Publications

Publication details [#62752]

Zimman, Lal. 2017. Gender as stylistic bricolage: Transmasculine voices and the relationship between fundamental frequency and /s/. Language in Society 46 (3) : 339–370.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Cambridge University Press

Annotation

This paper asserts that gender differences in the voice—also those affected by physiology—are best grasped as elements of sociolinguistic style rather than static qualities. With a focus on transgender speakers in the early stages of masculinizing hormone therapy, the assay shows the intricate interrelationship of the gendered meanings attributable to characteristics like fundamental frequency and /s/. Trans speakers contest systems for categorizing voices as female or male, as a voice's gender is not a unidimensional attribute, but a cluster of attributes that take on meaning solely in context with one another, leaving them open for recombination and change via stylistic bricolage.