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Hispanic Linguistics at the Crossroads: Theoretical linguistics, language acquisition and language contact
Edited by Rachel Klassen, Juana M. Liceras and Elena Valenzuela
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 4] 2015
► pp. 293–312

Sociophonetic analysis of young Peninsular Spanish women’s voice quality

| University of Massachusetts Amherst
| University of Michigan
| University at Buffalo (SUNY)

In the speech of certain female speakers of Peninsular Spanish (PS) one observes the use of hoarse voice, a salient non-modal phonation type. In this paper, we examined its phonetic correlates and social meaning. Among women who have hoarse voice, significantly lower H1-H2 values were found than those who have modal voice. These production data were then used as stimuli in a classification task where 50 native listeners of PS described the personal characteristics of speakers from each group. The hoarse group was judged as apathetic and strong significantly more than the modal group, which, in turn, was judged as feminine, intelligent, and urban significantly more than the hoarse group. hoarse voice speakers were also judged as smokers significantly more often than modal group speakers. Our results show that voice quality carries social meaning in PS for young Spanish women.

Keywords: Peninsular Spanish, phonation type, social meaning, spectral tilt, voice quality
Published online: 30 July 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.4.15arm
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