Exemplifying the Language Change of Jennifer Lopez

This paper investigates American singer and actress Jennifer Lopez’s use of the sociolinguistic variables (ing), PRICE, and TRAP through a longitudinal study of readily available interviews over the course of 16 years. The study is an example of the same speaker of English showing lifespan change in one variable (TRAP), and age-grading in two others ((ing) and PRICE). The findings show that different variables can pattern differently, and that social context plays an important role in these linguistic developments

Towards an Empirically-based Model of Age-graded Behaviour: Trac(ing) linguistic malleability across the entire adult life-span

Previous panel research has provided individual evidence for aspects of the U-shaped pattern, but these studies typically rely on sampling the same speaker at two points in time, usually in close proximity. As a result, our knowledge about the patterning of age-graded variables across the entire adult life-span is limited. What is needed, thus, is a data-set that captures ongoing linguistic malleability in the individual speaker across all “life experiences that give age meaning” (Eckert 1997:167). Our study is the first to add real time evidence across the lifespan as a whole on an age-graded variable. We present the results of a novel dynamic data-set that allows us to model speakers’ linguistic choices between ages 19 and 78. We illustrate the age-graded patterns in our data and draw attention to the complex, socially niched ways in which speakers react to age-specific expectations