The Swift Accent Shift Project

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. 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…

This research is funded and supported by the Culture and Society Research and Knowledge Exchange Institute, University of Chester.