DOCSLIB.ORG

Does the Gay Accent Exist?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Does the Gay Accent Exist? Does the gay accent exist? An acoustic comparison between homosexual and heterosexual Dutch male millennials Quincy Liem 11050330 under the supervision of Dr. Silke Hamann A thesis submitted for the degree of BA in Linguistics June, 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT. .................................................................................................................................................... 2 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 2 DATA COLLECTION ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Participants ....................................................................................................................................................... 4 Procedure .......................................................................................................................................................... 5 DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................................. 5 Data cleanup ..................................................................................................................................................... 5 /s/ spectral peak frequency ............................................................................................................................... 6 Pitch and intonation .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Speech tempo .................................................................................................................................................... 8 Statistical analysis ............................................................................................................................................. 8 RESULTS ........................................................................................................................................................ 8 /s/ spectral peak frequency ............................................................................................................................... 9 Pitch and intonation .......................................................................................................................................... 9 Speech tempo .................................................................................................................................................. 10 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................ 10 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................. 12 APPENDIX A. Abstract in Dutch .................................................................................................................... 15 ABSTRACT. ................................................................................................................................................... 15 APPENDIX B. Participants ............................................................................................................................. 16 APPENDIX C. Noise filter script ..................................................................................................................... 17 APPENDIX D. SKewness and center of gravity script ...................................................................................... 21 APPENDIX E. Pitch script ............................................................................................................................... 23 APPENDIX F. Speech tempo script ................................................................................................................ 24 APPENDIX G. Statistical analyses .................................................................................................................. 28 1 Does the gay accent exist? An acoustic comparison between homosexual and heterosexual Dutch male millennials Liem, Q.C., supervised by Hamann, S. ABSTRACT. In response to a perception-based approach employed in previous studies for English speaking gay men, a production-based experiment was conducted, focusing on Dutch gay men. Two groups were compared: Dutch heterosexual and Dutch homosexual men. Natural speech data elicited through informal sociolinguistic interviews were acoustically analyzed in Praat. No evidence was found to conclude that Dutch gay men's speech is distinctive from heterosexual men's speech based on the acoustic features which were compared in this study: skewness of the spectrum and center of gravity of the spectral peak frequency of the fricative /s/, mean pitch, pitch range, intonation (pitch variability over time), speech rate, and articulation rate.1 INTRODUCTION which has been reiterated by many researchers, is that gay men sound effeminate or that gay The 'gay accent' – does it really exist? Even speech is characterized by being imitative of those without a self-proclaimed gaydar often female speech (Travis, 1981; Gaudio, 1994; claim to be able to judge whether someone is Munson, DeBoe & White, 2006). But what does gay just by hearing the speaker's voice. The this mean? What are the key distinctive widespread cultural stereotype depicts an features for gay and/or feminine speech? effeminate voice which includes a high pitch, lisping, over the top intonation, and drawn out For example, women's voices have a pitch on vowels as salient markers of homosexuality in average 100-150 Hz higher than male voices men. But is this accent indeed just a stereotype (Smyth, Jacobs & Rogers, 2003; Morrison & or is there actually something tangible about Rogers, 2000), and Lakoff (1990:204) mentions the way that gay men speak that sets them women's more varied intonational contours. But apart from their straight peers? contrary to the stereotype, Munson & Zimmerman (2006) and Munson & Babel (2007) A sizeable body of research has gone into did not find evidence that gay male speech identifying and describing the key mimics female speech. They found no overall characteristics of this particular manner of differences in mean pitch between heterosexual speaking in English. The prevailing stereotype, and homosexual men. More extensive 1 The Dutch version of this Abstract can be found in Appendix A. 2 Heterosexual Homosexual Fig. 1. Spectrograms of the fricative /s/. The spectrogram of a self-identified homosexual man (right) has a more negative skewness (skewness = −1.67) than the spectrogram of a self- identified heterosexual man (skewness = −0.03). (Munson, DeBoe & White, 2006: 215) investigations regarding pitch and sexual more negative skew in the sibilant spectrum orientation were done by Gaudio (1994), and (Fig. 1). Linville et al. (1989), Rogers & Smyth Smyth, Jacobs & Rogers (2003). They found no (2003), Munson, Jefferson & McDonald (2006), evidence for a perceptual correlation between and Munson, DeBoe & White (2006) sexual orientation and pitch range or pitch corroborate the finding that an /s/ produced variability. In contrast, Levon's (2007) with a higher peak frequency and thus a more empirical research showed that listeners were negatively skewed /s/ is perceived as gayer- more likely to judge recorded speech stimuli, sounding. This distinctive /s/ appears to be a which were digitally manipulated to feature a hyper-articulated /s/, according to Maniwa, wider pitch range, as sounding gay. However, he Jongman & Wade (2009) and Munson & concedes that the findings are highly contingent Zimmerman (2006). and dependent on sociolinguistic factors. Similar results have been found in Danish. In a Panfili (2011) examined the relationship perception-based matched guise experiment between vowel duration and perceived sexual conducted by Pharao, Maegaard, Møller & orientation by letting listeners judge a pre- Kristiansen (2014), listeners were asked to rate recorded passage. This, however, did not yield Danish speech samples from two different social a solid correlation. registers into which either an alveolar /s/ or a fronted /s/ were spliced on scales of To investigate the stereotype of the 'gay lisp', homosexuality and femininity. The results Mack & Munson (2010) analyzed listeners' showed that for the modern Copenhagen speech perceptive associations of phonetic variations of register, listeners rated the speech samples the fricative /s/ in English with perceived containing a fronted /s/ higher on both the sexual orientation. They found that a sharper homosexuality and femininity scales compared /s/ that was articulated more frontally in the to the alveolar /s/. Interestingly, the fronted mouth was perceived as 'gayer-sounding'. This and alveolar /s/ did not receive any particular realization of the /s/ is realized significantly different ratings when they acoustically as a sibilant with an especially high occurred in the street language register. As the spectral peak frequency, which corresponds to a 3 fronted /s/ has been found to be indexical of In short, by comparing a random group of homosexuality in both English and in Danish Dutch homosexual men to a random group of based on perception, could we expect similar Dutch heterosexual men, can we objectively find findings in
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Speech Stereotypes of Female Sexuality by Auburn Lupine Barron
    Speech Stereotypes of Female Sexuality by Auburn Lupine Barron-Lutzross A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Keith Johnson, Co-Chair Professor Susan Lin, Co-Chair Professor Justin Davidson Professor Mel Chen Spring 2018 © Copyright 2018 Auburn Lupine Barron-Lutzross All rights reserved Abstract Speech Stereotypes of Female Sexuality by Auburn Lupine Barron-Lutzross Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Professor Keith Johnson, Co-Chair Professor Susan Lin, Co-Chair At its core, my dissertation addresses one primary question: What does it mean to sound like a lesbian? On the surface, this may seem a relatively simple question, but my work takes a broad perspective, approaching this single question from a multitude of perspectives. To do so I carried out a combination of experiments, interpreting the results through the Attention Weighted Schema Abstraction model that I developed. Following the introduction Chapter 2 lays out the AWSA model in the context of previous literature on stereotype conception and speech and sexuality. Chapter 3 presents the production experiment, which recorded speakers reading a series of single words and sentences and interviews discussing stereotypes of sexuality. Phonetic analysis showed that though speech did not vary categorically by sexual orientation, familiarity with Queer culture played a significant role in variation of speech rate and mean pitch. This pattern was only seen for straight and bisexual speakers, suggesting that lesbian stereotypes are used to present an affinity with Queer culture, which was further supported by the decrease or loss of their significance in interview speech.
    [Show full text]
  • Friday Morning, 11 May 2018 Greenway J, 8:00 A.M
    FRIDAY MORNING, 11 MAY 2018 GREENWAY J, 8:00 A.M. TO 10:30 A.M. Session 5aPA Physical Acoustics: General Topics in Physical Acoustics II Sam Wallen, Chair The University of Texas at Austin Contributed Papers 8:00 that Berea Sandstone has significant hysteretic behavior under temperature cycling. It was also revealed that the qualitative elastic behavior of Berea 5aPA1. Generation of ultrasonic waves in vegetable tissue via non- Sandstone is unchanged with increasing relaxation time from the thermal David A. Collazos-Burbano (Ctr. for Bioinformatics ablative laser pulses. shock induced by rapid cooling of the sample. and Photonics (CIBioFi), Universidad del Valle, calle 13 No. 100-00, Univalle, 351, of 2009, Cali, Valle del Cauca 760032, Colombia, david. 8:30 [email protected]), Carlos A. Melo-Luna (Quantum Technol- ogies, Information and Complexity Group (QuanTIC), Universidad del 5aPA3. Elastic constants of self-healing polyethylene co-methacrylic Valle, Cali, Valle del cauca, Colombia), Joao L. Ealo (Vibrations and acid determined via resonant ultrasound spectroscopy. Kenneth A. Acoust. Lab. (LaVA), Mech. Eng. School, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Pestka II, Jacob W. Hull, Jonathan D. Buckley (Chemistry and Phys., Long- Colombia), and John H. Reina (Quantum Technologies, Information and wood Univ., 201 High St., Farmville, VA 23909, [email protected]), Complexity Group (QuanTIC), Universidad del Valle, Cali, Valle del and Stephen J. Kalista (The Dept. of Biomedical Eng., Rensselaer Polytech- Cauca, Colombia) nic Inst., Troy, NY) The study of vegetable tissue is essential in plant growth analysis. The Self-healing polyethylene co-methacrylic acid (EMAA) is a thermoplas- elasticity is an important characteristic when firmness is studied in fruits or tic material that can be shaped into structures that are capable of autono- when turgidity is tested in plant leaves.
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Socioindexical Expectation in the Perception of Gay Male Speech
    THE ROLE OF SOCIOINDEXICAL EXPECTATION IN THE PERCEPTION OF GAY MALE SPEECH Dominique A. Bouavichith University of Michigan [email protected] ABSTRACT are grounded within exemplar frameworks, in which listeners use socially-coded exemplars to make During speech perception, listeners adjust predictions about upcoming speech. expectations when given social information about a In an experiment by Strand & Johnson [25], for speaker; this effect has been demonstrated using example, listeners heard gender-ambiguous tokens on many socially indexed phonetic cues. Previous a continuum from ‘shod’ to ‘sod’ while looking at sociophonetic studies have identified lengthened /s/ either a male or female face. Overall, seeing a female as one acoustic correlate of gay(-sounding) speech. face elicited more ‘shod’ responses, and seeing a male This eye-tracking study examines a) how face elicited more ‘sod’ responses. This reflects the information about a speaker’s social identity affects difference in /ʃ-s/ category boundaries between men listeners’ time course of lexical activation and b) how and women in production and shows that listeners are listener experience mediates this process. Participants able to use social information (in this case, presented completed a categorization task of /s/-lengthened visually) to aid in speech perception. /CVs/-/CVsC/ minimal pairs in two blocks: the first Some of these studies consider the perception of presented no information about speaker sexuality; the speech over the time course of one word or one second introduced auditory social primes indexing segment [5, 27, 15], which allows for fine-grained the speaker as gay. measures of processing that can test listeners’ Effects of social expectation were found as a response to sociolinguistic information as it is given function of listeners’ experience with gay speech.
    [Show full text]
  • Šablona -- Diplomová Práce
    Gender Minority and Its Sociolect Markéta Doleželová Bachelor Thesis 2016 ABSTRAKT Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá jazykem leseb, gayů, bisexuálů a transsexuálů. Práce zkoumá jazyk LGBT minorit v rámci genderu a sexuality. Značná část této práce je věnovaná homosexuálním identitám a jejich jazykové praxi. Účelem této práce je rozhodnout zda je terminologie gayů četně užívána v jejich psaní, a zda, a jak se sexuální orientace odráží ve zvoleném korpusu. Klíčová slova: gender, sexualita, jazyk homosexuálů, označování, neverbální jazyk ABSTRACT This bachelor’s thesis deals with a language of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual individuals. The work examines the language of LGBT minorities with regard to gender and sexuality. An extensive part of this thesis is devoted to homosexual social identities and their linguistic practice. The purpose of this work is to determine if the gay terminology is frequently used in gay writing, and whether and how is the sexual orientation reflected in the selected corpus. Keywords: gender, sexuality, language of homosexuals, labeling, non-verbal language CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 9 I THEORY ..................................................................................................................... 10 1 LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY............................................................................... 11 2 THEORY OF GENDER, SEX AND SEXUALITY IN RELATION TO LANGUAGE ..................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Aspects of Gender Socialization As Expressed Through Language
    IPRPD International Journal of Arts, Humanities & Social Science ISSN 2693-2547 (Print), 2693-2555 (Online) Volume 02; Issue no 07: July 10, 2021 ASPECTS OF GENDER SOCIALIZATION AS EXPRESSED THROUGH LANGUAGE Owen G. Mordaunt 1, Juan Carillo 2, Matthew McGuire3 1 2 3 Department of English, University of Nebraska, USA Abstract Gender socialization tied to language is something in which researchers have been interested in recent years. Language and gender are now viewed not just something we have but something we do. Language attitudes, of course, factor into the concept of language and gender. Differences between male and female voices are attached to masculinity and femininity, and power seems to be attached to the male voice. Somehow, homosexual speech and dialect seem to be considered other than masculine. But much of gay speech stems from being socialized to use gendered speech. Connected to gay speech is camp language, which is related to exaggerated queer behavior. Presentation in terms of dress and behavior of lesbians and gays are also viewed as identity markers. Additionally, the existence of non-heterosexual speech as marked forms is internationally pervasive. Keywords: Heteronormativity, Manner of speech, Camp language, Gay dialect, Linguistic styles Introduction The age of acquisition represents a time when children begin to comprehend language. In the early years, many children learn to communicate with their parents and quickly begin figuring out that some words and tones of voice are reserved for members of a particular sex. Gender socialization is closely tied to language and, in recent years, researchers have found that gender identities have been tied to sexual identities (Meyerhoff 243).
    [Show full text]
  • “It's a Girl!” Bringing Performativity Back to Linguistics
    "T 1 t's a Girl!" Bringing Perfarmativity Back to Linguistics ANNA LIVIA AND KIRA HALL We began collecting articles tOr this volume in ~larch 1994 while preparations for the third Berkeley \.Vomen and Language Conference (BVVLC) were at their height. In our own papers for the 1994 conference, we were each grappling with recent developments in queer theory and its uneasy, often antagonistic, relation to feminist theory. So, as it turned out, were s~veral of the other conference partici­ pants that year. During the two previous decades, although a substantial body of research had been carried out on language and gender, few of these studies had taken sexuality, or sexual orientation, as a criterion for analysis, and the vast ma­ jority assumed gender as an unproblematic category indexically linked to the sex of the speaker or writer. The small amount of research carried out on language and sexual orientation in the 1960s and 1970s tended to concentrate on the lexical level. During this pe­ riod, a number of gay glossaries and lexicons \Vere compiled, including Cory and LeRoy, ~A Lexicon of Homosexual Slang" (1963), Strait and Associates, The Lavender lexi,on: Dictionary cfGay Wonh and Phrase; (1964), Rodgers, The Queem' Vern.acular (1972), and Farrel, "The Argot of the Homosexual Subculture" (1972). Although most of these works spotlighted white gay male speech in the United States, a few, like Giallombardo's Society of Women: A Study of a WomanS Pri;on (1966), presented the language of lesbians, while others included terms from lan­ guages other than English, such as the tongue-in-check "Gay Girl's Guide to the ~It's a Girl.I" 4 INTRODUCTION ' U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Socially Stratified Phonetic Variation and Perceived Identity in Puerto Rican Spanish
    Socially stratified phonetic variation and perceived identity in Puerto Rican Spanish A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Sara Lynn Mack IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Timothy Face and Benjamin Munson, Advisers August 2009 © Sara L. Mack, August 2009 Acknowledgments I am very grateful to the University of Minnesota Office of International Programs, which funded this dissertation through a Doctoral Fellowship for International Research and Writing. I am also grateful to the University of Minnesota Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies for additional monetary support. I owe a debt of gratitude to my teachers at the Norwalk and Brookwood schools, especially Lillian Rumpe, Lester Mull, Robert Bradley, Robert Keller, Janet Amenda Brueggeman, and the late Deborah Dannhoff and Donna Arendt. I benefited greatly from classes with my teachers at the University of Wisconsin, especially Natalia Francis, John Nitti, Deborah Brandt, and Tim Allen. I am grateful to my advisers at the University of Minnesota, Tim Face and Benjamin Munson, for their support and guidance, as well as committee members Carol Klee and Francisco Ocampo, for their helpful feedback and encouragement. I am especially grateful to Luis Ortiz López; I couldn’t have done the study without his generous help. Thanks also to Patrick-André Mather, Keyla Morales Muñoz, José Alberto Santiago Espinoza, Calib Sael, Héctor Aponte Alequín, Gladys, Alma Simounet, and many others who helped in the data collection process at the Universidad de Puerto Rico – Río Piedras. I would also like to thank Jen Hay, Katie Drager, and attendees of LabPhon XI for comments and feedback on parts of the study.
    [Show full text]
  • Open Schmid Thesis Final.Pdf
    THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS SPECTRUMS: VOCAL PITCH CHARACTERISTICS OF THOSE OUTSIDE THE GENDER BINARY HOPE SCHMID SPRING 2017 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in Linguistics and French with honors in Linguistics Reviewed and approved* by the following: Dr. Evan Bradley Assistant Professor of Psychology Thesis Supervisor Dr. Jean-Marc Authier Professor of French and Linguistics Honors Adviser * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i ABSTRACT Vocal pitch characteristics such as fundamental frequency (F0), minimum and maximum frequencies (pitch range), and vowel formant frequencies are influenced by biological, cultural, and sociological factors. Studies have been conducted to look at the perception of transgender voices as well as the efficacy of voice-therapy on transgender people. However, no studies have been conducted looking at those who do not identify as male or female and who identify instead under the “non-binary” umbrella. This study seeks to identify vocal pitch characteristics and spectral characteristics, such as vowel formants, of those who identify as “non-binary” and to observe any differences in these characteristics when compared to female and male identified people. Participants were recruited from the Penn State Brandywine Campus, Penn State University Park, and the Philadelphia queer community. Twenty-one people participated and were recorded reading the Rainbow Passage. Their voice recordings were analyzed using PRAAT for average fundamental frequency (F0), average minimum frequency, average maximum frequency and vowel formants for vowels /i/, /a/, and /u/. Results from the study show there is a main effect of gender on pitch.
    [Show full text]
  • Tackling Homophobic Language Stonewall [email protected] Charity No 1101255
    EDUCATION GUIDES Tackling homophobic language Stonewall [email protected] www.stonewall.org.uk/atschool Charity No 1101255 By Hannah Kibirige and Luke Tryl Designed by Lucy Ward Tackling homophobic language Supported by The Monument EDUCATION GUIDES Trust Foreword Sadly, even in the second decade of the twenty-first century homophobic language remains as prevalent as ever. Ninety nine per cent of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people report hearing the derogatory use of phrases such as ‘that’s so gay’ or ‘you’re so gay’ in school. Unfortunately many of those schools still continue to cling to the old adage: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’. The truth however, as good educators know, is that unchallenged use of ‘gay’ to mean bad or rubbish has a profoundly negative effect on gay young people’s self-esteem. That’s why Stonewall has launched a ground-breaking new campaign to make plain the importance of tackling homophobic language. We’ve produced a series of posters challenging the use of the word gay, alongside this guide for teachers and a partner guide for young people on how they too can challenge homophobic language among their peers. To meet the evident demand for teacher training on this issue, Stonewall will also be holding Train the Trainer seminars across Britain, as part of our School Champions programme. These one day seminars give teachers all the tools that they need to train the rest of the staff in their school to tackle homophobic bullying and language. This guide showcases the ways in which some outstanding schools, local authorities and academy groups are already tackling homophobic language with young people.
    [Show full text]
  • The Stonewall Uprising
    LESSON PLAN The Stonewall Uprising Compelling Question: How does the Stonewall uprising fit into the larger picture of LGBTQ rights? Grade Level Time Common Core Standards K-2 3-5 Reading: R1 45 Writing: W6, W7, W8 Minutes Speaking & Listening: SL1, SL3 Web Related Connections MS HS Language: L5, L6 Lessons LESSON OVERVIEW Social Justice Poetry On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall uprising took place. It began in the early Wedding Cake, Same-Sex morning at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. As was typical during Marriage and Discrimination that time period, police officers entered the bar and arrested employees for Understanding selling alcohol without a liquor license, roughed up customers, cleared the bar Homophobia/Heterosexism and arrested customers for not wearing at least three articles of “gender- and How to Be an Ally appropriate” clothing. While raids like this happened regularly, this time the LGBTQ community (patrons and neighbors) had had enough and engaged in Unheard Voices: Stories of what began as a spontaneous, violent demonstration that spawned additional LGBT History demonstrations over several days. Though LGBTQ rights activism existed prior to 1969, many view Stonewall as the beginning of the organized gay rights Other Resources movement and it is also seen as a symbol of resistance to social and political 10 Ways Youth Can Engage discrimination against the LGBTQ community. in Activism Helping Students Make This lesson provides an opportunity for students to learn more about the Sense of News Stories Stonewall uprising, reflect on LGBTQ rights and activism prior to and after about Bias and Injustice Stonewall, and curate content around important milestones in the history of LGBTQ Pride Month LGBTQ rights.
    [Show full text]
  • Stereotypes of Speech and Sexual Orientation in Puerto Rican Spanish * Sara Mack Hamline University
    Perception and Identity: Stereotypes of Speech and Sexual Orientation in Puerto Rican Spanish * Sara Mack Hamline University 1. Background This paper offers an initial examination of stereotypes of speech and gay1 male sexual orientation in Puerto Rican Spanish. The data presented were gathered as part of a larger project examining the association between sociophonetic variation and perceptions of sexual orientation using both explicit and implicit measures. The results of the first explicit task in the study protocol, the interviews, are reported here.2 There are several reasons why an examination of stereotypes is an important and useful starting point in the study of speech variation and sexual orientation. For one thing, there is a popular culture myth that gay men’s speech is phonetically marked, and that a listener is able to determine a speaker’s sexual orientation just by listening to his voice. This myth is widespread,3 and it is intriguing because of the potential mismatch: while listeners may make evaluations of speakers based on speech stereotypes, these evaluations do not always correspond to speakers’ self-stated sexual orientation. In other words, there are gay men who may be evaluated as stereotypically straight sounding, and straight men who may be evaluated as stereotypically gay sounding. A first step in disentangling stereotypes and real world variation, then, is to determine which variables affect the perception of a speaker as gay or straight and what pattern of phonetic variation indexes gayness in the minds of listeners. Perception studies in English have shown that sibilant characteristics, aspiration of voiceless stops, and vowel characteristics are correlated with listener judgments of speaker sexual orientation (Levon, 2007; Linville, 1998; Munson, McDonald, DeBoe, & White, 2006; Smyth, Jacobs, & Rogers, 2003; inter alia).
    [Show full text]
  • Phonetic Cues in the Evaluation of Gay Male Speech in Canadian English and Québec French
    Phonetic Cues in the Evaluation of Gay Male Speech in Canadian English and Québec French Carol Sisson 110231479 LING 520 Professor Charles Boberg 8 December 2003 1 1.1 Introduction Speech patterns associated with a speaker’s sexual orientation are a fascinating component of sociolinguistics, which has only entered the limelight of study relatively recently. While most people agree that there is a recognizable “gay accent,” there is nothing to suggest that this “accent” is produced by physiological differences. It remains then, that gay speech styles1 are social constructions. The origin of this style is still mysterious. Several gay men I spoke to2 recalled stories of intentionally “putting on a gay accent” when they first came out, to make it very clear to everyone that they were gay. Some said that after a few weeks, they returned to their normal speech while others did not. On the other hand, one individual who sounded particularly gay to me, said that he had always spoken that way and that he and his straight brother are often mistaken for each other. Studying the actual development of gay-sounding speech is far beyond this study, but it is possible to study what factors influence speech popularly judged to be gay. The study of gay speech can be a fragile and complicated task. In talking to people who are actively part of the gay community,3 I learned that some people’s reluctance to participate in research stems from a fear that findings will be used against them in some way, even if that was not the original intention.
    [Show full text]