ABSTRACT
This study concerns phonetic stability and change in public speech across the career of the French-speaking public figure Michaëlle Jean. The focus is on the location of /e/ in the acoustic space and the nature of the contrast between /ɛ/ and /a͜ɛ/, which differ between Quebec French and other varieties such as standard Hexagonal French. Considering that speech changes as a function of the audience and professional occupation, we hypothesize that the acoustic characteristics of the speaker’s vowels would be more Quebec-like when she was a journalist in Quebec (1988–2005) compared to when she addressed and represented a more international body of French speakers as secretary general of La Francophonie (2014–2018). Our analyses of nearly five hours of publicly available speech shows phonetic change but phonological stability, as well as features typical of Quebec French spoken in the media. There is some evidence of an influence of the audience and professional occupation, including a reversal of previously observed changes once the speaker’s career became less international (2019–2022). This study contributes to a better understanding of variation within speech styles and raises the question of when does stylistic expansion occur during adulthood.
