Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 1373
Part of Session 167: Fine phonetic detail and sociolinguistic ethnography (Other abstracts in this session)
Gendered voices/ Gendering voices
Authors: ARNOLD, Aron
Submitted by: Arnold, Aron (Laboratoire de phonétique et phonologie (UMR 7018 - CNRS / Université Sorbonne nouvelle), France)
Gender identities are performatively constituted through social practices (Butler 1990, 1993; Garfinkel 1996; Kessler et McKenna 1978). Among these practices, voice and speech play a determinant role. As specific uses of pitch, timbre or voice quality are associated with femininity and masculinity (McConnell-Ginet 1978; Henton 1995, 1987; Mount & Salmon 1988; Sachs, Lieberman & Erickson 1973; Van Borsel, De Pot & De Cuypere 2009), speakers use them to be perceived and, this way, be interactionally constituted as “woman”, “man”, “feminine” or “masculine”.
This paper focuses on the manner five Male-to-Female and three Female-to-Male transgendered speakers use voice and speech to pass as “women” or “men”. An analysis of phonetic and ethnographic interview data shows how gender stereotypes influence transgendered speakers in their production of a gendered voice and the strategies/techniques used by these speakers to produce their own gendered voices. After discussing the problematic stances stereotyped gendered voices can index, data will be presented to illustrate how some transgendered speakers completely reject these stereotyped gendered voices and produce alternative gendered voices.
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