Rudolf P. Gd, Soundg Gay: Pch Properti the Speech of Gay and Straight Men, Amerin Speech, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Sprg, 1994), pp. 30-57
Contents:
- THE GAY VOICE
- IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
- SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN
- GAY MALE SPEECH PATTERNS
- REARCHG GAY SPEECH PATTERNS AT THE UNIVERSY OF ILLOIS
- WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE
- WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
- THE PREVALENCE OF LISPG GAY MEN
THE GAY VOICE
Michael Schulman on “Do I Sound Gay?,” a documentary by David Thorpe that explor how vol nc are associated wh sexualy. * gay male speech patterns *
After intifyg phoic characteristics that seem to make a man’s voice sound gay, their bt hunch is that some gay men may subnscly adopt certa female speech patterns. Not long after Thorpe broke up wh his boyiend, he began thkg about the way he speaks, and the way other gay men speak, and why both sudnly bothered him so much.
Gay adolcents, Thorpe pots out, often learn that the “tell” of their sexualy is their voic, even more so than physily—a limp wrist is easier to straighten out than an flectn. Thorpe talks to a straight iend who sounds “gay” (he grew up on an ashram, surround by women), and a gay iend who sounds “straight” (he has jock brothers). Regardg atic featur of speech, rearchers have hypothized a femizatn of such characteristics homosexual men, but prev vtigatns have so far produced mixed rults.
To fill the gaps, we explored potential differenc atic featur of speech between homosexual and heterosexual native French men and vtigated whether the former showed a trend toward femizatn by parg theirs to that of heterosexual native French women. Rults showed that homosexual men displayed signifintly higher pch modulatn patterns and ls breathy voic pared to heterosexual men, wh valu shifted toward those of heterosexual women. Keywords: Speech, Voice, Atics, Sexual orientatn, Ttosterone levels, Genr atypilyIntroductnThe genr atypily hypothis suggts that genr atypil tras homosexuals uld be ed as cu to dite sexual orientatn.
IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
Gay Male Speech Patterns Some lguistics ma a study tryg to isolate the gay male speech to unrstand what topics the gay language is different om that of their heterosexual men. The procs... * gay male speech patterns *
In addn to the fact that homosexuals exhib tras that differ om those of heterosexuals, has been shown that some of them, such as specific nral procs (LeVay, 1991; Savic, Berglund, & Ldstrom, 2005) or specific childhood behavrs (Alanko et al., 2010; Bailey & Zucker, 1995), displayed valu shifted toward those of the oppose sex, i. Although there is no clear evince that the mean fundamental equency differs between homosexual and heterosexual men (Gd, 1994; Lerman & Damsté, 1969; Munson et al., 2006b; Rendall et al., 2008; Rogers, Jabs, & Smyth, 2001; Smyth, Jabs, & Rogers, 2003; but see Baeck, Corthals, & Borsel, 2011), rults toward differenc pch modulatn patterns are more ntroversial: Some studi have found that homosexual men displayed greater variatns tonatn, wh valu shifted toward those of women (Baeck et al., 2011; Gd, 1994), while others did not fd any difference (Levon, 2006; Rogers et al., 2001). For stance, homosexual men produce higher peak equency and longer duratn valu for /s/ (Lville, 1998) and the speech characteristics are associated wh “gayer-soundg” voic by listeners (Mack & Munson, 2012).
Lastly, homosexual men seem to produce a more expand vowel space than heterosexual men for some specific vowels (Rendall et al., 2008), hyper-articulatn beg monly found female speech (Pierrehumbert et al., 2004) the atic speech featur, other characteristics uld vary wh sexual orientatn, such as vol breaths and roughns that are, rpectively, ptured by the harmonics-to-noise rat (HNR) and the jter. Such rults suggt that vol breaths and roughns may play a role the qualifitn of mascule vers feme soundg voic, th qutng homosexuals’ vol breaths and roughns wh this ntuum. In le wh the speech femizatn hypothis, homosexual men uld ed potentially exhib higher valu of HNR and lower valu of jter, but, so far, no studi have tackled this issue.
Although evince of a difference ttosterone levels between homosexual and heterosexual men is nsistent (Meyer-Bahlburg, 1977, 1984), ttosterone may still mediate the relatnship between sexual orientatn and the aforementned vol speech featur, which has received ltle attentn so far. Consequently, muni of homosexual men uld potentially differ their specific vol speech featur across different this ntext, the goal of the prent study was to provi further tails on the potential differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men’s speech an unrreprented populatn the lerature (i.
SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN
Rults do not nfirm the stereotype that gay male speech mirrors the patterns of women's speech wh rpect to pch characteristics. It would seem that the pch patterns of gay male speakers nstute an example of socphoic variatn. * gay male speech patterns *
We vtigated the effect of sexual orientatn on four sexually dimorphic atic parameters (F0, F0-SD, jter, and HNR) and examed whether homosexual men’s vol characteristics showed a femizatn by parg theirs wh that of heterosexual women. In orr to rec as much as possible homosexual mal, we ntacted the lol LGBTQ muny to help advertise the study as well as directly advertisg known lol gay bars.
To vtigate the effects of sexual orientatn and tt the hypothis of femizatn on the vol featur, we ed an explanatory variable lled “SexOr” that nsirs both sex and sexual orientatn wh three modali: heterosexual men, homosexual men, and heterosexual women. Then, to asss if homosexual men displayed vol featur wh valu shifted toward those of heterosexual women, post hoc analys (Tey HSD tts) were performed to pare which tegory (i.
Thrholds of signifince were rrected for the number of mols and post hoc parisons g the Bonferroni orr to asss the overall difference on speech atic featur between heterosexual and homosexual men and to exame whether homosexual men’s vol featur are shifted toward those of women, we nducted a lear discrimant analysis (LDA).
GAY MALE SPEECH PATTERNS
The study of gay male speech has largely foced on fundamental equency and var quantifiable aspects of /s/ (Campbell-Kibler 2012, Mack and Munson 2012, Munson 2007, Zimman 2013). In a study of the speech of three gay men om California, however, Posva (2011) nclus that gay men may utilize salient aspects of regnal dialects to exprs their gayns. The stylistic rrelatn between gayns and certa regnal dialects supports Eckert’s (2008) argument that lguistic styl are centered around iologi, rather than rigid tegoril inti and Posva (2011) urg that this phenomenon be studied further. Southern New Hampshire provis an ial landspe to further this study, as the regn and s dialect have unrgone signifint lguistic and iologil chang recent s (Stanford et al 2012, Nagy 2001). The current work exam the lguistic relatnship between gayns and Southern New Hampshire iologi the speech of two 22-year-old gay men who grew up Rockgham County, New Hampshire. I then quantatively analyzed the speakers’ e and/or avoidance of phoic variabl (cludg var vowels and quali of /s/) that have been shown to be perceptually and/or productively salient gay male speech or regnal dialectology Southern New Hampshire. The analysis found two signifint fdgs. The first was that the speakers’ /s/ was signifintly “gayer soundg” the readg task than the terview and when talkg about beg gay than not, showg an iologil lk (at least for the speakers) between “gay soundg” speech and “proper” speech the readg tasks. The send was that both speakers monstrated a signifintly unmerged LOT/THOUGHT, which is a salient feature of the New York Cy dialect and superses Southern New Hampshire dialect norms. Both monstrate that social inty is a plex and multi-layered phenomenon. * gay male speech patterns *
LDA attempts to mol whether a set of variabl (here F0, F0-SD, Jter, and HNR) is effective predictg tegory membership (here heterosexual men, homosexual men, and heterosexual women). RultsDcriptive statistics of all atic parameters and T-levels are shown Table 1Dcriptive statistics of mean F0, F0-SD, jter, HNR, speakg time, and T-levels for heterosexual men and women and homosexual menHeterosexual men(n = 48)M ± SDHomosexual men(n = 58)M ± SDHeterosexual women(n = 54)M ± SDF0 (Hz)118.
REARCHG GAY SPEECH PATTERNS AT THE UNIVERSY OF ILLOIS
* gay male speech patterns *
For the tegoril variabl “SexOr” and “Relatnship stat, ” the timat are given for one tegory pared to the reference tegory (SexOr: Homosexual men; Relatnship stat: No). Sample size: NHeterosexual men = 48; NHomosexual men = 58, Nwomen = 54The LDA separated the three groups g two discrimant functns: The first achieved 97.
Vertil solid l reprent the mean of each group (NHeterosexual men = 48; NHomosexual men = 58, Nwomen = 54)DiscsnThis study offers an tertg take on the teractn between sexual orientatn and atic featur of speech a French speaker sample.
Sendly, our fdgs showed that French homosexual men displayed a more modulated and ls breathy voice than French heterosexual men, th supportg and extendg prev studi nducted mostly wh English speakers. Consistent wh prev fdgs English-speakg populatns, no signifint differenc were observed mean F0 between French-speakg heterosexual and homosexual men (Gd, 1994; Lerman & Damsté, 1969; Munson et al., 2006b; Rendall et al., 2008; Rogers et al., 2001; Smyth et al., 2003). The relatnship between pch variatns and sexual orientatn was prevly found one Dutch (Baeck et al., 2011) and one Amerin-English populatn (Gd, 1994), suggtg that femized pch variatns might be characteristic of male homosexual speech across languag (but see Levon, 2006).
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE
Greg Jabs, Lbian and Gay Male Language Use: A Cril Review of the Lerature, Amerin Speech, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Sprg, 1996), pp. 49-71 * gay male speech patterns *
Further vtigatns are neverthels need to nfirm if such a difference pch variatns between homosexual and heterosexual men is enough to be ed as a cue for asssg sexual our knowledge, this is the first study to report an associatn between men’s vol breaths and sexual orientatn. 80 dB), further rearch should tt whether is perceptible by listeners to asss male sexual orientatn and whether homosexual men’s voic, which are richer harmonics pared to those of heterosexuals, are perceived as more attractive among homosexual our study, T-levels did not fluence any of the atic parameters vtigated.
WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
A supposed requt for a webse for a same-sex weddg played a mor role a major clash between ee speech and gay rights at the Supreme Court. * gay male speech patterns *
Neverthels, our rults might suggt that other unrlyg procs, different than basal T-level, are volved vol differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men. Although our study do not aim to provi an explanatn for why vol differenc were found between homosexual and heterosexual men, several blogil and social mechanisms n be voked. For stance, exposure to prenatal ttosterone has been suggted to be rponsible for the differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men on a large range of characteristics such as physlogil and behavral tras cludg speech characteristics (Balthazart, 2017; Ehrhardt & Meyer-Bahlburg, 1981).
Several studi have th tted whether the 2D:4D rat (relative length of the send and fourth digs), a proxy of ttosterone prenatal exposure differs between homosexual and heterosexual men (Balthazart, 2017; Ehrhardt & Meyer-Bahlburg, 1981). However, there is currently no nsens regardg whether the 2D:4D rat differs between heterosexual and homosexual men as studi have yield mixed rults (Breedlove, 2017; Grimbos, Dawood, Burriss, Zucker, & Puts, 2010; Rahman & Wilson, 2003; Robson, 2000; Skorska & Bogaert, 2017; Williams et al., 2000).
THE PREVALENCE OF LISPG GAY MEN
Regardg social mechanisms, a social imatn of women’s speech peculiari by homosexual men uld also expla the differenc observed between homosexual and heterosexual men’s speech characteristics (at least for F0-SD and HNR). The e of more feme atic characteristics by homosexual men uld reflect a selective adoptn mol of oppose-sex speech patterns or a selective e of atic featur for signalg -group inty (Pierrehumbert et al., 2004), an abily lled “gaydar” (i. Bee some homosexual men display a greater gree of genr nonnformg behavr (GNC) than others durg childhood (Bailey & Zucker, 1995), one uld th hypothize that the former would be more likely to have a more feme speech adulthood than the latter.
Further work should vtigate the relative importance of the mechanisms unrlyg homosexual men’s nclu, although our study did not aim to tt specific hypoth agast a formal theoretil amework to unrstand the differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men’s speech, provis some new scriptive fdgs.
Further studi are need to tt whether tonatn and vol breaths are perceptually salient to distguish homosexual and heterosexual men, and whether overall differenc are due to blogil and/or soclguistic reasons. Universy of Illois at Urbana-Champaign Amic Uns Ethnography of the Universy Iniative Diversy on Camp/Equy and Accs Rearchg Gay Speech Patterns at the Universy of Illois. TleRearchg Gay Speech Patterns at the Universy of IlloisAuthor(s)Rch, JalynIssue Date2011-08Keyword(s)HomosexualSpeechLguistic PatternsGayAbstractThis rearch project seeks to answer the followg major qutns: are there homosexual lguistic patterns typil to gay men, at least on the Universy of Illois mp?