Register effects of imagined addressees on f0 across generations

2025/11/01 by Miriam Oschkinat, Melanie Weirich, Daniel Durán +1 · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · Psychology · #Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Phonetics and Phonology Research

paper · doi:10.1121/10.0039810

openalex publication_date 2025/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/11/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/22

Abstract

This study analyzed fundamental frequency (f0) data from 717 German speakers, collected via the Plapper smartphone app, to investigate phonetic variation as a function of imagined addressee authority. Participants justified crossing a street during a red light, addressing either an imagined friend (male or female) or an imagined male police officer. Speakers consistently produced higher f0 when addressing the police officer, regardless of sex or age. The findings support Bell's Audience Design model, which posits that speakers adapt their speech to gain approval, and Ohala's frequency code theory, which associates elevated f0 with submissiveness in interactions involving authorities.

Citations

• Language style as audience design
• Multilingual processing of speech via web services
• Experimental assessment of phonetic register variation in situated interaction

Discussions

• Do you even need visual social cues to trigger speech register effects? Imagining to address a friend vs a policeman is enough to change speaking style (f0 in this case). Check out our new paper in w [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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