Keywords

Vocal fry, perceptual judgements, adult women, bilingual, sociolinguistic factors

Abstract

Summary: Objective. Several studies have identified the widespread use of vocal fry among American women. Popular explanations for this phenomenon appeal to sociolinguistic purposes that likely take significant time for second language users to learn. The objective of this study was to determine if mere exposure to this vocal register, as opposed to nuanced sociolinguistic motivations, might explain its widespread use. Study Design. This study used multigroup within- and between-subjects design. Methods. Fifty-eight women from one of three language background groups (functionally monolingual in English, functionally monolingual in Spanish, and Spanish-English bilinguals) living in El Paso, Texas, repeated a list of nonwords conforming to the sound rules of English and another list of nonwords conforming to the sound rules of Spanish. Perceptual analysis identified each episode of vocal fry. Results. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in their frequency of vocal fry use despite large differences in their amount of English-language exposure. All groups produced more vocal fry when repeating English than when repeating Spanish nonwords. Conclusions. Because the human perceptual system encodes for vocal qualities even after minimal language experience, the widespread use of vocal fry among female residents in the United States likely is owing to mere exposure to English rather than nuanced sociolinguistic motivations.

Original Publication Citation

Summers, C., Mueller, V., Pechak, C., & Sias, J. (2017). Incorporating Spanish language instruction into health sciences programs in an Hispanic-serving institution. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1538192717699047

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2017

Publisher

Elsevier Inc.

Language

English

College

David O. McKay School of Education

Department

Communication Disorders

University Standing at Time of Publication

Associate Professor

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