Are Love Songs Lyrically Gendered? a Content Analysis of Gender
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Are Love Songs Lyrically Gendered? A Content Analysis of Gender-Specific Speech Features in Song Lyrics Jeanne Gallée Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Prerequisite for Honors in Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences April 2016 © 2016 Jeanne Gallée Table of Contents Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………………………..3 Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….. 4 Chapter One………………………………………………………………………………... 5 1.1 Linguistic Variants……………………………………………………………... 5 1.2 Performance of Speech…………………………………………………............ 10 1.3 Gender Differences…………………………………………………………….. 13 1.4 Power…………………………………………………………………………... 16 1.5 Time……………………………………………………………………............. 20 1.6 Lyrics as Speech……………………………………………………….............. 21 1.7 The Cognitive and Behavioral Implications of Lyrics…………………............. 22 1.8 Love Songs in Country, Pop, and Rock and Roll………………………............ 23 1.9 Gender and Genre………………………………………………………............ 25 1.10 Motivation…………………………………………………………………….. 28 Chapter Two………………………………………………………………………………... 30 Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 30 Method……………………………………………………………………………... 35 Results……………………………………………………………………………… 38 Discussion………………………………………………………………….............. 48 References………………………………………………………………………….............. 58 Appendix A………………………………………………………………………………… 65 Appendix B………………………………………………………………………………… 74 2 Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank my major and thesis advisor, Professor Andrea Levitt, for supporting me through this process since early June of last summer. I can’t imagine where I would be without her wonderful guidance and mentorship. I would also like to thank my thesis committee members, Professors Margery Lucas, Angela Carpenter, and Tracy Gleason, for their guidance. I am also grateful to all my friends and chosen family, of which there are far too many to name, who gave me unconditional love through all of the trials and tribulations of that this process entails. Finally, I’d like to extend the largest thank you of them all to my parents, Caroline Gallée and Frank Peschel-Gallée. From rush hour carpooling to gourmet vegan meals under the stars to wiping my tears over broken bones and failures, you have been there for me when I needed you most, and when I didn’t. Wie man so schön sagt, zuhause ist wo die Liebe wohnt, und das ist immer mit euch. 3 Abstract Do gender-specific conversational speech patterns appear in the lyrics of male and female artists? To answer this question, chapter 1 first reviews sociolinguistic methods and describes evidence for gender-specific speech characteristics as well as for some of the differences in power dynamics between men and women that the use of these characteristics reveals. It then discusses the similarity of lyrics and speech, reviews some of the current literature on the effects of music on behavior, and provides a motivation for the study that is described in chapter 2. This study looks at the lyrics of 179 romantic songs sung by male and female artists from three genres (country, pop, and rock) across three time periods (1958-1960, 1985-1987, and 2012-2014). As is done in content-analysis studies, each song was evaluated for its number of words, filler words, self-referential pronouns (“I” and “me”), inclusive pronouns (“you and I” and “we”), terms of endearment, love references, and sexual references. Narrative coding techniques were used to evaluate songs for evidence of speaker confidence or agency, and for requests. Results demonstrated primarily several significant changes over time, but few significant differences due to gender. It may be necessary to have face-to-face interactions in order for these gender-specific speech characteristics to emerge and the songs do not provide such a context. Alternatively, it may be that the lyrics of successful songs by female artists are not representative of everyday women’s speech. 4 CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1.1 Linguistic Variants Human language can be characterized as an “inherently social phenomenon” in that it is used to transfer information from one speaker to another (Newman, Groom, Handelman & Pennebaker, 2008; Hymes, 1974; Malinowski, 1923; Van Herk, 2012). While it has many uses, one of the key things that we do when we speak is communicate various aspects of ourselves to others. With the use of language, we are able to articulate our internal narratives, which no one else is privy to. Private thoughts, ideas, relative social standing, and relationships are conveyed through the words that we choose (Tannen, 1998). Furthermore, the words we choose do not solely act as a vehicle of communication. Our speech patterns in discourse reveal our conscious and unconscious efforts to portray ourselves as members of particular groups (Newman et al., 2008). Discourse analysis of conversation allows us to identify the linguistic regularities in these interactions among members of particular groups, and what sets the patterns of speech particular to one group apart from those of the next. The study of speech differences is founded on the theory that the features that differentiate one person’s speech from another’s occur systematically and are socially significant (Kristiansen, 2001; Labov, 1964; Labov, 1972). Speech differences are found at the intergroup and individual level. A speech pattern specific to a group is categorized as a dialect, also known as a variety of speech, whereas a speech pattern unique to an individual is an idiolect (Carden, 1970). Idiolects are shaped by the environments that we grow up in and are observed in the accents, patterns of intonation, grammar, and the vocabulary that we use. 5 Linguistic variation refers to the differences in speech among speakers. Free variation in speech means that the units used by the speaker are arbitrarily chosen: the choice of using one over the other is not significant. For this reason, speech features used in free variation do not reveal much about the speaker. Conversely, speech features that systematically vary across groups of people, also known as linguistic variants, are socially diagnostic of a person’s group membership and are therefore meaningful (Kristiansen, 2001). Differences in use of language help place speakers into social categories (Kristiansen, 2001; Tajfel, 1976). In other words, linguistic variants are signs of social identity and are stereotypical of a group (Labov, 1964; Agha, 2003). The process by which a linguistic feature becomes a socially recognized register for a particular group is called enregisterment (Agha, 2003; Van Herk, 2012). People who speak similarly to one another are typically from the same speech community. Speech community is the term used to describe a group of people who come into habitual contact with one another and thereby share the same linguistic variants and expectations about language use norms (Van Herk, 2012). A common example of a speech community is the people who all live in one city. While the members of a speech community come into frequent contact with other members of the group, a speech community is not formed by choice or a shared enterprise; a group of people who share a set of sociolinguistic norms and jargon because of a shared endeavor make up a community of practice. A person can be a member of a speech community as well as communities of practice, and engage in many social networks at the same time based on his or her place of origin, profession, family structure, and social interests. Speech communities are formed by people who live in the same place, whereas members of a community of practice can be dispersed all over the world; this is especially true with the rise of technology and alternative modes of communication, such as online social media platforms. 6 However, geographical location remains one of the most salient social variables when it comes to studying language variation, particularly across regions. When a group of people is geographically isolated due to topographical features, such as mountains or oceans, their distinct way of speaking becomes specific to the region. This is because the community and its language variety rarely come into contact with others. This phenomenon is also known as speech preservation. In contrast, language change occurs when speakers migrate to new places or come into linguistic or dialectal contact with other speakers. Extended contact of multiple language varieties, and the varieties’ speakers, can lead to a new, distinct variety that is based on the shared sociolinguistic norms of the new community. This process is called dialect leveling (Van Herk, 2012). Additionally, language changes when new concepts are introduced into speakers’ lives. For example, when a new type of technology is invented, new names are needed for the device itself and its functions. People adjust the linguistic variants they use to match their speech style to a speech situation. This process is called style shifting (Van Herk, 2012). However, people can only adjust the variants that they consciously use. The extent to which a speaker is aware of the sociolinguistic features he or she uses depends on the feature’s type. Indicators are a type of linguistic variant that are outside of a speaker’s conscious control. An example of an indicator is whether or not a speaker differentiates between the allophones of a particular phoneme. A phoneme is a distinct speech sound, such as /s/, and replacing one phoneme with another changes the meaning of the word it was in (Ladefoged, 2001). An example of how this type of a replacement