Phonetics and Phonology Commons^™

Cross-Linguistic Queerness: A Phonetic Study Of How Bilingual Mandarin-English Speakers Index A Sapphic Identity, Malena L. Sparano

Scripps Senior Theses

The comparative lack of research about Queer identities among speakers of other languages limits cross-linguistic and cross-cultural understanding of Queerness within an increasingly globalized community (Cameron and Kulick, 2003). Moreover, the focus on Monolingual, Western, men’s repertoires excludes important nuances that shape identities falling outside the heteropatriarchy, significantly neglecting Sapphic people and Lesbians (Leap, 2008). Sapphic identity helps broaden the scope of traditionally very gendered labeling, stemming from Zita’s (1981) definition as a person identifying as a woman/non-man and experiencing attraction to women or non-men. Bilingual research is key in understanding the specific roles of multivariable cultural and phonetic analysis …

Speech Beyond The Binary: Some Acoustic-Phonetic And Auditory-Perceptual Characteristics Of Non-Binary Speakers, Brandon Merritt

Departmental Papers (Speech)

Speech acoustics research typically assumes speakers are men or women with speech characteristics associated with these two gender categories. Less work has assessed acoustic-phonetic characteristics of non-binary speakers. This study examined acoustic-phonetic features across adult cisgender (15 men and 15 women) and subgroups of transgender (15 nonbinary, 7 transgender men, and 7 transgender women) speakers and relations among these features and perceptual ratings of gender identity and masculinity/femininity. Differing acoustic-phonetic features were predictive of confidence in speaker gender and masculinity/femininity across cisgender and transgender speakers. Non-binary speakers were perceptually rated within an intermediate range of cisgender women and all other …

Phonetic Contrast In New York Hasidic Yiddish Vowels: Language Contact, Variation, And Change, Chaya R. Nove

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study analyzes the acoustic correlates of the length contrast in New York Hasidic Yiddish (HY) peripheral vowels /i/, /u/, and /a/, and compares them across four generations of native speakers for evidence of change over time. HY vowel tokens are also compared to English vowels produced by the New York-born speakers to investigate the influence of language contact on observed changes. Additionally, the degree to which individual speakers orient towards or away from the Hasidic community is quantified via an ethnographically informed survey to examine its correlation with /u/-fronting, a sound change that is widespread in the non-Hasidic English-speaking …

Gay Male Speech And Dialects In Motion: Constructing Linguistic Identity In Southern New Hampshire, Hayden P. Stinson

Honors Theses and Capstones

The study of gay male speech has largely focused on fundamental frequency and various quantifiable aspects of /s/ (Campbell-Kibler 2012, Mack and Munson 2012, Munson 2007, Zimman 2013). In a study of the speech of three gay men from California, however, Podesva (2011) concludes that gay men may utilize salient aspects of regional dialects to express their gayness. The stylistic correlation between gayness and certain regional dialects supports Eckert’s (2008) argument that linguistic styles are centered around ideologies, rather than rigid categorical identities and Podesva (2011) urges that this phenomenon be studied further. Southern New Hampshire provides an ideal landscape …

Anglo And Hispanic Vowel Variation In New Mexican English, Susan Brumbaugh

Linguistics ETDs

This study examines vowel formant differences between English speakers in New Mexico that self-identify as Anglo versus those that self-identify as Hispanic. Audio recordings were made of 16 New Mexicans reading short stories and carrier phases with embedded target words. F1 and F2 measurements were compared at the 50% point for monophthongs and at the 20% and 80% points for diphthongs. Mixed effects models assessed statistical significance of ethnicity, gender, and interactional effects on vowel formants and trajectory length.

All speakers showed a near-complete overlap of BOT and BOUGHT tokens, supporting a merger. Hispanic men and women patterned together to …