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Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 46:3 (2025) ► pp.243–273

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A panel approach to micro and macro perceptions of Tyneside English across the lifespan

ORCiD logo with link | University of Duisburg-Essen
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Duisburg-Essen.

Published online: 6 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.25017.moe
Abstract
Researching language change across the lifespan benefits from analyzing the indexicalities and socio-cognitive salience of linguistic variables produced by speakers of different ages (Bülow, Lars, and Philip Vergeiner. 2021. “Intra-individual Variation across the Lifespan: Results from an Austrian Panel Study”. Linguistics Vanguard 71: 1–11. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 2025. “Speaker Evaluation Across the Adult Lifespan: Examining Age and Gender Effects in the Perception of Tyneside Voices”. Journal of Language and Aging Research 31: 48–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This paper demonstrates the potential of the Salient Language in Context tool by Montgomery, Chris, Gareth Walker, and Harry Woods. 2025. “Salient Language in Context (SLIC): A Web App for Collecting Real-time Attention Data in Response to Audio Samples“. Linguistics Vanguard: 1–10. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar in a panel study to capture micro-reactions and holistic after the fact ratings. Findings reveal that the female speaker is perceptually downgraded for sociability and competence ratings when in her twenties (T1) while be like, a feature commonly associated with youth, is significantly more salient in her thirties (T2). This supports previous evidence of bias against young women (Duncan, Colin, and Wendy Loretto. 2004. “Never the Right Age? Gender and Age-Based Discrimination in Employment”. Gender, Work & Organization 111: 95–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 2025. “Speaker Evaluation Across the Adult Lifespan: Examining Age and Gender Effects in the Perception of Tyneside Voices”. Journal of Language and Aging Research 31: 48–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and a penalty for defying age-based linguistic expectations. The results show that listeners struggle to reconcile linguistic “youthfulness” with societal norms for middle-aged women and confirm that “age-related ideology is inseparable from gender ideology” (. 2014. “Language and Gender in Adolescence”. In Susan Ehrlich, Miriam Meyerhoff, and Janet Holmes, eds. The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality (2nd ed). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 529–545. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar: 541).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Social perception research
  • 3.The speech community: Tyneside
  • 4.The speech data and the tool
  • 5.Contextualizing the guises
    • 5.1Localness
    • 5.2Age estimates
  • 6.Holistic ratings of social attributes
  • 7.Perceptions tied to the target variable be like
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
References (96)
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