Jacob Thøgersen, University of Copenhagen Jan Heegård, Copenhagen Business School

1. Changes in linguistic style as a consequence of changing media normsReductions as an indicator of ‘vernacularization’? Jacob Thøgersen, University of Copenhagen Jan Heegård, Copenhagen Business School jthoegersen@hum.ku.dk

2. Why investigate language change in the national broadcast media • Media language reflects language norms • Media language affect our language norms • Background • Denmark had (has?) a broadcast monopoly (DR) • Established 1925 with strong national and educational aims • Focus on ’proper’ language in particular in ’serious’ programs like the news. ’Proper’ language as a sign of credibility. • DR reflect language ideals and disseminate language ideals

3. Grand questions • How does the style of the radio news, i.e. the standard of excellence, change over time? • How do these stylistic changes correlate with changes in media norms?

4. Media norms 1940 & 2010. From enlightenment to infotainment • The National Broadcasting Company was established to connect with all households in the country […]. A state institution was created, free from speculation, advertising and private interests, an institution intended solely to serve country and people and to act as a link to the outside world. (Then prime minister Thorvald Stauning, in Breidahl & Rée’s book in celebration of DR’s 15th anniversary, 1940:5) Precisely in a time which is more fragmented than ever before, where we use more media than ever before and gather our information and find our experiences in far more sources than ever before, there is a need that we are also supplied with a common platform. (Then minister of culturalaffairs Per Stig Møller, DR’s Public service contract, 2010) • Can wesee the results of thesechanging ideals in the style of the language of the media?

5. Style changes: Independent evidence • ’Non-linguistic’ changes in news reading style, speed, pauses etc.: • News readings • Only the actual reading of news, not e.g. interviews or reports from correspondents • 1936-2010 • ≈ 7.6 hours • ≈ 50 programs • ≈ 70,000 words

6. Style changes: Increasing speed • The speaking rate and articulation rate increase noticeably • Fewer and shorter pauses • (cf. Thøgersen 2001)

7. Reductions as ’improper’ media language • Even for leading Danish media people the rushed times we live in often impede clarity. This is mainly due to the omnipresent cutting disease [i.e. ‘cutting off syllables’] or syllable cannibalism. In the whirling tempo of the times, smaller or even larger percentages of the words are lost. We see for instance how billeder becomes /bedlå/, stearin becomes /sdaRI;N/, teater /tadå/, parentes /pangTE;S/. In all four examples, one of three syllables is lost. The cannibal swallows 33 %. (Prof. Peder Skyum-Nielsen, 2007) Thøgersen, forthc.

8. Style changes: Reductions • Changes in the frequency of reductions in the reading style: • News readings • Only the actual reading of news, not e.g. interviews or reports from correspondents • 1936-2010 • ≈ 6 hours • ≈ 38 programs • ≈ 53,000 words

9. Syllable, consonant and schwa reductions • 9 listeners / 3 variables 2 listeners / 6 variables

10. Method • Words in isolation (total n ≈ 3800) • Automatic extraction of tokens based on (automatically generated) phonological transcription • Using Praat • Forced-choice form: Reduced or not? with ”N/A” to report errors. (N/A’s excluded in statistics) • Slightly different tasks: semantic (past. vs partc. / sing. vs. plur.) or phonetic differentiation • Each token scored as the number of listeners who heard it as reduced, 0-2 or 0-9  ’reduction score’ • Mean scores per decade: ’index’ (0-2 or 0-9)

11. Results: Increase in the degree of reductions (də) (əðə) * (ŋə) *

12. Results: Increase in the degree of reductions (pretonic) (clusters) * (mə) *

13. Results: Increase in the degree of reductions (Cʁ) * (gd) (VgV) *

14. Reductions as style indicator: Conclusion • More reductions  ’vernacularization’ • Some variables show a somewhat linear development: (əðə), (ŋə), (clusters), (Cʁ), (pretonics) • Some show little development: (də), (gd) • Some show a large difference between old (30s, 40s) and later: (ŋə), (mə) • Some show erratic development: (mə), (VgV) • Noise in the experiment? • Variation in individual speakers  due to salience leading to corrections? • DR’s news reading style becomes more like the vernacular, but is it like the vernacular?

15. Reductions – Compared with corpora of spontaneous spoken Danish • Radio news • After 1980 • Only tokens where both listeners agreed on the coding • DanPASS (Danish Phonetically Annotated Spontaneous Speech) • Map-tasks in experimental set-up (≈ 10 hours) • Forms annotated as reduced in the authorized transcription • Lanchart: Sociolinguistic interviews 1) (≈ 15 hours), 2) 1 long interview with 2 informants (≈ 2 hours)

16. Conclusion • Increasing frequency of reducions  ’vernacularization’ • the intrusion of ‘improper’ language in the serious media • Still perceived as ’proper’ language  ’demotization’ • improper language accepted as proper language • Changes in articulation rate and reductions as a consequence of new media norms? • The era of ’good-enough’ • Not all reductions are equally frequent  Categorically different phenomena: Some are phonologized, others are indicators of casual style? Some are salient (at some times), others are not? • News reading style (still) differs markedly from spontaneous speech. How great was this difference earlier?

17. Style changes - Speed

18. Consonant reductions • 9 listeners / 3 variables 2 listeners / 6 variables

19. Consonant reductions - Results (də) (əðə) (ŋə)