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
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Summers, Connie; Gibson, Todd A.; and Walls, Sydney, "Vocal Fry Use in Adult Female Speakers Exposed to Two Languages" (2017). Faculty Publications. 7309.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/7309
Document Type
Peer-Reviewed Article
Publication Date
2017
Publisher
Elsevier Inc.
Language
English
College
David O. McKay School of Education
Department
Communication Disorders
Copyright Status
© 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright Use Information
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