Gender peculiarities of voice perception and its verbalization in the English detective prose

Abstract

The study is devoted to the gender differences in voice perception and their reflection in the English detective prose. The purpose of the research is to analyze voice gender markers and the means of their verbalization in female and male detective discourse. Basing on our previous research and preliminary obtained results, the leading prosodic characteristics and their combinations were singled out in the female (J. Mc Gown, D. Crombie) and male (B. Black, L. Child) authors. The quantitative analysis of the word usage frequency allows highlighting the salient differences in female and male voice perception: loudness and voice quality are the most significant in the process of voice perception in males; the combinations of the prosodic characteristics and loudness -in females. Playing a leading role for both genders, loudness is proved to be perceived differently as female and male authors demonstrate an opposite-gender bias.The comparative analysis of the female and male vocabulary was carried out. It shows how females and males discriminate the same prosodic characteristic: a verbalized precise voice quality goes first in the reflection of voice quality perception in the male detective discourse, a shaking voice quality -in the female writers; the voice pitch range is more clearly perceived by males, and the tone movement direction -by females; the female authors predominantly verbalize the combination of loudness and voice quality; the combination of melody and loudness is salient for the male writers.Along with gender differences in female and male voice perception, the general features were identified: it is easier to perceive and therefore to nominate two of the prosodic characteristics than three or four, irrespectively of the gender; tempo plays an insignificant role in voice perception for males and females. Male voices are perceived as slow and female voices -as quick by both groups of authors. Overall, female and male authors verbalize voice gender markers that reflect vocal gender stereotypes generally accepted in the English-speaking community.