Tour_2015_-_Amsterdam_2_(23823273120)_(cropped).jpg

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DISCUSSIONGENERAL IMPLICATIONS ABOUT AGE IN LVCHow do we approach age in LVC?

How do we approach age in phonetics?

Chronological approach to age

= binary “sex” approach to gender

https://ew.com/news/2017/03/09/madonna-her-story-short-film/

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THANK YOU

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2F64.media.tumblr.com%2F0dd6e20755b58258866ad6a92505f37e%2Ftumblr_o5dcquSzP91u2gzw0o1_500.gifv&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmadonnanowofficial.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F142512686153%2Fonthisday-in-2015-madonna-appeared-performed&tbnid=XNIYfD3F3qamzM&vet=12ahUKEwiG1_foisXsAhWEposKHUT6ACMQMygIegUIARCpAQ..i&docid=FSE_s3f-AkdeKM&w=490&h=239&itg=1&q=madonna%20thank%20you&ved=2ahUKEwiG1_foisXsAhWEposKHUT6ACMQMygIegUIARCpAQ

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REFERENCES1. Harrington, Jonathan. 2006. An acoustic analysis of ‘happy-tensing’ in the Queen’s

Christmas broadcasts. Journal of Phonetics 34: 439-457.

2. Dehqan, Ali; Scherer, Ronald C.; Dashti, Gholamali; Ansari-Moghaddam, Alireza. 2012.The effects of ageing on acoustic parameters of voice. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica 64:265-270.

3. Reubold, Ulrich; Harrington, Jonathan; Kleber, Felicitas. 2010. Vocal ageing effects on F0and the first formant: A longitudinal analysis of adult speakers. Speech Communication 52:638-651.

4. Eichhorn, Julie Traub; Kent, Raymond D.; Austin, Diane; Vorperian, Houri K. Submitted?Effects of ageing on vocal fundamental frequency and vowel formants in men and women.Journal of Voice X.

5. Boersma, Paul; Weenink, David. 2019. Praat. Doing Phonetics by Computer.https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/

6. Gorton, Kristyn; Gorde-Hansen, Joanne. 2013. From old media whore to new media troll.The online negotiation of Madonna’s ageing body. Feminist Media Studies 13(2): 288-302.

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APPENDIX 1: MORE INFO ON THE DATA

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Decade Year Interviewer Interviewer from # vowels

1980’s 1984 Mark Goodman Philadelphia 243

1984 Unknown (MTV) unknown

1990’s 1993 Mark Greczmiel San Francisco 90

1994 David Letterman Indianapolis

2000’s 2000 Mark Greczmiel San Francisco 229

2002 Larry King NYC

2003 Matt Lauer NYC

2010’s (1/2) 2012 Bob Costas NYC 208

2013 Eddy Moretti Toronto

2010’s (2/2) 2015 Howard Sten& a female

NYC 65

2018 Mario Lopez San Diego

APPENDIX 2:F1 CHANGES NOT MOTIVATED BY F0 CHANGES

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APPENDIX 3: MORE ON F0No significant interactions between vowel phoneme and decade were found

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APPENDIX 4: F0 VARIATION

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APPENDIX 5: MADONNA’S VOWEL SPACE(S)

Full: pre-2000’s

Dotted: post-2000’s

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METHODOLOGY

Why Madonna?

https://qz.com/work/1636824/madonnas-advice-on-age-work-and-creativity/22