Gay male speech
The gay lisp is a stereotypical manner of speech associated with English-speaking gay men, involving sibilant consonants and sometimes other verbal features.[1][2]
These attributes have proven difficult to define and quantify but seem somewhat independent of other variables in the phonology of the English language, such as accent and register. While not all gay males speak with the "gay lisp,"[3] perhaps fewer than half according to University of Toronto professor Henry Rogers,[4] other studies have found when people listened to audio recordings of male speakers and were asked to identify their sexual orientation, their guesses were accurate at rates greater than chance.[5] Two studies did find that a subset of gay men phonate /s/ distinctively; however, the way in which /s/ was pronounced—with a high peak frequency and a highly negatively skewed spectrum—made it more distinct from other similar sounds, rather than less. That is, this was arguably a hypercorrect /s/.[6][7]
Characteristics
Several speech features are stereotyped as markers of gay males: carefully enunciated pronunciation, wide pitch range (high and rapidly changing pitch,) breathy tone, lengthened fricative sounds, and pronunciation of /t/ as /ts/ and /d/ as /dz/ (affrication), etc.[1] The "gay sound" of some gay men seems to some listeners to involve the characteristic pronunciation of sibilants (/s/, /z/, /ʃ/), sometimes colloquially termed a "lisp", with noticeable assibilation, sibilation, hissing, or stridency.[1]
Henry Rogers and colleague Ron Smyth investigated the phenomenon of English speakers often being able to identify gay speech patterns, of which they seemed to have identified a number of phonetic characteristics; in 62% of Rogers and Smyth's cases, listeners correctly identified gay speakers.[4] A study at Stanford University involving a small sample group investigated claims that people can identify gay males by their speech and that these listeners use pitch range and fluctuation in deciding.[8] Results were inconclusive, finding that listeners could distinguish gay from straight speech differences without narrowing down any "convincing empirical differences in pitch" between the two, which is representative of similar studies as well.[9]
In a similar study of female speakers, it was found that listeners could not tell lesbian speakers from heterosexual speakers. Other studies of lesbian identity do make references to voice use by lesbians typically using lower pitch and more direct communication styles.[10]
See also
References
- ^ a b c Bowen, Caroline (2002). "Beyond Lisping: Code Switching and Gay Speech Styles". Archived from the original on October 27, 2010. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ McKinstry, Oliver (March 1, 2002). "Queering Multiculturalism". The Mac Weekly. Macalester College. Archived from the original on September 22, 2006. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
- ^ Munson, B., & Zimmerman, L.J. (2006b). Perceptual Bias and the Myth of the 'Gay Lisp'
- ^ a b Rynor, Micah (February 18, 2002). "Researchers examine patterns in gay speech". News@UofT. University of Toronto. Archived from the original on November 1, 2007. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
- ^ Gaudio, Rudolph (1994) "Sounding Gay: Pitch Properties in the Speech of Gay and Straight Men." American Speech 69: 30-57. Poster Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Miami, FL.
- ^ Linville, S. (1998). Acoustic correlates of perceived versus actual sexual orientation in men's speech. Pholia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 50, 35-48.
- ^ Munson, B., McDonald, E.C., & DeBoe, N.L., & White, A.R. (2006). The acoustic and perceptual bases of judgments of women and men's sexual orientation from read speech. Journal of Phonetics.
- ^ Gaudio, Rudolph (1994) "Sounding Gay: Pitch Properties in the Speech of Gay and Straight Men." American Speech 69: 30-57.
- ^ "Gayspeak". glbtq: an encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, & queer culture. glbtq, inc. 2004. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
- ^ Atkins, Dawn (1998) "Looking Queer: Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities"
Further reading
- Crocker, L., & Munson, B. (2006). Speech Characteristics of Gender-Nonconforming Boys. Oral Presentation given at the Conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in Language, Columbus, OH.
- Mack, S., & Munson, B. (2008). Implicit Processing, Social Stereotypes, and the 'Gay Lisp'. Oral presentation given at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago, IL.
- Munson, B., & Zimmerman, L.J. (2006a). The Perception of Sexual Orientation, Masculinity, and Femininity in Formant-Resynthesized Speech. Oral Presentation given at the Conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in Language, Columbus, OH.
External links
- Encyclopedia article on "gay speak"
- Economist article on sounding gay
- Beyond Lisping: Code Switching and Gay Speech Styles
- Male voices and perceived sexual orientation: An experimental and theoretical approach
