The Sociophonetics of Gay Speech
https://doi.org/10.31810/rsel.52.2.11
Keywords:
Gay speech; sociophonetics; cross-linguistic studyAbstract
This bibliographical review includes 69 sociophonetic studies on male gay speech in order to gain insight into which acoustic parameters characterise both gay speakers and those speakers who, regardless of their sexual orientation, are perceived as gay. The sample of languages included here make up a total of 13 languages, some with a larger number of varieties, such as English or Spanish. In many of these languages the production or perception of gay speech has been found to be significantly different in its fundamental frequency, in F1 and F2 of some vowels, and in the spectral characteristics and duration of certain sibilant fricatives. However, the disparity of results does not allow to identify a clear set of parameters associated with male gay speech. The acoustic features characterising gay speech in a given speech community may not coincide with those in another, especially since the way in which gay identity is socially constructed varies from place to place. Finally, gay speech is suggested to be analysed in specific varieties of different languages, including Spanish, from a multimodal perspective in order to minimise the disparity of results and to reflect more accurately the interactions between speakers in everyday communication.
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