Aging effects on Prosodic Marking in Speech

• Applicant: Dr. Anne Hermes
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: Funded in 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 423402139

Aging entails physiological changes on several levels, including a decrease in motor control, less muscular force and a decline in control of breathing, thus constituting a serious challenge to the whole speech system. The main objective of AGES is to understand, based on acoustic and respiratory data from French and German, how aging affects prosodic marking on both, the local level (strengthening of smaller prosodic constituents) and the global level (phrasing of larger prosodic constituents). By combining these two levels, this project investigates effects of aging on the subglottal, glottal and the supraglottal systems and how this is compensated for with increasing age. AGES will generate knowledge that has heretofore been lacking about the effects of aging on prosodic marking, providing new insights not only into speech attrition, but also into age-related strategies in two languages with different prosodic systems. Thus, this project aims to shed light on regulation mechanisms of prosodic marking in aging speech and provide insights into whether these mechanisms are purely linked to aging or are also affected by the language. The findings will contribute to a profile of aging effects on speech in healthy individuals, and provide a baseline for clinical studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: France
• Host: Professorin Dr. Cécile Fougeron