Linguistic and Social Expectation Beyond The Gender Binary
Presenter Title/Affiliation
University of Michigan
Start Date
22-5-2021 11:00 AM
Event Name
Panel discussion
Panel Number
12
Panel Chair Name
Ártemis López
Zoom URL to Join
https://ciis.zoom.us/j/98275740059
Zoom Meeting ID
982 7574 0059
Abstract
Previous sociophonetic research has demonstrated that social information affects listeners’ linguistic decision-making. In particular, Strand and Johnson (1996) show that imputed (binary) gender shifts listeners’ sibilant category boundaries: listeners categorized ambiguous synthesized sibilants as /s/ more often when listening to a male speaker. Further research has shown sibilant identity influences how listeners categorize speakers’ (binary) gender, demonstrating a bidirectional relationship between social and linguistic information (Bouavichith et al 2019).
Although listeners use categorical social information when it is explicitly given in a task, it is not understood how listeners perform when the same acoustic information is socially contextualized in two distinct ways. This study examines how sibilant category boundaries are shifted by acoustically masculinized speech: this manipulation is explained in one condition as the speaker’s gender transition and in the second as a digital manipulation. Participants complete a binary forced-choice linguistic decision task. Participants listen to ambiguous sibilant-initial lexical items (e.g., shack-sack) and indicate on a button-box which words they hear. Each token is created by splicing together one synthesized sibilant (from a /ʃ/-/s/ continuum) with a naturalistic production of the rime. Each rime, produced by a cis woman, is acoustically manipulated across two blocks to vary the perceived gender of the speaker. In Block 1, the rime of each stimulus is minimally manipulated. All listeners are told that the speaker identified as female at the time of the recording. In Block 2, the rimes are masculinized. Listeners are presented with either Condition 1) the same speaker no longer identified as female at the time of a second recording, or Condition 2) the acoustic stimuli have been digitally manipulated.
In line with previous results, we hypothesize that listeners will shift their category boundaries between Blocks 1 and 2, toward more male-like sibilant boundaries. Further, we predict a greater degree of shift, in this direction, for listeners who were assigned Condition 1. This prediction assumes that listeners are sensitive to how speakers use phonetic variation to convey social meaning.
This experiment serves as an effort to engage sociophonetic perception research with richer treatments of gender.
Presenter Contact
juscraft@umich.edu
iccallow@umich.edu
dombouav@umich.edu
Linguistic and Social Expectation Beyond The Gender Binary
Previous sociophonetic research has demonstrated that social information affects listeners’ linguistic decision-making. In particular, Strand and Johnson (1996) show that imputed (binary) gender shifts listeners’ sibilant category boundaries: listeners categorized ambiguous synthesized sibilants as /s/ more often when listening to a male speaker. Further research has shown sibilant identity influences how listeners categorize speakers’ (binary) gender, demonstrating a bidirectional relationship between social and linguistic information (Bouavichith et al 2019).
Although listeners use categorical social information when it is explicitly given in a task, it is not understood how listeners perform when the same acoustic information is socially contextualized in two distinct ways. This study examines how sibilant category boundaries are shifted by acoustically masculinized speech: this manipulation is explained in one condition as the speaker’s gender transition and in the second as a digital manipulation. Participants complete a binary forced-choice linguistic decision task. Participants listen to ambiguous sibilant-initial lexical items (e.g., shack-sack) and indicate on a button-box which words they hear. Each token is created by splicing together one synthesized sibilant (from a /ʃ/-/s/ continuum) with a naturalistic production of the rime. Each rime, produced by a cis woman, is acoustically manipulated across two blocks to vary the perceived gender of the speaker. In Block 1, the rime of each stimulus is minimally manipulated. All listeners are told that the speaker identified as female at the time of the recording. In Block 2, the rimes are masculinized. Listeners are presented with either Condition 1) the same speaker no longer identified as female at the time of a second recording, or Condition 2) the acoustic stimuli have been digitally manipulated.
In line with previous results, we hypothesize that listeners will shift their category boundaries between Blocks 1 and 2, toward more male-like sibilant boundaries. Further, we predict a greater degree of shift, in this direction, for listeners who were assigned Condition 1. This prediction assumes that listeners are sensitive to how speakers use phonetic variation to convey social meaning.
This experiment serves as an effort to engage sociophonetic perception research with richer treatments of gender.
https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/lavlang/2021/saturday/7
