Over the past two decades, Taylor Swift has categorized her music, relationships and style in eras. But researchers have found another thing that Swift seems to change often — and that is the way she speaks.
Matthew Winn, an audiology professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and his student, Miski Mohamed, co-authored a study that analyzes Swift's dialect and accent from 2008 to 2019. For several years, they listened to old Swift interviews, focusing primarily on her time in Nashville and New York City, and found that her vowel pronunciation had significantly changed over time. These changes in Swift's dialect coincided with her gradual transition from country music to pop sensation.
"She's been recorded so often for interviews over the course of her career that we have this timeline of her voice throughout the years," Winn told Morning Edition. "So it sort of gave us a rare chance to do this kind of study because we know that people change their accent, but we don't often get a chance to measure it."
Swift was born in West Reading, Pa., where she developed a love for music and performance. When she was 14 years old, her family moved to Hendersonville, Tenn., a suburb near Nashville, to support Swift's country music aspirations. Her relocation to Tennessee markedly influenced her accent and dialect.
Although many people assume that dialects only reflect the region a person grew up in, dialects are also shaped by the social community someone wants to be a part of or fit into, Winn and Mohamed explained in a summarized version of their research on the UMN Listen Lab's website.
"As [Taylor Swift] started singing country music, she was integrating into a community that spoke with a Southern accent," Winn said.
In a 2004 interview with Good Morning America, Swift, 14 at the time, doesn't yet speak with a distinct Southern accent. But after four years in Nashville, she had adopted a thick, yet charming, Southern accent that can be heard in a Country Music Television interview recorded in 2008. That accent translated into — of course — her music, like her Grammy-winning sophomore album, Fearless.
During this era, Swift specifically named Faith Hill, Shania Twain and The Chicks as her country music idols. Winn says that to fit into the country music social scene, Swift might have studied more than just their music.
"Part of what it means to be a country musician is to speak with that Southern accent," Winn said. "And just to make sure that she was welcomed into that community, maybe that was something that helped that process."
After releasing three successful country-inspired albums between 2006 and 2010 — her self-titled album Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now — Swift's music career and personal life began to evolve past Nashville and the country music scene as she entered her early 20s.
In 2011, Swift started purchasing houses on both the east and west coasts — in states like California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island — and spending more time away from the Southern influences of Nashville. So, when she released her 2012 album, Red, Winn says it's no surprise that her recent bicoastal moves were reflected in her dialect — and music.
"She was exiting country music and entering pop music where a Southern accent wouldn't have necessarily fit in as well," Winn said.
Red was one of the biggest pop music commercial successes of 2012 — it also did well with critics, as the album earned Swift two Grammys and sold over 1 million copies within the first week of its release. Swift had intentionally shifted toward a more pop-focused sound and style. But she was still being categorized as a country music artist and her Southern accent continued to linger, especially in her conversational speech, which can be heard in a 2012 interview with NPR's All Things Considered.
Two years after Red's release, Swift shared in a 2014 Rolling Stone interview that she had moved, again, and started a life in New York. That same year, she released her fifth studio album 1989, a full-stop pop album. The album was, again, a commercial success and critically acclaimed — it went platinum in a week and made Swift the first woman to win album of the year twice at the Grammys.
In a 2014 interview with NPR, Swift's Southern accent was absent. Her voice, vocally and conversationally, had shifted almost completely.
From 2017 to 2019, Swift released her sixth and seventh studio albums, Reputation and Lover, establishing herself as a pop music sensation. Although she was excelling in her career, Swift's music and personal life took a hit when Scooter Braun, a celebrity manager known for working with pop stars like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, purchased her first six studio albums' masters in 2019. Swift was publicly frustrated with Braun, and she worked hard to get back the rights to her music — re-recording four of her albums and, eventually, buying back her master recordings in March 2025.
During this tense time for Swift, Winn and Mohamed noticed that the pitch in her voice had dropped. Winn notes that the subjects she was speaking on during this time, social change, feminism and musician's rights, might have prompted her to drop the pitch in her voice. But he also attributes Swift's location and social life in New York City to this shift, which can be heard in a CBS Sunday Morning interview recorded in 2019.
"This was a time when she was being much more vocal about social and political issues and the autonomy of musicians over their own work," he said. "I think she did what a lot of people do. She took those issues very seriously. She started speaking with a lower voice."
Conscious and unconscious influences can affect the way a person speaks, Winn says. And Taylor Swift is no exception.
Winn attests that a person's dialect reflects all the places they've lived and all the people who have influenced them. He and Mohamed found that Swift's relocations to different geographic regions influenced her accent and dialect, but they attribute the change in her voice to her evolving social influences and aspirations, too.
"So this gives us a way to interpret these speech changes as reflective of social and career goals rather than just being in a different city," Winn said.
Winn and Mohamed don't plan to analyze Swift's accent and dialect beyond her 2019 Lover era, as she seems to have found her voice.
"She both has her own accent and also is influencing the public as well. So other people are maybe listening to her and sounding more like her because they like her so much," he said.
So, if you're a casual fan, a die-hard Swiftie, or consider the pop star inspirational, at all, don't be surprised if you start sounding like her, too.
The digital piece was edited by Treye Green. The audio version was produced by Kaity Kline and edited by Olivia Hampton.
