Investigating Intra-Speaker Malleability Across the Lifespan: An Empirical Panel Study

Exploring the boundaries of age-related changes has become a core issue in the language sciences (Buchstaller & Grama forthcoming; Buchstaller & Wagner forthcoming; Chambers 2003). This dissertation reports on a comprehensive panel dataset consisting of 26 speakers from the North East of England that covers the whole adult lifespan. The investigation focuses on two linguistic variables: (1) the phonetic realization of the first person singular possessive my, which is realised in North-Eastern Englishes as vernacular [mi], as well as more recent incoming form [ma] and standard [maɪ] (Childs 2013; Snell 2010), and (2) quotation, which has seen the much discussed incursion of the global newcomer be like (Buchstaller 2014). This thesis provides evidence of coherent socially and linguistically differentiated patterns when speakers are traced across the entire adult lifespan. Apart from supporting previous panel analyses that report robust changes in the variable turnover across the lifespan, which are mediated by differentiated marketplace pressures, the studies reveal that the hypothesised U-shaped curve is a generalisation of the complexities involved in change across the lifespan. By tracing the linguistic development across the speakers’ lifespans, the analysis offers a panel view on ongoing changes, showing the effects of “language change as lived through by individual speakers” (Sankoff 2019: 198).