Sounding gay and sounding straight in Spain: A cross-dialectal approach
Presenter Title/Affiliation
University of Arizona
Start Date
23-5-2021 9:15 AM
Event Name
Panel discussion
Zoom URL to Join
https://ciis.zoom.us/j/95163323918
Zoom Meeting ID
951 6332 3918
Abstract
This proposal aims to examine the phonetic variation of sibilants and prosody in gay and straight Spanish men. Previous studies have shown sibilant variation and intonation patterns to correlate with social constructions of gay identity and gay-sounding voices. This proposal is based upon a methodology that focuses on speaker performance as well as speaker identity to address how phonetic variation encodes sexual identity in dialects of Spanish. Specifically, I aim investigate the means by which Spanish males employ acoustic patterns to encode gay- and straightness across two dialects of Peninsular Spanish and how listener perceptions in terms of sexual orientation and other characteristics. I plan to use both quantitative and qualitative techniques to analyze reading tasks, sociolinguistic interview data, and perception questionnaire data. The analysis will focus on the production of segmental (sibilant consonants) and suprasegmental (pitch and intonation) components of performances by both gay and straight males of Eastern Andalusian Spanish (EAS, /s/-aspirating) and Central-Northern Peninsular Spanish (CNPS, /s/-maintaining) in order to assess what phonetic features are used to materialize socially salient identities. At the time of the conference, I will be in the beginning phase of data collection.
Presenter Contact
chkelley@crimson.ua.edu
Sounding gay and sounding straight in Spain: A cross-dialectal approach
This proposal aims to examine the phonetic variation of sibilants and prosody in gay and straight Spanish men. Previous studies have shown sibilant variation and intonation patterns to correlate with social constructions of gay identity and gay-sounding voices. This proposal is based upon a methodology that focuses on speaker performance as well as speaker identity to address how phonetic variation encodes sexual identity in dialects of Spanish. Specifically, I aim investigate the means by which Spanish males employ acoustic patterns to encode gay- and straightness across two dialects of Peninsular Spanish and how listener perceptions in terms of sexual orientation and other characteristics. I plan to use both quantitative and qualitative techniques to analyze reading tasks, sociolinguistic interview data, and perception questionnaire data. The analysis will focus on the production of segmental (sibilant consonants) and suprasegmental (pitch and intonation) components of performances by both gay and straight males of Eastern Andalusian Spanish (EAS, /s/-aspirating) and Central-Northern Peninsular Spanish (CNPS, /s/-maintaining) in order to assess what phonetic features are used to materialize socially salient identities. At the time of the conference, I will be in the beginning phase of data collection.
https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/lavlang/2021/sunday/14
