creaky voice

Dennis R. Preston preston at MSU.EDU
Sat Feb 18 18:07:56 UTC 2006


Becky Roeder gave a paper at a Michigan Lingusitics Society meeting
of several years ago at Wayne State) in which she showed some
correlation between creaky voice in young European American females
and their advancement in the Northern Cities Shift.

dInIs

>Thanks--I obviously missed the earlier discussion. Toclarify my earlier
>comments: folks in the North Carolina Language and Life Project have
>been reporting
>creaky voice among NC African-American males as a way of asserting
>masculinity (as I remember the paper). Also, Norma Mendoza-Denton
>has been studying
>creaky voice as a feature of the speech of young Hispanic females in the US
>Southwest.
>
>
>In a message dated 2/18/06 12:05:47 PM, bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU writes:
>
>
>>  On 2/18/06, RonButters at aol.com <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
>>  >
>>  > In a message dated 2/18/06 2:27:03 AM, mckernan at LOCALNET.COM writes:
>>  >
>>  > > >Jacobellis is from Stratton, Vt., FWIW. But I'd guess creaky voice is
>>  > > >common among female snowboarders regardless of regional background.
>>  >
>>  > Can you explain what the scientific basis is for assigning this feature
>>  (a)
>>  > to females and (b) to snowboarding females?
>>  >
>>  > I have seen some evidence that creakky voice is a feature of young males,
>>  > particularly when they are trying to impress females with their virility.
>>
>>  Well, (a) actually does have a basis in various dialectological
>>  studies, as was discussed here last year:
>>
>>  http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0505D&L=ADS-L&P=R1779
>>
>>  As for (b), that was based on hearing Jacobellis and other female
>>  snowboarders (Hannah Teter, Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark, Michelle
>>  Gorgone) interviewed for the Olympics. You can find interview clips
>>  with them via the NBC link I gave:
>>
>>  http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/index.html
>>  (choose "snowboarding", then choose "off the show")
>>
>>  Jacobellis is particularly creaky, though.
>>
>>
>>  --Ben Zimmer
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1036 USA
Office: (517) 353-4736
Fax: (517) 353-3755

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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