The Swift Accent Shift Project
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Inspired by a first-class undergraduate dissertation carried out by English Language student Esther Humphries, which went viral after she presented her work at the world-first Swiftposium, the Swift Accent Shift Project (SASP) analyses Taylor Swift’s accent between her country and pop-style music, and beyond to her re-recordings of her music.
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This exciting interdisciplinary project currently has three phases and is still growing:
Phase 1: Taylor Swift’s early accent shifts: Are her accent changes natural or genre-fitting?
Phase 2: Building a Multimodal Composite Model (MCM): What is the difference between country and pop music? By analysing semiotic and musical features, can we build a model which enables us to see a clear relationship between music style and speech style?
Phase 3: Analysing Taylor’s Versions: Has Taylor Swift’s accent changed (again)?
What we plan to do next:
- Analyse Taylor’s live performances.
- Test the MCM with A.I. and public perception.
- Extend the MCM to other genres - analyse Swift's folk-style music.
- Apply the MCM to other artists…
