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Gay lisp
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A gay lisp or quaverling lisp is actually not a lisp but refers to stereotypical speech attributes assigned to and sometimes heard in gay males.[1][2]. These attributes have proven difficult to define and quantify but seem independent of other variables in the phonology of the English language, such as accent and register.[3]
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Several speech features are stereotyped as markers of gay male identity: careful pronunciation, wide pitch range, high and rapidly changing pitch, breathy tone, lengthened fricative sounds, and pronunciation of /t/ as /ts/ and /d/ as /dz/ (affrication).[1]
The "gay sound" of some, but certainly not all, gay men seems to some listeners to involve the characteristic "lisp" involving sibilants (/s/, /z/, /?/, and the like) with assibilation, sibilation, hissing, or stridency.[1]
Professors Henry Rogers and Ron Smyth at the University of Toronto investigated this question and were curious why someone would subconsciously adopt this way of speaking, especially at an early age when such an imitation can cause so many personal problems in a homophobic culture.
According to Rogers, people can usually differentiate gay- and straight-sounding voices based on certain phonetic patterns. "We have identified a number of phonetic characteristics that seem to make a man’s voice sound gay," says Rogers. Their best hunch so far is that some gay men may be subconsciously imitating certain female speech patterns and if this is true, "We want to know how men acquire this way of speaking."[4]
A study at Stanford University involving a small sample group investigated claims that people can identify gay males by their speech and that these listeners use pitch range and fluctuation in deciding.[5] Results were inconclusive:
Although he found that listeners could distinguish gay from straight men, he failed to find any convincing empirical differences in pitch between these two groups. [...] This study is representative of others that have failed to find concrete differences in the speech of gay and straight men.[6]
In a similar study of female speakers, it was found that listeners could not tell lesbian speakers from heterosexual speakers. Other studies of lesbian identity do make references to voice use by lesbians typically using lower pitch and more direct communication styles.[7]
- ^ a b c Beyond Lisping: Code Switching and Gay Speech Styles
- ^ [1][2] Examples of LGBT writing in which "gay lisp" used as a general term for the sound of gay male speech
- ^ This article and the references its cites concern the phonology of the English language almost exclusively.
- ^ Researchers examine patterns in gay speech
- ^ Gaudio, Rudolph (1994) "Sounding Gay: Pitch Properties in the Speech of Gay and Straight Men." American Speech 69: 30-57.
- ^ glbtq.com, "Gayspeak"
- ^ Atkins, Dawn (1998) "Looking Queer: Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities"