Perceptual and acoustic gender differences in the speech of 4Âœ-5Âœ year old children
The linguistic factors which identify a speaker as being either male or female are reasonably well understood and documented when we are considering adult speakers. Many of these factors become apparent at puberty when the sexes diverge along predictable anatomical and physiological paths. It might be expected, therefore, that prepubertal children should appear relatively undifferentiated in terms of gender and that young boys' and girls' speech should be sexually homogenous. This study has confirmed, however, that adult listeners can correctly identify the sex of a prepubertal child from samples of speech. Results of the present study yielded correct identification rates which varied between 66% (using isolated vowels as the sample) and 76% (using sentences as the sample) - all of these rates were significantly greater than chance. Girls were shown to be better identified by listeners than boys and female listeners tended to be more accurate at identifying gender than male listeners. During the acoustic phase of the study, a number of parameters were selected for measurement which were regarded as likely to be involved in the gender-identification process. Overall, there was a surprisingly large number of
Nairn, Moray
Sociolinguistics; Sex-differences
Perceptual and acoustic gender differences in the speech of 4Âœ-5Âœ year old children. The linguistic factors which identify a speaker as being either male or female are reasonably well understood and documented when we are considering adult speakers. Many of these factors become apparent at puberty when the sexes diverge along predictable anatomical and physiological paths. It might be expected, therefore, that prepubertal children should appear relatively undifferentiated in terms of gender and that young boys' and girls' speech should be sexually homogenous. This study has confirmed, however, that adult listeners can correctly identify the sex of a prepubertal child from samples of speech. Results of the present study yielded correct identification rates which varied between 66% (using isolated vowels as the sample) and 76% (using sentences as the sample) - all of these rates were significantly greater than chance. Girls were shown to be better identified by listeners than boys and female listeners tended to be more accurate at identifying gender than male listeners. During the acoustic phase of the study, a number of parameters were selected for measurement which were regarded as likely to be involved in the gender-identification process. Overall, there was a surprisingly large number of
perceptual acoustic gender_difference speech child linguistic_factor identify speaker either male_female reasonably well_understood document consider adult speaker many_factor become_apparent puberty sex diverge along predictable anatomical physiological path might_expect therefore child appear relatively undifferentiated term gender young boy girl speech sexually homogenous study confirm however adult listener correctly identify sex child sample speech present_study yield correct identification rate vary use isolate vowel sample use sentence sample rate significantly great chance girls show well identified listener boys female listener tend accurate identifying gender male listener acoustic phase study number parameter select measurement regard likely involved gender identification process overall surprisingly large_number