MUMBLING IS Macho: PHONETIC DISTINCTIVENESS IN THE SPEECH OF AMERICAN RADIO Djs

Abstract

Phonetic studies of phonological contrasts in features such as vowel height and consonant voicing have revealed a gender difference: phonetic correlates of phonological contrasts produced by women tend to be more distinct in acoustic and temporal space than those produced by men. However, these studies have been constrained by their dichotomous approach to gender. This article examines withinsex variation in phonetic correlates of phonological contrasts among eight American male radio disc jockeys. four variables were examined: vowel space dispersion, consonant lenition, and two types of vowel length contrast. The social characteristics of the DJs were enumerated by having listeners rate each voice on 10 Likert scales. These ratings were aggregated into four components, which were interpreted as masculinity (i.e., gender), social class, regional accent, and personality. Two of these, masculinity and regional accent, showed significant correlations with the phonetic variables, demonstrating that phonetic distinctiveness correlates with speakers' social characteristics. a growing area of phonetic research is the production and perception of clear speech. Most of the research had focused on phonetic correlates of clear speech, such as the amount of overlap of voice onset time distributions (Chen 1980). However, studies such as Bradlow, Torretta, and Pisoni (1996) also looked at the sex of the talker and found that listeners transcribed speech spoken by female talkers significantly more accurately than the speech spoken by male talkers. Phonetic analysis determined that the female talkers spoke with more dispersed vowels and more precise articulation of consonants (i.e., less assimilation and lenition). These results mirror the general findings of studies on gender differences in articulation. These studies, several of which are reviewed below, find that women tend to produce acoustic and temporal phonetic correlates of phonological contrasts more distinctly than men. 1

Investigating the relationship between average speaker fundamental frequency and acoustic vowel space size

“…It has been suggested that clearer female speech may be a consequence of females often being the primary care-givers and most important initial source of language input for a child (Labov, 1990). In addition, Heffernan (2010) found in his analysis of several parameters of phonetic distinctiveness (such as vowel space dispersion and vowel length contrast) in American male radio disk jockeys a significant correlation between phonetic distinctiveness and perceived masculinity, leading the author to conclude that "mumbling is macho. "…”

Gender identity is indexed and perceived in speech

“…The association of certain spectral cues in speech and perceived masculinity has been found before [39–43,73–75]. Lower fundamental frequency and lower formant values resulting in smaller vowel spaces have been found to correlate with perceived masculinity and thereby increased attractiveness in male voices (e.g.…”

“…Lower fundamental frequency and lower formant values resulting in smaller vowel spaces have been found to correlate with perceived masculinity and thereby increased attractiveness in male voices (e.g. [43,75]). As stated before, differences between languages exist regarding the salience of a particular acoustic cue (e.g.…”

“…In other words, is there a strong relationship between self-rated and perceived gender identity? Studies dealing with perceived gender identity concentrate on the construct of sounding masculine (or macho) [39–43]. Several parameters have been found to be relevant for the perception of more or less masculinity in voices.…”

A regression approach to vowel normalization for missing and unbalanced data

“…Foreigner-and infant-directed speech has also been shown to sometimes show formant space area expansion (Uther et al, 2007). There also appears to be a relationship between vowel-space dispersion and the perception of indexical characteristics related to speaker gender and sexual orientation (Heffernan, 2010;Munson, 2007). Finally, it has been suggested that some aspects of apparent non-uniform scaling in formant averages between male and female speakers may be due to the fact that in some sociocultural contexts, female speakers may tend to produce "clearer," more dispersed speech (Goldstein, 1980;Diehl et al, 1996).…”