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Beyond binary gender: creaky voice, gender, and the variationist enterprise.

Authors :
Becker, Kara
Khan, Sameer ud Dowla
Zimman, Lal
Source :
Language Variation & Change; Jul2022, Vol. 34 Issue 2, p215-238, 24p
Publication Year :
2022

Abstract

This paper promotes a sophisticated treatment of gender in variationism through a large-scale quantitative analysis of creak, a nonmodal voice quality stereotypically associated with women in US English. An analysis of our gender-diverse corpus, including cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary individuals, finds that gender does not predict variation; all gender groups produce high rates of creak. However, gender does interact with style: all speakers use more creak in interview speech compared with read speech, but some groups style-shift more than others, suggesting that gender remains a relevant factor in capturing how creak is deployed as a resource in social practice. We use this analysis to advocate for a move beyond the gender binary in quantitative descriptions of sociolinguistic variables and call for the greater inclusion of trans+ individuals in sociolinguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
09543945
Volume :
34
Issue :
2
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Language Variation & Change
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
161253608
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394522000138