Previous
research
Travis (1981) –first study to evaluate homosexual voice perception
• Homosexual participants had higher fundamental frequency modes
in English
• Worked from an abnormal perspective – the homosexual
participants should be “corrected” in clinics
Gaudio (1994)
• Goal: isolate the specific variables that indicate homosexual speech
in English
• Variable analyzed: variety of intonation
• 13 participants listened to 4 heterosexual men and 4 homosexual
men
• Variable does not indicate the sexuality of participants –
constructed from the total segment
2
Previous
research
Levon (2006; 2007)
-More pertinent to present study
• One homosexual speaker rated by listeners
• Variable: /s/ realization (duration and range of tone) in English
• Digitally manipulated variants (one manipulation for each segment)
by percentage (shortened sibilants by 17%)
• Did not find statistically significant effects
Mack (2010, 2011)
• First study of perceived sexual orientation in Spanish
• The participants produced the following /s/ variants: [s], [h], [Ø]
instead of digital manipulation
• Methodology did not control for competing factors that could
influence rankings
5
The study: objectives
1) To analyze the linguistic variables of
sheísmo and /s/ retention, variants
associated with feminine speech in
Buenos Aires Spanish
2) To eventually expand the binary
variable of [+/- heterosexual] to study
human sexuality and masculinity as a
continuum
6
Variables under analysis
“ll” realization
and
Pre-consonantal, word-internal
(V__C) ex. casco
the realization of
palatal “ll” as in calles
Fontanella de Weinberg (1978)
change in progress
[ʃ]
[dʒ]
led by women
Wolf and Jiménez (1979)
[ʃ] = women
[ ʃ ] replaces [dʒ]
Chang (2008)
[dʒ]
before
[s]
“Since /s/ realization is
so highly correlated
with social factors from
a production
standpoint, future
studies are needed to
assess the impact of /s/
production on
perception of social
identities”
(Mack 2010: 54).
[h]
[Ø]
variation in /s/
production by sex:
Buenos Aires
Fontanella de Weinberg (1973b)
cross-dialectical comparison
Terrell (1981)
Havana
(Dohotaru 2004)
/s/ variation by sex
women = [s] prestige variant,
men = [h] [Ø] vernacular
variant
[ʃ]
1975
after
/s/ realization
7
The study
Research Questions:
1) How will the heterosexual participants, as identified
via an extensive background questionnaire, pattern in
the production of the palatal “ll” and /s/ ?
2) How will the listeners identify the speech of the
heterosexual men along the scale of masculinity?
3) Will L1 Spanish listeners pattern similarly to L2
Spanish listeners in the classification of masculinity of
the speech samples?
8
Methodology: Speakers
Participants: 5 native speakers of Buenos Aires Spanish
-self-identify as heterosexuals

age range: 26-52
-recruited through personal contacts of investigator based on self-identification

1) Background questionnaire – demographic and sexual activity information
2) Recording– Read the following text out loud:
Mi perro y yo andamos por las calles cerca del barrio y nuestros
vecinos nos llaman por nuestros nombres. Prefieren que vayamos
por la vereda. Aunque ya tenía su pelota, mi perro se cayó cuando
atrapó otra pelota que encontró. Le pregunté a mi vecino, “Hola,
¿qué haces? ¿Dónde vive el dueño de la pelota?” y respondió él, “No
sé. ¿Dónde la encontraste?”


Written to elicit phonetic variables under analysis
Recorded on computer microphone and sent to investigator from Argentina
9
Questionnaire
Questions about participants’ sex lives
•
•
•
•
Self-identified sexual orientation
Gender identity
Sexual experience (physical)
Sexual fantasies (content, preferences)
Calculation of Kinsey number for each participant
Homosexual behavior/
Heterosexual behavior X 6 =
K (K=Kinsey number)
The Kinsey Scale
0
Exclusively
heterosexual
1
2
3
4
Bisexual
10
5
6
Exclusively
homosexual
Manipulation
Manipulation of each variable utilizing PRAAT (Boersma & Weenink 2014)
to produce perception task
1) One example of each /s/ variant was located in each speaker
2) Replaced /s/ realization within each speaker with the three variants
3) Each of the three variants was spliced into the same word (respondió)
Classification of /s/
realization
[s]
[h]
-Controlled for all other factors
-Manipulation of /s/ will be discussed today
11
[Ø]
Variant
classification: [s]
12
Variant classification:
[h]
13
Variant classification:
[Ø]
14
Methodology: Listeners
Participants: 13 sequential Spanish-English bilinguals (no simultaneous)
L1 Spanish/
L2 English
L1 English/
L2 Spanish
6
7
3F/3M
5F/2M
Spain, Mexico, Peru,
Argentina
Spain, Mexico
Number of participants
Gender
Countries of origin/study
A methodological
shortcoming that will be
discussed
-all advanced graduate students & Spanish instructors
15
Methodology: Listeners
1) Questionnaire - personal information, experience with linguistics,
phonology
2) Rating – forced choice socio-perceptual identification task on Quia
5 practice + 15 speech samples (3 tokens x 5 speakers)
-fixed order, no sequential repetition of speaker or variant
“‘¿Dónde vive el dueño de la pelota?’” y respondió él…
How would you classify the speaker?
Masculine
More or less masculine
Not masculine, more effeminate
-no other visual stimulation
-statistics run with SPSS (IBM Corp)
16
Results:
The scale of masculinity
 Calculation of Kinsey number
Distribution of participants
along Kinsey scale
Names have been changed to protect participant privacy
17
Results:
Production of variables
/s/ Production scale by
participant in respondió
/s/ Production scale by
participant in nuestros
18
Results:
Production of variables
“ll” Production scale by
participant in calles
19
Results:
Matched-guise task
Perceived masculinity by L1 and L2
Spanish speakers
20
Results:
Matched-guise task
Perceived masculinity by speaker
21
Results:
Matched-guise task
Perceived masculinity by /s/ variant
22
Results:
Matched-guise task
 Listener found to be significant (not surprising) and needs to be controlled for
 Mixed model controls for repeated measure (listener)
1) Generalized estimating equation
-controlled for listener as random effect
2) Ordinal logistic regression (like logistic but for 3 DV)
-accounted for tripartite dependent variable (ranking 1-3)
Variant presented significant (Wald Chi-Square 9.796, df=2, Sig=.007)
[Ø] (Wald-Chi-Square 4.121, df=1, Sig=0.042)
[h] (Wald-Chi-Square 0.36, df=1, Sig=.849)
[s]
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No statistical difference
between aspiration and
realization - statistical
difference between
[+/- production] variable
Discussion
1) How will the heterosexual participants, as identified
via an extensive background questionnaire, pattern in
the production of the palatal “ll” and /s/ ?
• Production varies for both variables but center around [h] and [Ø] on spectrum
2) How will the listeners identify the speech of the
heterosexual men along the scale of masculinity?
• Variable under analysis, /s/, predict rankings of masculinity
• No statistical difference between aspiration and realization – statistical
difference between [+/- production] variable
• Different from Levon (2006; 2007) who did not find support
• Speaker was significant
3) Will L1 Spanish listeners pattern similarly to L2 Spanish
listeners in the classification of masculinity of the speech
samples?
• Significant differences between L1 and L2 Spanish speakers
24
Conclusion and future
work
Future work:
 Additional speakers, expand spectrum of sexuality to include selfidentifying bisexual and homosexual
 L1 and L2 Spanish from/learned in Argentina
 In high-contact metropolises such as BA, second dialect contact is
unavoidable
Conclusion:
 Difficult to isolate variables that affect perception of masculinity
 More matched-guise studies needed to examine L1 and L2 differences
 How do learners acquire horizontal variation?
 Additional studies into languages other than English to examine
possible cross-linguistic patterns
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¡Gracias!
 Thank you to
 Sound Change in Interacting Human Systems Workshop,
especially Drs. Keith Johnson, Andrew Garrett, & Larry Hyman
 The Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana
University, especially Silvina Bongiovanni, Megan Solon, and
Danielle Diadone
 Dr. María Eugenia Pérez Ibáñez, Conservatorio Municipal de
Música de Falla, Buenos Aires
 Indiana University Statistical Consulting Center
 Dr. Laura Colantoni , University of Toronto
 Contact information:
 Meg Cychosz: mcychosz@indiana.edu
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Masculinity rating by listener gender
3
2
1
Marco
Felipe
Luis
Javier
Carlos
Rating distribution by
female and male listeners
1
2
3
Female listeners
N
N
Male listeners
Marco
Felipe
Luis
Javier
Carlos
Marco
Felipe
Luis
Javier
Carlos