Evidence for a relationship between synchronic variability and diachronic change in the Queen’s annual Christmas broadcasts

The present study was designed to test whether phonetic sound change can take place within an individual beyond the critical age and, if so, whether it is gradual. An acoustic analysis was made of /u/-fronting and /æ/-lowering which are both sound changes that have occurred in the standard accent of England in the last fifty years. The speech data were taken from the messages that have been broadcast annually by Queen Elizabeth II since 1952. Measurements were made of the first two formant frequencies at the vowel onset and at the vowel target of /u/ and /æ/ over various time periods between 1952 and 2002. An analysis of F2 showed that /u/ has fronted in the Christmas broadcasts and that the fronting is associated with a greater coarticulatory influence of the preceding consonant. Based on F1 and the rate of change of F1, it is shown that /æ/ has lowered and that the change is associated with increased vowel hyperarticulation in later years. Both changes are shown to be gradual. Since neither the effects of increasing age nor of a change in speaking style are able to explain these vowel shifts, it is concluded that these are phonetically gradual sound changes that have taken place over a fifty year period within the same speaker.