Notes
Introduction: It’s Not What You Say
The Hebrew Bible contains: Judges 12:5–6, in The Holy Bible, New International Version. (1984). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
“ear of corn”: Translation from Oxford English Dictionary. shibboleth, n. (2019). Oxford English Dictionary Online (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved from OED Online Database https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/178050?redirectedFrom=shibboleth&
Croatian or Serbian: For information on Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian languages, see Browne, W. “Serbo-Croatian language,” Encyclopedia Britannica, retrieved at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Serbo-Croatian-language; Vezenkov, A. (2013). Introduction to section two: Languages and language policies in the Balkans. In Daskalov, R. & Marinov, T. (Eds.), Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies, Koninkijke Brill Nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
1. HOW YOU SPEAK IS WHO YOU ARE
David Thorpe: Thanks to David Thorpe for providing comments on this section of the book.
turned his camera on himself: Gertler, H., & Thorpe, D. (Producers) & Thorpe, D. (Director). (2014). Do I sound gay? [Motion picture]. United States: IFC Films/Sundance Selects.
as the linguists have shown: Pierrehumbert, J. B., Bent, T., Munson, B., Bradlow, A. R., & Bailey, J. M. (2004). The influence of sexual orientation on vowel production (L). Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116(4), 1905–8. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1788729; Smyth, R., & Rogers, H. (2002). Phonetics, gender, and sexual orientation. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association, 299–311.
“sounding gay” to others: For additional insight into the vocal features that listeners use to guess whether someone’s voice sounds “gay” or “straight,” see Smyth, R., Jacobs, G., & Rogers, H. (2003). Male voices and perceived sexual orientation: An experimental and theoretical Approach. Language in Society, 32(3), 329–50.
continued scientific research: Ganna, A., Verweij, K. J. H., Nivard, M. G., Maier, R., Wedow, R., Busch, A. S., . . . & Zietsch, B. P. (2019). Large-scale GWAS reveals insights into the genetic architecture of same-sex sexual behavior. Science, 365(6456), eeat7693.
do not differ in overall pitch: Pierrehumbert et al., The influence of sexual orientation on vowel production (L); Smyth & Rogers, Phonetics, gender, and sexual orientation.
an explosion of research: Munson, D. (2011). Lavender lessons learned; Or, what sexuality can teach us about phonetic variation. American Speech, 86, 14–31.
social group membership: Fiske, S. T. (1998). Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed.) (vols. 1–2, pp. 357–411); Fiske, S. T., & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum of impression formation, from category-based to individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (vol. 23, pp. 1–74). New York: Academic Press; Stangor, C., Lynch, L., Duan, C., & Glas, B. (1992). Categorization of individuals on the basis of multiple social features. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(2), 207–18; Messick, D. M., & Mackie, D. M. (1989). Intergroup relations. Annual Review of Psychology, 40, 45–81.
the prism of categories: Murphy, G. L., & Medin, D. L. (1985). The role of theories in conceptual coherence. Psychological Review, 92(3), 289–316; Medin, D., & Rips, L. J. (2005). Concepts and categories: Memory, meaning, and metaphysics. In K. Holyoak & B. Morrison (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning (pp. 37–72). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
stereotypes and prejudices: Devine, P. G. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(1), 5–18; Gelman, S. A. (2003). The essential child: Origins of essentialism in everyday thought. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; Bodenhausen, G. V., Kang, S. K., & Peery, D. (2012). Social categorization and the perception of social groups. In S. Fiske & C. N. Macrae (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social cognition (pp. 311–29). Los Angeles: SAGE.
indicator of social identity: For evidence that hearing someone’s voice triggers perceptions of them as more human and mentally capable, see Schroeder, J., Kardas, M., & Epley, N. (2017). The humanizing voice: Speech reveals, and text conceals, a more thoughtful mind in the midst of disagreement. Psychological Science, 28, 1745–62.
seminal linguistics studies: Deckert, S. K., & Vickers, C. H. (2011). An introduction to sociolinguistics: Society and identity. New York: Bloomsbury; Gordon, M. J. (2012). Labov: A guide for the perplexed. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing; Labov, W. (1963). The social motivation of a sound change. WORD, 19(3), 273–309. doi:10.1080/00437956.1963.11659799; Labov, W. (2001). Principles of linguistic change, Volume 2: Social factors. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
“linguistic movers and shakers”: Eckert, P. (2004). Adolescent language. In E. Finegan & J. Rickford (Eds.), Language in the USA: Themes for the twenty-first century (pp. 361–74). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511809880.021
“As people age”: Pinker, S. (2015). The sense of style: The thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century. New York: Penguin Books.
the way they spoke: Eckert, P. (1989). Jocks and burnouts: Social categories and identity in the high school. New York: Teachers College Press; Eckert, P. (2003). Language and adolescent peer groups. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 22(1), 112–18. doi:10.1177/0261927X02250063
leaders in these vocal transformations: Eckert, P. (2011). Language and power in the preadolescent heterosexual market. American Speech, 86, 85–97.
an expert on implicit attitudes: Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (2013). Blindspot: Hidden biases of good people. New York: Delacorte Press.
recognize it more when women do it: Davidson, L. (2017). Detection of creaky voice as a function of speaker pitch and gender. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 141, 3981.
undermine professional success: Anderson, R. C., Klofstad, C. A., Mayew, W. J., & Venkatachalam, M. (2014). Vocal fry may undermine the success of young women in the labor market. PLOS ONE, 9(5), e97506–e97506. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0097506
going somewhere: One linguistics paper presented some undergraduates from UC Berkeley and the University of Iowa with a typical vocal-y fry-y voice, and they didn’t find it negative. This raises the possibility that in the future, this feature of speech may catch on even more. Yuasa, I. P. (2010). Creaky voice: A new feminine voice quality for young urban-oriented upwardly mobile American women? American Speech, 85(3), 315–37. doi:10.1215/00031283-2010-018
sound like other kids: Harris, J. R. (1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do. New York: Simon & Schuster.
My former college roommate Joey: Thanks to Joey Lee for sharing this story.
native American accent: DeJesus, J., Dautel, J., Hwang, H. G., & Kinzler, K. D. (2017). Bilingual children’s social preferences hinge on accent. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 164, 178–91; for a related finding, see Souza, A., Byers-Heinlein, K., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2013). Bilingual and monolingual children prefer native-accented speakers. Frontiers Psychology, 4(953).
sound like their peers: Harris, The nurture assumption.
speak the same way: Howard Giles’s communication accommodation theory describes how language shifts to signal social affiliation. Giles, H. (2016). Communication accommodation theory: Negotiating personal relationships and social identities across contexts. New York: Cambridge University Press.
follows suit: Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perception-behavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(6), 893–910. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.6.893
this VOT feature: Yu, A. C. L., Abrego-Collier, C., & Sonderegger, M. (2013). Phonetic imitation from an individual-difference perspective: Subjective attitude, personality, and “autistic” traits. PLOS One, 8(9), e74746. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0074746; see also Abrego-Collier, C., Grove, J., Sonderegger, M., & Yu, A. C. L. (2011). Effects of speaker evaluation on phonetic convergence. Proceedings of the International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences, 17, 19–195.
language game: The linguist Molly Babel studied New Zealanders’ accommodation to Australian English. Babel, M. (2010). Dialect divergence and convergence in New Zealand English. Language in Society, 39(4), 437–56.
key personality traits: Yu, Abrego-Collier, & Sonderegger, Phonetic imitation from an individual-d...