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Probably due to a desire to sound cute or otherwise I find teens (girls mostly) using an accent wherein they have to pout their lips a bit more in speaking while this may give them a more appealing look or peer group acceptance the accent changes; moreover this is not a localised phenomenon but spread out throughout the age group.

Has this ever been noted?

Which are the cultures wherein the accent changes with demography?

eg for an adult it might be p-aa-rty the teen says ph-o-ty (with a flapping of intervocalic /t/)

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  • Are you talking about any specific language in any specific place? It seems you are talking about some English some people speak somewhere but it might be difficult for us to guess. – hippietrail Sep 28 '13 at 7:48
  • Geographically, I would place the start of this phenomenon on the West Coast – ranging from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest. – ARi Sep 28 '13 at 7:54
  • Oh so the American west coast then? It's better to include this information in your question than just in the comments. – hippietrail Sep 28 '13 at 7:56
  • @ARi If you could find an example on youtube or something that would be very helpful. I was at a presentation on uptalk recently, and a youtube video provided the central example - it worked really well. Incidentally, the phenomena sounds totally unfamiliar to me. – P Elliott Sep 28 '13 at 9:39
  • Well this is different from HRT/upspeak; as far as I know – ARi Oct 1 '13 at 14:27

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