A comparative study of phonetic sex-specific differences across languages
ï"żExtensive reviews of phonetic and phonological investigations into sex-related differences reveal a mottled history. The investigations suffer from methodological and theoretical deficits: the most serious being the misrepresentation of the interaction between variables, a lack of homogeneous data and its misinterpretation, and the widespread neglect of women's speech. Existing phonetic databases are shown to be inadequate and poorly-controlled, admitting too many unwanted variables. A very tightly-controlled database, constructed for this research, contains data for eighty female and male speakers of two accents of British English. This contribution is regarded as important per se. Digital acoustic analysis of the data permits quantification of the phonetic divergence shown by the sexes in British English. Previous attempts to normalize the acoustic effects of speaker-sex on vowels have been largely unsuccessful. Here, the application of an innovative auditory normalization procedure reflects how perceptual normalization may be achieved. It further demonstrates that male/female phonetic differences remain after normalisation, which cannot be accounted for by anatomy, but are accountable by social-role
Henton, Caroline Gilles
Language and languages ; Sex differences ; Phonetics
A comparative study of phonetic sex-specific differences across languages. ï"żExtensive reviews of phonetic and phonological investigations into sex-related differences reveal a mottled history. The investigations suffer from methodological and theoretical deficits: the most serious being the misrepresentation of the interaction between variables, a lack of homogeneous data and its misinterpretation, and the widespread neglect of women's speech. Existing phonetic databases are shown to be inadequate and poorly-controlled, admitting too many unwanted variables. A very tightly-controlled database, constructed for this research, contains data for eighty female and male speakers of two accents of British English. This contribution is regarded as important per se. Digital acoustic analysis of the data permits quantification of the phonetic divergence shown by the sexes in British English. Previous attempts to normalize the acoustic effects of speaker-sex on vowels have been largely unsuccessful. Here, the application of an innovative auditory normalization procedure reflects how perceptual normalization may be achieved. It further demonstrates that male/female phonetic differences remain after normalisation, which cannot be accounted for by anatomy, but are accountable by social-role
comparative_study phonetic sex specific difference across_language review phonetic_phonological investigation sex_related difference reveal history investigation suffer methodological_theoretical deficit serious misrepresentation interaction variable lack homogeneous data misinterpretation widespread neglect woman speech existing phonetic database show inadequate poorly controlled admit many unwanted variable tightly controlled database construct contain data eighty female_male speaker accent british_english regard important per digital acoustic analysis_data permit quantification phonetic divergence show sex british_english previous_attempt acoustic effect speaker sex vowel largely unsuccessful application innovative auditory procedure reflect perceptual may achieve demonstrates male_female phonetic difference remain normalisation account anatomy accountable social_role