Expression of gender in the human voice: investigating the “gender code”

We can easily and reliably identify the gender of an unfamiliar interlocutor over the telephone. This is because our voice is “sexually dimorphic”: men typically speak with a lower fundamental frequency (F0 - lower pitch) and lower vocal tract resonances (ΔF – “deeper” timbre) than women. While the biological bases of these differences are well understood, and mostly down to size differences between men and women, very little is known about the extent to which we can play with these differences to accentuate or de-emphasise our perceived gender, masculinity and femininity in a range of social roles and contexts. The general aim of this thesis is to investigate the behavioural basis of gender expression in the human voice in both children and adults. More specifically, I hypothesise that, on top of the biologically determined sexual dimorphism, humans use a “gender code” consisting of vocal gestures (global F0 and ΔF adjustments) aimed at altering the gender attributes conveyed by their voice. In order to test this hypothesis, I first explore how acoustic variation of sexually dimorphic acoustic cues (F0 and ΔF) relates to physiological differences in pre-pubertal speakers (vocal tract length) and adult speakers (body height and salivary testosterone levels), and show that voice gender variation cannot be solely explained by static, biologically determined differences in vocal apparatus and body size of speakers. Subsequently, I show that both children and adult speakers can spontaneously modify their voice gender by lowering (raising) F0 and ΔF to masculinise (feminise) their voice, a key ability for the hypothesised control of voice gender. Finally, I investigate the interplay between voice gender expression and social context in relation to cultural stereotypes. I report that listeners spontaneously integrate stereotypical information in the auditory and visual domain to make stereotypical judgments about children’s gender and that adult actors manipulate their gender expression in line with stereotypical gendered notions of homosexuality. Overall, this corpus of data supports the existence of a “gender code” in human nonverbal vocal communication. This “gender code” provides not only a methodological framework with which to empirically investigate variation in voice gender and its role in expressing gender identity, but also a unifying theoretical structure to understand the origins of such variation from both evolutionary and social perspectives

An exploration of the rhythm of Malay

In recent years there has been a surge of interest in speech rhythm. However we still lack a clear understanding of the nature of rhythm and rhythmic differences across languages. Various metrics have been proposed as means for measuring rhythm on the phonetic level and making typological comparisons between languages (Ramus et al, 1999; Grabe & Low, 2002; Dellwo, 2006) but the debate is ongoing on the extent to which these metrics capture the rhythmic basis of speech (Arvaniti, 2009; Fletcher, in press). Furthermore, cross linguistic studies of rhythm have covered a relatively small number of languages and research on previously unclassified languages is necessary to fully develop the typology of rhythm. This study examines the rhythmic features of Malay, for which, to date, relatively little work has been carried out on aspects rhythm and timing. The material for the analysis comprised 10 sentences produced by 20 speakers of standard Malay (10 males and 10 females). The recordings were first analysed using rhythm metrics proposed by Ramus et. al (1999) and Grabe & Low (2002). These metrics (∆C, %V, rPVI, nPVI) are based on durational measurements of vocalic and consonantal intervals. The results indicated that Malay clustered with other so-called syllable-timed languages like French and Spanish on the basis of all metrics. However, underlying the overall findings for these metrics there was a large degree of variability in values across speakers and sentences, with some speakers having values in the range typical of stressed-timed languages like English. Further analysis has been carried out in light of Fletcher’s (in press) argument that measurements based on duration do not wholly reflect speech rhythm as there are many other factors that can influence values of consonantal and vocalic intervals, and Arvaniti’s (2009) suggestion that other features of speech should also be considered in description of rhythm to discover what contributes to listeners’ perception of regularity. Spectrographic analysis of the Malay recordings brought to light two parameters that displayed consistency and regularity for all speakers and sentences: the duration of individual vowels and the duration of intervals between intensity minima. This poster presents the results of these investigations and points to connections between the features which seem to be consistently regulated in the timing of Malay connected speech and aspects of Malay phonology. The results are discussed in light of current debate on the descriptions of rhythm

The Next Generation: Aspects of Grammatical Variation in the Speech of some London Preadolescents

PhDThis thesis is a sociolinguistic investigation into aspects of non-phonological variation in a group of preadolescents recorded in outer east London. Focusing on the analysis of selected grammatical variables, it aims to explore the nature and development of linguistic variation in an age group which has not figured prominently in the foundational sociolinguistic literature. The study is embedded within a variationist framework, and examines how the distribution of vernacular variables selected from different levels of the grammar can provide important insights into the maturing sociolinguistic competence of preadolescent speakers. The distribution of specific grammatical variables is correlated with the broad social dimensions of age and gender in order to examine the social and linguistic constraints which operate on aspects of variation in this age group. Furthermore, the findings which emerge from this study are contextualized in relation to patterns of variation used by older speakers, and are more broadly situated with regard to related patterns of variation in other dialects of English. Another primary aim of the study is to contribute to empirical characterisations of grammatical variation in southeastern England, an area in which there has been little systematic quantitative investigation of non-phonological variation. Given that London has been identified in the sociolinguistic literature as the site of considerable dialect levelling and a major locus of linguistic innovation, the study explores preadolescents' active participation in some of the burgeoning linguistic changes that are affecting not only southeasten dialects, but also other contemporary varieties of English

Acoustic and Perceptual Analyses of the Fundamental Frequencies of African American and Caucasian Males and Females

Normative data compiled by Hixon and Abbs (1980) continue to serve as guidelines for fundamental frequency (F0). These normative data were collected solely from Caucasian participants and may not accurately reflect norms for other ethnicities. According to published literature regarding pitch differences among racial groups, African Americans are believed to have a lower F0 than their Caucasian counterparts.This study investigated differences in F0 between African American and Caucasian young adults. Twenty adults between the ages of 18 and 30 were examined along three vocal parameters: sustained vowel phonation, a speaking task, and a reading task. Three experienced speech-language pathologists and three students without training in voice listened to one second samples of the sustained vowels and made judgments of the speaker\u27s race. Acoustic results revealed no significant differences between the African American and Caucasian male participants. However, F0 values for the sustained vowel task were higher for African American females compared to their Caucasian counterparts while the same trend was not observed in the other two tasks. This suggests that F0 differences across the two races may be task specific rather than racially influence

Acoustic and Perceptual Analyses of the Fundamental Frequencies of African American and Caucasian Males and Females

Normative data compiled by Hixon and Abbs (1980) continue to serve as guidelines for fundamental frequency (F0). These normative data were collected solely from Caucasian participants and may not accurately reflect norms for other ethnicities. According to published literature regarding pitch differences among racial groups, African Americans are believed to have a lower F0 than their Caucasian counterparts.This study investigated differences in F0 between African American and Caucasian young adults. Twenty adults between the ages of 18 and 30 were examined along three vocal parameters: sustained vowel phonation, a speaking task, and a reading task. Three experienced speech-language pathologists and three students without training in voice listened to one second samples of the sustained vowels and made judgments of the speaker\u27s race. Acoustic results revealed no significant differences between the African American and Caucasian male participants. However, F0 values for the sustained vowel task were higher for African American females compared to their Caucasian counterparts while the same trend was not observed in the other two tasks. This suggests that F0 differences across the two races may be task specific rather than racially influence

Socializing Role of Codes and Code-switching Among Korean Children in the U.s.

This study examines the code-switching habits of Korean children in a Korean speech community in the United States in order to understand the socializing role of codes and code-switching. The primary research question is: How do participants' code choices in the midst of ongoing interaction index and facilitate the co-construction of multiple layers of social identities? This study combines ethnographic and micro-analytic methods. The major data consist of 42 hours of videotaped interactions among Korean children over the course of four academic semesters. Additional data include observations, interviews, and collected artifacts. The primary research sites were a Korean Christian church and a university-sponsored club for kindergarteners in the U.S. Informal interviews were also conducted with participants to supplement the videotaped data. Data analysis is qualitative, focusing primarily on micro-analysis of videotaped interactions which include code-switching in situated activity types. For data analysis, the selected scenes were transcribed to examine whether and how the specific sequences exhibit the socializing roles of codes and code-switching in constructing social identities. In addition, macro-analytic techniques are incorporated to understand language use within the larger community of practice. a) There are unmarked code preferences which contribute to the construction of typical participation frameworks and thus to the construction of identities within those frameworks: boys mainly prefer to use Korean to construct their identities, whereas girls mostly prefer to use English; and b) Despite the unmarked code-preferences by gender, the Korean children often code-switch to a marked code, signaling their reconstruction of identities. The code-switching practices provide evidence that code choices index multilayered identities including complex gender roles, Korean vs. American identities, and power relationships rooted in age and English proficiency. This study suggests: a) that code-switching contributes to the dynamic construction of local identities through emergent contexts, rather than revealing fixed identities associated with different codes, and b) that code-switching has a social indexing function that signals particular features of social identities and contexts.English Departmen

A sociophonetic analysis of female-sounding virtual assistants

As conversational machines (e.g., Apple\u27s Siri and Amazon\u27s Alexa) are increasingly anthropomorphized by humans and viewed as active interlocutors, it raises questions about the social information indexed by machine voices. This thesis provides a preliminary exploration of the relationship between human sociophonetics, social expectations, and conversational machine voices. An in-depth literature review (a) explores human relationships with and expectations for real and movie robots, (b) discusses the rise of conversational machines, (c) assesses the history of how female human voices have been perceived, and (d) details social-indexical properties associated with F0, vowel formants (F1 and F2), -ING pronunciation, and /s/ center of gravity in human speech. With background context in place, Siri and Alexa\u27s voices were recorded reciting various sentences and passages and analyzed for each of the aforementioned vocal features. Results suggest that sociolinguistic data from studies on human voices could inform hypotheses about how users might characterize conversational machine voices and encourage further consideration of how human and machine sociophonetics might influence each other

Acoustic and Perceptual Characteristics of Prosody in Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Impact of Language, Motor Speech, and Auditory Processing

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that affects an individual’s social communication, social interaction, and behavior (American Psychological Association, 2013). A striking feature that distinguishes some individuals with autism from their peers without autism is “atypical” prosody. A between-group study was conducted to investigate prosody, speech motor control, auditory processing of pitch, and trained listener ratings of prosodic “naturalness” among adolescents with ASD (n=17) compared to TD controls (n=17) matched for age, gender and language. The specific aims of this study were to: (1) determine if individuals with ASD have significant acoustic-perceptual differences in their receptive and expressive prosody; (2) identify the interrelationship between prosody and language, motor speech, and pitch processing abilities; and (3) investigate if there is an association between group membership (ASD vs. TD) and trained listener ratings of overall “naturalness” (natural versus unnatural) of the speakers’ speech. The findings of this study support that some individuals with autism perform with significantly less accuracy on receptive and expressive prosody tasks and had significantly longer duration of utterances in comparison to TD controls. There was a significant positive relationship between receptive vocabulary and expressive prosody in the ASD group, supporting the “Theoretical Interaction Model”, while expressive vocabulary and speech motor control did not explain variability in expressive prosody above and beyond receptive vocabulary

The Appeal of Narrative in Research

I saw the bird flattened on the ground outside my door . One of the kindergarten child walked toward me slowly, crying. That\u27s when I knew it was time to act. The very brief narrative above occurs amid myriad spheres of social relations. These relations are not all apparent, but understanding narrative meaning requires understanding narrating as an interactive process. As researchers we enhance our Methods if we know how to read narratives as complex social processes. This openi11g narrative expresses a sequence of two past events.1 The narrative involves action ( walked, act ) and consciousness ( saw, crying, knew ). From the little bit that is there, one can imagine possible settings: Kindergarten suggests a school context; characters include the implicit narrator I, apparently in a position of responsibility and power ( it was time to act ). This bit of narrative also sits amid possible plots- some kind of conflict on a school playground - with characters, the child, the I character, and the bird (depending on how the story develops). This brief narrative seems to convey life quite naturally with a story of an encounter involving a person, nature, and an institution-a child, a bird, and a teacher, school principal, or other adult-within a broader series of imaginable events. The ending it was time to act implies that the bird\u27s demise involved something more than disease or old age, compelling the I character to intervene. Details like the dead bird, the crying child , and the urgency to act hint at some sort of trouble, piquing the reader\u27s desire to know what happened. That 30 words invoke so much meaning demands a dynamic narrative approach