Situational variation in bigender Finnish speakers’ idiolects

This presentation focuses on a doctoral thesis in the field of Finnish language. The ongoing study examines situational variation in four bigender Finnish speakers’ idiolects, especially in relation to ‘switching’ or fluid movement between two genders. The aim of the study is to map the relationship between gender performance and speech, both in the speakers’ language consciousness and in their actual everyday conversations. How do they perform their two genders with language and voice? How do they perform ‘the closet’ when they are talking to people who are not aware of their gender identity? How conscious are these acts? The study utilizes a multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological approach. It consists of folk linguistic content analysis, sociophonetic analysis, and queer theories. The data contains interviews, self-recordings, and recording diaries written by the participants. At the time of the presentation, a pilot study with one participant will be underway. The presentation will discuss how the pilot data will inform the study design, as well as introduce some preliminary observations on the data.

https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/lavlang/2021/sunday/4