The emergence of gendered production between childhood and adolescence: a real time analysis of /s/ in Southern British English
The emergence of gendered production between childhood and adolescence: a real time analysis of /s/ in Southern British English
This paper investigates gendered speech development between childhood and adolescence. A longitudinal sociophonetic analysis of /s/ was conducted across a panel of 13 speakers, first recorded aged 9-11 and again at 13-15. Acoustic measures of Centre of Gravity (CoG) revealed a significant interaction between Year of Interview and Gender. Male CoG significantly fell, while female CoG significantly rose. These data suggest that gendered speech styles emerge incrementally over time. Moreover, as CoG is inversely related to vocal tract length, typical physical development would predict a fall over time for both genders. As we only find this for the males, this indicates the emergence of gendered /s/ production is primarily driven by females. Inspection of style in the adolescent data supports this interpretation: only females show significant stylistic conditioning, while males are consistent across contexts. These findings are discussed in relation to the role of women in language variation and change.
Holmes-Elliott, Sophie
5403c74b-319f-4367-9631-7a831fe06bf9
Turner, James
469bec09-28af-4d53-a44c-158c0f11dde2
5 August 2019
Holmes-Elliott, Sophie
5403c74b-319f-4367-9631-7a831fe06bf9
Turner, James
469bec09-28af-4d53-a44c-158c0f11dde2
Holmes-Elliott, Sophie and Turner, James
(2019)
The emergence of gendered production between childhood and adolescence: a real time analysis of /s/ in Southern British English.
XVIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, , Melbourne, Australia.
05 - 09 Aug 2019.
4 pp
.
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
This paper investigates gendered speech development between childhood and adolescence. A longitudinal sociophonetic analysis of /s/ was conducted across a panel of 13 speakers, first recorded aged 9-11 and again at 13-15. Acoustic measures of Centre of Gravity (CoG) revealed a significant interaction between Year of Interview and Gender. Male CoG significantly fell, while female CoG significantly rose. These data suggest that gendered speech styles emerge incrementally over time. Moreover, as CoG is inversely related to vocal tract length, typical physical development would predict a fall over time for both genders. As we only find this for the males, this indicates the emergence of gendered /s/ production is primarily driven by females. Inspection of style in the adolescent data supports this interpretation: only females show significant stylistic conditioning, while males are consistent across contexts. These findings are discussed in relation to the role of women in language variation and change.
Text
ACCEPTED gendered s in real time
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 1 May 2019
Published date: 5 August 2019
Venue - Dates:
XVIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, , Melbourne, Australia, 2019-08-05 - 2019-08-09
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 432202
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/432202
PURE UUID: 5daa77d8-73c6-4b5e-b5e5-98501c733175
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 04 Jul 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 07:59
Export record
Contributors
Author:
Sophie Holmes-Elliott
Author:
James Turner
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
Loading...
View more statistics