Pitch
FTM Transgender: 3.5 Years on T voice comparison
Play videoA trans man gives examples of his voice across 3 and a half years of testosterone treatment
Trying American
Play videoIn this scene Daphne shares her frustration with how people react to her accent. This demonstrates how different accents and dialects index social identity, eliciting feelings and reactions sometimes unwanted by the speaker. These interactions may influence future discourse practices.
Why Do Girls Have Creaky Voices?
Play videoThis sociolinguistic artifact covers the topic of "Vocal Fry" or the new way young women talk in which the tone and sound of their voice sounds creaky. People don't exactly enjoy hearing someone talk using vocal fry, and studies have proved that girls who interviewed for a job and spoke using vocal fry were deemed more untrustworthy than those who didn't, and were viewed more negatively than men who used vocal fry, which relates to gender differences in spoken language and language use. What is particularly interesting is why vocal fry is so common among young women. This artifact suggests that linguists think that women tend to be the "vocal trailblazers" because they are more sensitive and receptive of social interactions and more likely able to pick up on settle vocal cues such as a "fry", again accounting for the gender differences in spoken language and language use. Also, there is a theory that vocal fry is simply a form of in-group communication between young girls.
How WSJ Used an Algorithm to Analyze ‘Hamilton’ the Musical
Joel Eastwood and Erik Hinton wrote an algorithm to analyze the different types of rhymes used in the tony Award Winning Broadway Musical "Hamilton", and reveal their Hip-Hop influences. [Published on 06-06-2016]
Helping Trans People Find Their Voices
Play videoSpeech-language pathologist, Christie Block, helps transgender people find their voice.
NPR: Talking while female
An NPR video piece on the criticisms of women's voices, including their use of higher pitch, HRT, creaky voice, and their evaluation as less authoritative [Published on 10-24-2014]
Can changing how you sound help you find your voice?
A NPR story profiling two women who worked to change their voices due to the stigmatization of their ways of talking. These woman worked with a voice therapist who normally provides therapy to transgender individuals. [Published on 10-14-2014]
Japanese Women's Language: Commercial
Play videoA 2006 Japanese commercial that spooks Japanese women's voices.
Gender and the performance of Pitch
(Enlarge image)A graph of men and women's fundamental frequencies in apparent time. The expected difference in mean pitch given differences in the size of the laranx is greater in practice, suggesting that pitch differences are exaggerated during the performance of gender.
KFC Double Down
Play videoA 2010 Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial where men speaking with (synthesized) higher mean pitch are "masculinized" by eating the Double Down sandwich.