gender

Introduction

There is no doubt that texting is the dominant form of written communication of our age. Depending on who you ask, by comparison, emailing and letter-writing seem formal at best, and antiquated at worst. Young adults between 18 and 24 are estimated to send about 110 texts per day (Smith, 2019), which is reflected in endless pop culture references to mobile phones and SMS. For instance, Lana Del Rey in “Take Me to Paris” sings, “Text me when you get home safely,” summarizing one of many social rituals that have arisen from text communication. Texting is a key daily ritual in most communities all over the world.

However, unlike face-to-face communication, texting achieves something unique: documentation. The recipient of a text can take a screenshot and collect ‘receipts’ at any moment, so it is more important than ever that the social face a text communicates is exactly as intended. Another example of this in the music industry is presented by Drake in “H.Y.F.R:” “…That’s when I text (sic.) her and told her I love her, then right after texted and told her I’m faded,” demonstrating how accountability in texting can be circumvented by claiming lack of sobriety and other means. So, texting conveys many layers of nuance and social significance that might not be apparent at first glance. However, texts are shot back and forth so quickly that a problem often arises: typos. They can usually be quickly remedied by retyping the offending word with an asterisk appended, but even the act of correcting a typo holds implications. For instance, leaving a typo can be perceived as comedic or aloof, while retyping it might convey earnestness or carefulness. This led us to question if certain people are more likely to correct or leave typos depending on their individual traits. Specifically, we targeted the groups that are thought to text each other most frequently: couples.

When discussing romantic dynamics, gender is often a key focus of previous research. In the past, it has been shown that in text messages, females tend to emphasize visibility while males emphasize utility (Ilie et al., 2002). This indicated that women are inclined to organize their messages in such a way that their meaning and intentions are best conveyed. Another research study found that women have been seen to use texts as a means of promoting and maintaining social relationships at a higher level than men (Aning & Yaa, 2022). If it is true that women tend to place more emotional and social importance on texting than men, this may be a reason for them to take errors more seriously and cause them to retype. Thus, we hypothesized that women are more likely to retype or correct mistakes than men when they make a typographical error in a text message.

However, we found it important to explore possibilities outside of gendered explanations as well. Our alternative hypothesis is that as the level of intimacy within a relationship increases over time, both partners correct less frequently. We predict this may be the case as over time, couples might have a better understanding of each other’s texting style, leading to a higher threshold for typos needing clarification. Also, as the relationship progresses, couples have had time to adjust and feel more comfortable within the relationship. Thus, we approached addressing these two hypotheses with a specific question in mind: Is gender a good predictor of typo correction in texts between couples?

Methods

To investigate those hypotheses, we targeted a population consisting of men and women in their early 20s who are in a romantic relationship. Another criterion was that they text their partners in Standard American English every day; however, it was not a requirement that English be their first language. We specified the age as 20s and the language as Standard American English to narrow our population to Generation Z and Millenials, as these are the groups that have had the most exposure to digital communication in their lifetimes. Additionally, this research study chose to target heterosexual, gender-conforming couples. This limitation might have been a source of selection bias; thus, we recognize that the patterns we find within these pairings may not translate when extrapolated to couples outside of this binary. Exploring outside of this subpopulation with regard to romantic texting trends may be an interesting candidate for future research.

We recruited the participants by posting the survey on the UCLA Linguistics Discord server, Instagram stories, and Slack chats with students at UCLA. The way of gathering responses on listed social media is considered to be the most effective since our targeted population is the young generation. For the data collection, we utilized a multi-faceted strategy similar to that which is employed by Wagner et al. (2022). The total data set we collected included 22 responses: 10 from males and 12 from females. First, participants were given a survey that collected information about the length and nature of the relationship, as well as open-ended questions about their reactions to their typos. Next, they were asked to submit one or more screenshots where they made a non-grammatical spelling mistake, corrected or otherwise, as shown in Fig 1. We defined a typo in this research as an unintentional misspelled word, not a grammatical typo. Intentional errors for the sake of showing cuteness or aloofness towards their partner were also excluded. It is possible that the nature of the messages could have affected the content of our data. That is, participants might have excluded typos that were particularly embarrassing, which might lead to biased data; however, for the purposes of this study, we considered this to be potentially beneficial for targeting the social aspect of typo correction instead of the practicality aspect.

Particularly embarrassing typos may include big spelling mistakes that are incomprehensible and thus must be corrected for the message to be understood. If these sorts of typos are less likely to occur, we speculated that the collected data might be of better quality. Thus, the omission of embarrassing responses was not mitigated in the data collection process.

Results & Analysis

From our 22 participants, we collected a total of 25 screenshots: 14 from women and 11 from men. Two excerpts of these screenshots from our data are shown in Figures 2.1 and 2.2.

In addition, since all respondents indicated they are texting in standard English, all responses are included in the analysis. The participant responses to each question varied widely, suggesting a diverse range of intimacy and familiarity levels within our participant pool. Participants ranged from 11 to 96 months of knowing their partner, 6 to 96 months of dating, and 3 to 96 months of texting.

First, to test our first hypothesis that women are more likely to retype or correct errors than men, we began by analyzing the responses of each gender.

Figure 3 above shows the percentages of responses to the question about whether or not to correct the typos in the survey for males and females, respectively. As the figure shows, 58% of women correct typographical errors, while 40% of men do so, suggesting that women are more likely to correct typographical errors and seemingly supporting our hypothesis. However, given that the difference between the gender is only 18% and that more than 40% of women leave misspelled words as is, it may not be sufficient to conclude that it is a strong predictor. Thus, we decided to test whether intimacy level is a good predictor, as predicted by our second hypothesis.

To test whether the more intimate one feels, the less likely one is to correct a typo in a message; we obtained correlation coefficients. Because the period of knowing each other, dating, or texting may be more strongly correlated with typo correction than the intimacy with the partner, they were also included as variables in addition to intimacy. The correlation coefficient between gender and typo correction is also calculated. For the analysis of the correlation values, a positive value signifies that an increase in one variable increases the other variable, and if the value is negative, an increase in one variable decreases the other variable. Furthermore, the closer a value is to positive or negative 1, the stronger the correlation is.

Figure 4 summarizes the correlation coefficients of each variable to typographical correction. First, a moderate negative correlation with a coefficient of -0.4 was identified between self-reported intimacy levels and the likelihood of correcting typographical errors. In other words, as intimacy increases, the likelihood of correcting typos decreases or vice versa, which supports our second hypothesis. Now, our remaining question, whether gender is a valid predictor of the likelihood of correcting typos, turned out to be largely uncorrelated since the coefficient is -0.18, although these two are indeed negatively correlated and better predictors than the length of the relationship, period of texting, and how long it’s been since they met each other.

Discussion and conclusions

After finding the correlation coefficients for our variables, we saw that gender was not actually a very good predictor of the likelihood of correcting typos. While it was a stronger predictor than the length of the relationship and how long it has been since they met each other, it is still very weak.

So, we concluded that our second hypothesis, that intimacy would be a better predictor of typo correction likelihood, was better supported. We found a moderate negative correlation between self-reported intimacy levels and the likelihood of correcting typos. That is, the more intimate a partner rated their relationship, the less likely they were to correct a typo. This finding makes sense in the context of prior research, which has shown that as romantic relationships develop, linguistic behaviors become more similar between couples. So, this could suggest that time allows for an increased understanding of language between partners and conversations that reflect a common outlook (Brinberg & Ram, 2021). The relationship between self-reported intimacy and the correction observed in our study suggests that the need for clarification over typos may have decreased as a result of an increased understanding of each other’s language.

Furthermore, these findings show us that the subtleties and subconscious behaviors we exhibit around our romantic partners are not static. The way we text in a relationship likely has much more to do with the person we are texting and how comfortable we are than any one personality trait. Also, thinking back to the findings of previous studies, our results suggest that the “rules of texting” that Wagner et al. proposed (2022) might not apply accurately to longer-term couples, as our findings imply that the implicit social behaviors that Wagner et al.’s rules define might change as intimacy levels grow.

References

Aning, E., & Bediako, Y. A. (2022). Gender differences in Short Message Service texts among Sandwich students: a Sociolinguistic Analysis. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 27(1), 48–56.

Brinberg, M., & Ram, N. (2021). Do new romantic couples use more similar language over time? Evidence from intensive longitudinal text messages. Journal of Communication, 71(3), 454–477. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqab012

Ilie, V., Van Slyke, C., Green, G., & Lou, H. (2005). Gender differences in perceptions and use of communication technologies. Information Resources Management Journal, 18(3), 13–31. https://doi.org/10.4018/irmj.2005070102

Smith, A. (2019). How americans use text messaging. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2011/09/19 /how-americans-use-text-messaging/

Wagner, T., Punyanunt-Carter, N., & McCarthy, E. (2022). Rules, reciprocity, and emojis: An exploratory study on flirtatious texting with romantic partners. Southern Communication Journal, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/1041794x.2022.2108889

Introduction & Background

In recent years, the topic of gender neutrality within the Spanish Language has been a major point of contention as well as the terms used to describe Latin American communities. Spanish is a gendered language currently with a masculine default, but some individuals have proposed alternatives such as replacing the masculine suffix -o for neutral terms with an -x or -e. Proponents of such a change argue it would help promote inclusivity and challenge embedded patriarchal norms while opponents suggest it is unnecessary or even harmful to the preservation of Spanish as a whole. This topic has been the focus of much controversy to the point where gender-neutral Spanish was entirely banned by the government of Argentina (Lankes, 2022). This podcast from Vocal Fries elaborates on the history of gender neutral Spanish in Argentina and its recent controversy: (Gillon & Figueroa, 2018). The goal of this study was to investigate individual attitudes towards gender-neutral Spanish as well as gather input on the actual use of gender-neutral Spanish. This was achieved through a survey of 122 individuals of varying backgrounds and an analysis of Spanish meme accounts in social media. We hypothesized that older individuals and individuals on the right of the political spectrum would be more likely to have negative attitudes towards gender-neutral Spanish and its use. In the following section, we will take a deep dive into the two methodologies that served as the backbone of this research project.

Methodology

Survey

We created a survey using Google Forms, consisting of four separate sections. The first section consisted of collecting background information on the respondents such as their age, education level, gender identity, political ideology, social media usage, etc. The second section inquired about their language background and familiarity with Spanish and gender-neutral Spanish. The third section used the likert scale to assess different opinions on gender-neutral Spanish. In this section, respondents were provided with five different statements and were then asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement on a 1-5 scale. Finally, the respondents were provided with a text-entry box with no limit and were encouraged to share their thoughts on gender-neutral Spanish. This was done in order to collect more detailed opinions on this nuanced matter in order to ensure that opinions outside the scope of the survey questions would be accounted for. The survey we created and utilized for this study can be found in Appendix A of this paper.

This survey was distributed across two different social media platforms: Instagram and Reddit. The majority of the respondents came from Reddit where this survey managed to gain some traction. Additionally, less than 5% of the respondents were friends and family members whom the survey was distributed to as well. In total, we collected 122 responses to our survey.

Memes

We set about finding memes relevant to our survey respondents as well as within the online Spanish community as a whole. As such, we looked for Spanish language meme accounts on these platforms which had at least 10,000 followers, were active within the last month, and were Latin American based. This last parameter helped limit the scope of Spanish varieties we encountered and reflected the background of our survey respondents more closely. We ultimately found 20 accounts across the aforementioned platforms which met our criteria. Then for each of these accounts, we analyzed the first 20 posts of theirs that contained nouns or pronouns which referred to individuals of an unspecified gender. These are the types of words which would be traditionally gendered as masculine that proponents of “Lenguaje Inclusivo” (or Inclusive Language in English) argue should be altered to include a gender-neutral suffix. We then took note of the appearance of gendered or neutral suffixes in these select posts for each account. We classified loan words that fit the same use case within a separate category as well. Qualitatively, we also took notes on the general content of the accounts to help with later comparisons in relation to their rates of gender-neutral suffix usage.

Results & Analysis

Survey

The overall response to the survey was overwhelmingly negative with respondents being quite upset that this survey was even being conducted in the first place. This resulted in our respondents being very vocal in stating their opinions and many even left very detailed thoughts on the matter in the text-entry section. The data we collected was analyzed in two different ways: firstly, Google Forms provides statistics for each question; it generates graphs and charts for each question and provides a percentage breakdown for the responses to each question. Secondly, we downloaded and exported all of the responses into an excel spreadsheet, which we then filtered for various different factors in order to find correlations in the data. In the following few sections, the results will be broken down and discussed section by section:

Section 1: Background Information

64.8 % of our respondents were aged 19-29. This was followed by 30-39 year-olds who comprised 14.8% of respondents. Following closely behind this age group, were 1-18 year-olds who made up 13.9% of respondents. 40 and up respondents were in the minority. 57.4% of our respondents were male, while 33.6% were female. The rest were comprised of non-binary individuals and those that preferred not to answer. The education levels were varied, but the majority of respondents had a higher education background of some sort. When it came to political ideology, almost 50% of respondents identified as either left or far left, while 26.4% self-identified as centrists/moderates. We had initially predicted that right-leaning individuals would be more likely to oppose gender-neutral Spanish, while left-leaning individuals would be more in favor of it. This turned out to not be the case at all; our data analysis revealed that out of 68 left-leaning respondents, 40 respondents had a strongly negative or negative opinion towards gender-neutral Spanish – a staggering 58.8%. In comparison, exactly 50% of individuals who self-identified as right-leaning had a strongly negative or negative opinion towards gender-neutral Spanish. In other words, left-leaning individuals were actually 8.8% more likely to be in opposition to gender-neutral Spanish, completely in contrast to what we had originally hypothesized. This will be discussed further in later sections.

Section 2: Language Background & Familiarity with Gender-Neutral Spanish & Terminology

A total of 91.8% of our respondents were Spanish speakers with more than 75% identifying as intermediate and up in fluency. 25.4% of these speakers self-identified as being native Spanish speakers. However, given that only 27.9% of the respondents said that Spanish was their first language growing up, approximately 6 of these respondents were most likely heritage speakers. When it came to having heard of gender-neutral Spanish, 73% of respondents said they’d heard of the term and 82% said they’d heard of the term “Latinx”. 12.3% had heard of gender-neutral Spanish and 9% “Latinx”, but weren’t sure what these terms meant. Out of all of our respondents, only 23% said they’d used gender-neutral Spanish, while 77% claimed to never have used it. Those that did use it, primarily used it on social media. Finally, 50% of all respondents said they had a strongly negative opinion of gender-neutral Spanish, while only 9.8% said they had a strongly positive opinion.

Section 3: Statement Assessment

In this section, respondents were provided with 5 different statements relating to gender-neutral Spanish and its usage and were then asked to assess whether they strongly disagreed with the statement (a rating of 1), or strongly agreed with it (a rating of 5). A rating of 2 was “disagree”, 3 was “neutral”, and 4 was “agree”. 73.8% of respondents expressed that they did not believe that regular gendered Spanish promotes harmful stereotypes that favor one gender over the other. 54.1% of respondents actually felt that gender-neutral Spanish is degrading to the original language and culture. 69.7% disagreed with the sentiment that it’s easy to make the switch to using gender-neutral Spanish. 69.6% of respondents expressed that they would not prefer to speak a gender-neutral version of Spanish over gendered Spanish.

The sentiments expressed in the fourth section of the survey will be discussed in the discussion section.

Memes

Our data for the meme pages largely lined up with that of our survey responses discussed above but with some key divergence. Only three out of the 20 accounts we looked at, or 15%, ever used gender neutral suffixes in their posts. Of these three accounts, two used exclusively gender neutral suffixes and the last one used the gender neutral terms twice as often as gendered forms. This suggests individuals will generally commit to using the neutral form almost exclusively if they use it at all with the large majority of individuals never doing so.

Interestingly, the two accounts which used gender neutral loanwords from English never used a neutral suffixed Spanish.

While we could not collect substantial demographic information about the administrators of the social media accounts themselves due to their predominantly anonymous nature. However, we could look at the content of their posts to see if certain subject matter correlated with a greater likelihood to use gender neutral suffixes. We found that two of the accounts which used gender neutral suffixes engaged in political discussions supporting left politics within their meme posts such as @pelaeldiente on Instagram. While our survey suggests that the political left holds even worse opinions of gender neutral suffixes than the right, the meme accounts suggest they are more likely to include it in their language.

Discussion

Today, the US recognizes people who are non-binary as an official gender option on a federal level. Inclusivity is a term that can be difficult to define, but Díaz et al. (2022) define an inclusive language as, “’Inclusive’ of many (disenfranchised) communities across the intersections of gender-orientation, race, ethnicity, ability, religion, age, social class, etc. For this reason, many scholars have committed to advocacy of gender nonconforming communities, particularly, trans and non-binary subjects, prefer the use of the term “non-binary” (lenguaje no binario) or “gender neutral” language…” (p. 4). However, Real Academia Española does not acknowledge more than two genders in the language. The adoption of gender neutral Spanish would need the support of a large swath of Spanish speakers at all levels of society to take hold and our data suggests this coalition remains a distant possibility at the moment. Additionally, ethical concerns regarding this topic remain as well with Salinas (2020) writing “Latinx might be unpronounceable for some people of Latin American descent” (p. 153). Perhaps there is a way to become more inclusive, but Salinas argues to take into consideration whether the people of that region can even pronounce Latinx, as it does not follow morphological or phonemic rules of the language.

In the fourth section of the survey, respondents were given the opportunity to express their thoughts on gender-neutral Spanish and the pervading sentiment was that gender-neutral Spanish is “a push by white academics onto a culture who doesn’t want it,” and that it is nothing but another attempt at linguistic imperialism. One respondent said, “As a latino, I find latinx to be one of the worst things to come out of academia and is a barrier to having the broader latino community embrace progressive ideas.” Yet another respondent said, “‘Latinx’ is a colonialist, classist solution dreamt up by white people speaking on behalf of minorities.” Many respondents also questioned why there’s so much focus on incorporating gender-neutrality into Spanish when the same is not true for other gendered languages such as French. Proponents of gender-neutral Spanish expressed concerns over the suffix “x” and expressed a need for better alternatives that make more phonological sense for Spanish speakers.  You can watch this tik-tok to hear more opinions on this divisive subject.

Examining the responses of non-binary individuals to the survey reveals that even this community remains divided on the subject. Of the 6 non-binary respondents to the survey, they were evenly divided in holding positive or negative views of gender-neutral Spanish and most do not use it in their everyday lives. This spread of opinions does not provide a clear mandate in favor of gender-neutral Spanish but also shows a higher level of support than among the general population. Some scholars such as Bonnin and Coronel (2021) argue, “The use of gender-neutral forms, and even of languages with less gendered grammar, helps women to overcome stereotyped gender roles and develop as active agents in institutions” (p.1). However, this sentiment only holds true if the change itself is received well by the populations it attempts to support and not as a performative intrusion. Further research into the role gendered language plays in gender roles and stereotypes within society remains necessary, especially to assess how these opinions continue to shift over time.

Conclusion

Overall, the question of whether the Spanish language, and perhaps other gendered languages, may function, or merely be accepted, as a more gender-inclusive language remains inconclusive. As the data from our surveys demonstrates, attitudes towards changing the Spanish language to be gender-neutral remain resistant and largely skeptical of whether it is even necessary. Surprisingly, negative attitudes towards the topic arose regardless of demographic, contrary to our hypothesis that individuals with political ideologies that are more left-leaning would be more likely to gravitate towards gender-inclusive language which would seemingly aid in neutralizing harmful gender stereotypes. It seems that other concerns were voiced by survey participants that justified moving away from changing the language in its entirety, from concerns that terms like “Latinx” could be viewed as a form of linguistic imperialism and thoughts that for the language to change the culture must change first. Our research done in social media reflects similar perspectives with gender-neutral Spanish suffixes being utilized by only three of the social media accounts we studied. So although the world seems to be progressing towards being more gender-inclusive, feelings towards language change are passionate and as of now, at least in the Spanish language, the majority of speakers are not inclined to change the language, especially if they aren’t the ones deciding the changes.

References

Bonnin, J. E., & Coronel, A. A. (2021). Attitudes toward gender-neutral Spanish: Acceptability and adoptability. Frontiers in Sociology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.629616

Diaz, A. R., Mejía, G., & Villamizar, A. G. (2022). Gender neutral and non-binary language practices in the Spanish language classroom: Tensions between disciplinary and societal changes. L2 Journal, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.5070/l214356302

Ehrlich, S., & King, R. (1992). Gender-based language reform and the social construction of meaning. Discourse & Society, 3(2), 151–166. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42887784

Galvez, A. (2022). The Journey to a Consensus of Gender-Neutral Language in Spanish: Does -x

Really Mark the Spot? . Journal of the Student Personnel Association at Indiana University,

48–56. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/jiuspa/article/view/34412

Gillon, K. & Figueroa, M. (1 October 2018) “TODOS/TODAS/TODES ADDENDUM” In Vocal Fries. https://vocalfriespod.com/2018/10/01/episode-30-todos-todas-todes-addendum/.

Gong, Y. (2016). Online discourse of masculinities in transnational football fandom: Chinese Arsenal fans’ talk around ‘gaofushuai’ and ‘diaosi.’ Discourse & Society, 27(1), 20–37. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26376413

Higa, J., & Dunham, M. (n.d.). Can linguistic innovations bridge the gender divide?: Inclusive language in contemporary Spanish social media. UVM ScholarWorks. Retrieved October 28, 2022, from https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/src/2019/program/153/

Tavits, M. & Pérez, E. O. (2019). Language influences mass opinion toward gender and LGBT equality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(34): 16781-16786. Salinas, C. (2020). The complexity of the “X” in latinx: How latinx/A/O students relate to, identify with, and understand the term latinx. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 19 (2),

149–168. From https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2017.1390464

Lankes, A. (2022, July 20). In Argentina, one of the world’s first bans on gender-neutral language. The New York Times. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/world/americas/argentina-gender-neutral-spanish.html

Introduction and Background

According to common gender norms, girls and women are expected to soften their language and avoid being direct, and to not employ harsh rhetoric. In contrast, boys and men are allowed and expected to not not soften their language, to be direct, and use harsh rhetoric. But these trends are not being seen in social commentary; female social commentators are routinely using harsh rhetoric and being direct with their wordage and their messaging, all while male social commentators are doing the opposite, they are regularly using soft and indirect rhetoric.

Social commentary is not something that has drawn the attention of many researchers, and the works that exist on it primarily deal with the potential political consequences and mass spread of misinformation. Gender and linguistics in social commentary spaces has not been properly researched, this project aims to fill in some of the gaps and provide understanding by analyzing videos from social commentators.

Methods

The design of this project was to transcribe four total YouTube videos from different social commentators, two female and two male, about the same topic and cross-analyze them. The common topic for this project was a sexual assault scene Bridgerton, a show that recently came out on Netflix, it was chosen because it was recent and stirred lots of pushback, criticism, and commentary. The sexual assault scene details Daphne sexually assaulting her husband, Simon, in an attempt to become pregnant. This scene was considered disturbing by a mass audience and all social commentators in this sample also found it disturbing. Cross analysis was based on the use of cursing, euphemisms, and dysphemisms.

The three linguistic features that were analyzed in this project are word choice (curse words), as well as euphemisms and dysphemisms. The use of curse words is relevant because cursing is considered in most spaces and contexts to be socially unpleasant and harsh. Cursing is something that men are not regularly punished for or discouraged from doing, while women are often told that cursing is not “lady-like”. Aditi Sharma explores the gendered double standards for cursing in her article Why Do Women Have Such Limited Swear Words To Ab(Use)? Euphemisms and dysphemisms are relevant because when someone uses an euphemism, they are trying to be less harsh and soften their words, while with dysphemisms, they are trying to make their words harsher for rhetorical effect.

Results

Transcriptions 1 and 2 both came from male commentators, Luke Alexander and Jack Edwards. Neither of them used cursing or dysphemisms, and one of them (Luke Alexander) used an euphemism. Neither of them used the word “rape”, Luke Alexander instead spelled out “R-A-P-E” to avoid saying “rape” or “sexual assault”. In contrast, neither of the female commentators used euphemisms and both of them used the word “rape” directly instead of using a euphemism or spelling it out like Alexander.

Transcriptions 3 and 4 came from female commentators, Nicole a.k.a. “A Seventeenth Grade Nothing” and Ashley Arden. As stated before they did not use euphemisms and both referred to sexual assault directly by saying “rape”. Nicole is the only commentator in this sample that curses. Ashley Arden’s states that this scene is “ugliest scene I’ve ever watched in a teen show”. Both Nicole’s and Ashley Arden’s commentaries are blunt and direct, neither of them use any linguistic feature to soften their tone, wordage, or message. This is the opposite for Luke Alexander and Jack Edwards, neither of them use the word “rape” and neither of them use dysphemisms.

Discussion

Each of the commentators are norm-breakers. Luke Alexander, Nicole, and Jack Edwards in relation to cursing. Nicole for her cursing, Alexander and Edwards for their complete lack of cursing. In Example 3, Nicole curses, this makes her a norm-breaker because it is considered socially unacceptable in many contexts for women to curse. Contrasting Nicole, neither of the male commentators use cursing, which makes them also norm-breakers in most non-formal settings, it is considered appropriate, and often expected for men to curse. Luke Alexander, Nicole, and Ashley Arden are norm-breakers with respect to euphemisms.  Luke Alexander uses a euphemism when he refers to semen as “children juice” and spelling out rape instead of saying it directly. This goes against gendered norms because men are expected to use direct language when communicating, therefore to not use euphemisms. Neither Nicole nor Ashley Arden use euphemisms, which makes them both norm-breakers for not using euphemisms to soften their language, which is something women are expected to do. When women use direct language they can be labeled as “aggressive” or “masculine”.

Conclusion

The purpose of this research was to see if social commentary has created a space for people to subvert gendered linguistic norms and if so, what does it mean for society as a whole. The answer put simply is yes, people of different genders are shown to subvert gender norms, this was shown through looking at the use of cursing, euphemisms, and dysphemisms. This has significant meaning for society, because while gender norms, not just ones dealing with language, are being moved away from, they are still very present and often harm people.

The internet made the ability to social commentate so much more accessible than it had ever been, and this accessibility gave diversity, it gave voices that were not being listened to a way to be heard on a mass scale. Accessibility also gave women and men the ability to communicate to mass audiences in ways that violate gender norms, which is not only significant for the commentators themselves, but also the people that watch them. When people see people that mirror their identities subverting gender norms it gives a sort of permission to the viewer to do the same. This subversion of gender norms can allow people to express themselves more authentically without being punished or ridiculed. While having gender norms is not inherently evil, they are largely oppressive and tie into larger patterns of violence. When people violate gender norms, they can be subject to violence; there are countless examples of this, some of which are women being killed for being rude to men, men who engage in femininity are often the victims of hate-crimes, women being murdered in honor killings, and many more. Subverting gender norms with linguistics is subverting gender norms as a whole, and doing so makes society freer and safer.

References

Crespo-Fernández, E. (n.d.). Sex in Language: Euphemistic and Dysphemistic Metaphors in Internet forums. Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iInaCQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&d=Dysphemism+gender&ots=JeoliQi9La&sig=lTkW2xCP0sZu2YZzWv498Q8IgNY#v=nepage&q=Dysphemism%20gender&f=false

Definitions for social commentary. (n.d.). Retrieved February 21, 2021, from https://www.definitions.net/definition/social+commentary

Info & Stats For Journalists. (2015). National Sexual Violence Resource Center

Kimmons, R., & Veletsianos, G. (2016). Education scholars’ evolving uses of twitter as a conference backchannel and social commentary platform [Abstract]. British Education Research Association, 47(3), 445-464.

Lapadat, J. C., & Lindsay, A. C. (1999). Transcription in Research and Practice: From Standardization of Technique to Interpretive Positionings. Sage Journal.

Orlando, E., & Saab, A. (2020). Slurs, Stereotypes and Insults. Springer Link, 599-621.

Popa-Wyatt, M. (2020). Reclamation: Taking Back Control of Words. Brill, 97(1), 159-176.

Rape culture & statistics. (2014, June 07). Retrieved March 8, 2021, from

Rape Culture & Statistics

Sharma, A. (n.d.). Why do women have such limited swear words to ab(use)? Retrieved March, 2021, from https://www.bingedaily.in/article/women-swear-words-sexist-patriarchy

Swanson, S. C., & Szymanski. (n.d.). From pain to power: An exploration of activism, the #Metoo movement, and healing from sexual assault trauma. Journal of Counseling  Psychology.

Introduction

It is widely accepted that social perceptions of gender usually influence language.

Many studies have been done on gender and language regarding children. Still, the direct correlational role that the embedded gender association in language has on gender identity development within children appears underexplored in literature. Our objective with this study was to analyze the initiation of gendered language compliance during child development by focusing on language production in English-speaking five-year-old children. Our research involved examining conversations between five-year-old boys and girls from the television series The Secret Life of Five Year Olds. We focused on linguistic components such as intensifier adverbs, imperatives, and gender-specific categories of adjectives, as these have provided insights in past research about gender norm reproductions and deviations. We emphasize these specific linguistic features because we felt as though they help address and mold the gender stereotypes and expectations for the children. We hypothesize that boys are more likely to display linguistic features associated with men in their language than girls conforming to their respective gender.

Background

Our proposal aims to understand the relationship that language has with children and their socialization of gender conformity. We chose English-speaking five-year-olds for our research as previous research has shown that by age five, the linguistic capabilities of children are adult-like. Children in the age range of six to ten have solidified their schemas about gender and social norms, so we felt as though studying the age just before this range may allow us to understand the progression and perhaps find intervention methods. According to Owen and Padron (2015), several linguistic features have been specific to each gender. In their study, Owen and Padron observed intensifier adverbs, imperatives, and adjectives in the language of toy advertisements and found substantial evidence on how gender is differentiated through language. These are the linguistic features we chose to examine in our research.

Methods

To search for the linguistic elements of intensifier adverbs, imperatives, gender-specific categories of adjectives, and turn-taking in the language of five-year-old children, we applied conversational analysis, as a theoretical framework, to a British documentary called The Secret Life of Five-Year Olds (see Figure 1). By selecting various clips that were available on YouTube of children’s playtime interactions and interviews, we analyzed natural conversations between the same and opposite gender.

Transcription software programs, such as Otter.ai, were used to transcribe some of the clips initially; however, each one was also manually transcribed using the Jefferson Transcription System to ensure accuracy and included as many linguistic details as possible can be derived. Figure 2 denotes the transcription notation we used for the purposes of our study. To analyze the data, we used a qualitative approach, namely that we situated the presence of the linguistic element we sought for in a social context to derive its meaning about gender conformity. The data and results outlined in the following section elaborate our findings and interpretations.

Figure 2.   Jefferson Transcription System

[word]        overlapping talk

><; <>        quickened or slowed down speech

↑↓            rise or drop in intonation

=             latching or continuation of speech with no pause

(.)           slight pause of no particular length

(1.4)         pause of a particular length

WORD          loud or shouted words

wo:rd         stretched sound

word          rise in volume or emphasis

((word))      comments or descriptions

Results & Analysis

To study intensifier usage, analysis was done on a clip of an experiment designed to provoke a strong reaction: lemonade spiked with salt. The documentary crew attempted to gauge the children’s empathy, but the intent to produce an intense response made it an ideal source of intensifying language.

According to Owen and Padron, “[adult] females used intensifiers […] more frequently than did males.” (2015, p. 70). However, this is not in line with the behavior of the children in the clip analyzed. The boys reacted very strongly to the salted lemonade, complaining, oddly enough, that it was too sweet: “it’s disgusting”; “it’s way too sweet”; “I’m gonna be sick tonight,”; etc. (Figure 3). Conversely, the girls used much less strident language when reacting negatively, and rather than using intensifiers, were prone to using downtoners and hedges: “a teeny bit too much lemon”; “even though I liked it”; “I loved it but”; etc. (Figure 4):

Figure 3. An excerpted transcript of the boys’ reactions to the salty lemonade

1 ELI Uhh- >no< that is disgusting

2 OBS What^ you don’t like it ?

3 ELI it’s too swe:et

4 HAR >it’s way too sweet and I’m gonna be sick tonight<

5 OLI I can’t have any more [that is disgusting]

6 ELI                       [I’m not having any] 

7     more that’s disgusting

Figure 4. A similar excerpt, of the girls' reactions to the salty lemonade

1 SIE it was a tee::ny bit too much lemon

2 ALI I lo::ved the lemon insi:de it ,

3 SIE I think it’s (.) incredible but >I don’t like the lemon

4     in it< I loved it- I loved it [oka^y] ,

5 ALI                               [I loved it]

6 TIA ((shouting)) I LOVED IT BUT I DIDN’T LIKE THE LEMON IN IT

A longitudinal study of word-type acquisition in children aged 3–10, conducted by the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) in 1987, provides some enlightening context. Among the 85 children analyzed for this aspect of the study, intensifier use was either equal or slightly skewed in favor of usage by males before the age of 5. Between the ages of 5 and 10, intensifier use gradually shifted to be slightly skewed in favor of female children, although again not by a significant margin (Schweinberger 2016, sl. 8). When considered in the context of Owen & Padron’s study, this indicates that the gendered division of intensifier use begins only at or after the age of the children in the analyzed video. Therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude that this pattern of gendered language use either a) requires more socialization and b) is less heavily socially emphasized than other gendered language divisions observed in children’s speech at this age.

It is also worth noting that, while the language usage in this clip contradicts the findings of other research papers, it does not contradict the test the filmmakers were running: namely, if there was a gendered difference in whether the children would attempt to cushion their analyses to spare the caretaker’s feelings. In this aspect, the children behaved as expected, with the girls softening their negative reactions where the boys did not. Adding on to the previous potential conclusion, it may be that the societal expectation that women have to ‘be nice’ either takes precedence over the socialization of intensifiers, or that the former occurs earlier in life than the latter.

Deborah Tannen states there are power imbalances in language (1990, pg. 81). She notes that there is a battle for dominance in language where men often interrupt and overlap. According to Tannen’s difference, speech model females have a different culture to male speech structure. This can explain how girls and boys follow different linguistic rules. Interruptions can be shown in two manners: the first to show the listener is excited about the content and the other as a means to purposefully take the role of speaker (Tannen, 1994. p.54). Turn-to-talk is a conversation procedure where the listener intuitively or is indicated to reply in the conversation; this can be done using lexical markers like question and answer. We compared how both genders use turn-taking and interruptions differently. The following data set can be found in season one, episode three of The Secret Life of Five Year Olds on YouTube.

Figure 5 - Season 1 ep 3 (Timestamp 18:12-18:31)

A:Alfie G:George CT:Caretaker


15 A:  That’s not a planet? it’s a, star

16 CT: >What do you guys↑ know about the sun<

17 G:  ITS MADE OF LAVA

18 A:  =No↑ the sun’s not made out of lava it’s made out of

       Gas you billy bummox

19 G:  =No its made of la::va:

20 A:  I looked at books and it said it’s made of gas you 

       big lummox

21 G: They- They’re wrong↑ it’s made [out of la:va]

22 A: [no gas]

In the following conversation between Alfie and George we see multiple pieces of overlap and some interruption. Alfie begins by using overlap which can be signaled by the “[ ]” symbol. Alfie corrects George but follows his statement with an insult. We can see that this begins a competition between the two. They fight back and forth, overlapping each other similarly as when two siblings fight. However, in this instance, we see that overlap is used as a mode to be the last speaker. In turn-taking, the last speaker at the end of an argument can be seen as a “winner.” Each boy competes to “win” the conversation thus proving and establishing their hierarchical rank at the top.

Figure 6- Season 1 ep 3 (Timestamp 17:41-17:53)

E:Ellie A:Alfie



6 E:  What’s↑ another, way that you can get the rolling disease

7 A:  Ehh

8 E:  Touching the grass↑

9 A:  Oh- Oh I-↑((know)) picking the grass

10 E: Okay↑ pick (.) pick (.) pick (.)

11 A: YAY↑

12 E: Cowa:bunga? (h) This is so much fun

Ellie uses many characteristics in this interaction with Alfie found in Figure 6. First, we see Ellie asking Alfie questions; she uses elision to elicit a response from Alfie as a means to keep him engaged in their conversation (Goffman, 1976, p. 265). When she does not hear a response from Alfie, she tries to give him an example. Alfie replies with what he thinks should be the answer, and Ellie immediately agrees. She goes as far as physically picking the grass to show Alfie her support for his answer. In the difference model approach, Tannen and Shari Kendal state that girls follow turn-taking rituals higher than males, who dominate the conversation and speak more often (1983, pg. 83). Throughout the entire episode, we see that Alfie is the main participant in their daily activities and often takes the main speaker role.

Discussion & Conclusion

This study builds upon previous studies revolving around children conforming to their gender and linguistic elements. Our conversational analysis confirms our hypothesis that boys are quite prominent in displaying linguistic features that are concerning masculinity enforced towards males. Girls are also conforming to the soft-spoken and less dominant persona that’s enforced within females. The footage from The Secret Life of 5 Year-Olds supports our hypothesis as it exemplifies how boys stick to the masculine persona that boys are labeled. From analyzing the transcripts, we’ve seen how boys were more likely to speak and interrupt in comparison to the girls. The lemonade video specifically showed how the boys used harsh intensifiers while the girls were less strident when criticizing the lemonade. The interaction between Alfie and George represents how males have the tendency to come up top in the conversation to assert their stance. Overall, there were no drastic surprises as the boys and girls acted according to their respective stereotypical gender.

Exploring the depths of these 5-year-olds’ linguistic mannerisms allows us as a society, especially parents, to become more cognizant of the unconscious bias norms that are enforced upon children in modern western culture. Gaining more insight into these matters provides parents better guidance to incorporate a gender-neutral standing when raising their children. With today’s progressiveness on gender neutrality, it’s essential to know how influential reinforcing gendered language can be on children’s use of the stereotypical linguistic elements as gendered language can play a big role in shaping our identity and assertiveness in society. Further research can help us understand the level of magnitude gendered language has on children. Perhaps even by studying the growth of the children’s speech as they grow into adults, we can see the effect gendered language can have on them as adults and in their working environments.

References

Goffman, E., 1976. Replies and Responses in Language in Society 5.3, 257-314

Owen, P. R., & Padron, M. (2015, June 1). The Language of Toys: Gendered Language in Toy Advertisements. Digital Collections at Texas State University. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://digital.library.txstate.edu/handle/10877/12878

Schweinberger, M. (2016, March 31 – April 2). On the acquisition of intensifier constructions. 17. Norddeutsches Linguistisches Kolloquium (17. NLK). Hamburg; Germany. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/77407086/On_the_acquisition_of_intensifier_constructions.

Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York, NY: Morrow.

Tannen, D. (1994). Gender and Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.

Introduction and Background

First impressions are shaped by a myriad of superficial ideals. Whether it is the way someone presents themself physically (Willis & Todorov, 2006), how they are described by others (Asch, 1952), or even the way one shakes another person’s hand. These opinions are established based on mostly shallow facts. Similar to physical appearance, language use can also determine what particular opinions are formed.

This research proposal mainly intended to gain insight into how word choice influences judgment when used during social situations by examining if it alters one’s impression formation. The main goal was to better understand the attitude people have about profane words by assessing the reactions the general public has to curse words.

A couple of studies have already been done on the relationship between profanity use and  speaker perception, the most notable, in my opinion, being ‘Language Choice Matters: When Profanity Affects How People Are Judged’ (DeFrank & Kahlbaugh, 2018.) To very briefly summarize, the study found that there is indeed a link between profanity use and poorer perceptions against the speaker. Additionally, it was also found that those use profanities were generally seen as nonconforming, less intelligent, and less friendly. However, it disregarded the speaker’s gender when examining the influence profane language has when used during conversations and the disparities that may come with it.

In addition to what DeFrank and Kahlbaugh have researched, I would also like to explore the relationship, or maybe the lack of a relationship between profanity use and speaker perception and how different gender identities might also shape judgment.

My first hypothesis was that overall impressions against the speaker using profane language will be the poorest amongst the other speakers. I also hypothesized that participants that are regularly exposed to profanities (whether they use them or hear them), are more likely to form impressions that are neutral to the speakers using obscenities. Lastly, I hypothesized that female participants will rate male speakers with more poor/negative ratings compared to female speakers. The main question I intended on answering with this study was, ‘Does using profane language change the way one is perceived by others?’ I also aimed to answer a subset of questions, ‘Does regular exposure to profane language skew one’s ability to form a negative opinion against users of profanities ?’ and ‘Is there a general consensus that male speakers using profane language will be rated poorer compared to their female counterparts?’

Methods

I used an online survey which was sent out through text and social media. Participants were asked to evaluate the vulgarity of 6 (Fuck, Bitch, Shit, Asshole/Ass, Motherfucker, Pussy) of the most commonly used swear words in California using Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (not vulgar) to 10 (extremely vulgar.) I chose to omit slurs.

Participants were also asked how frequently they use and hear profanities. Afterwards, participants were presented with a set of conversations, all being slightly altered versions of the same conversation with and without the use of profanity alongside substitutions for their more ‘inoffensive’ counterparts. The speakers were paired as follows: male/female, male/male, and female/female. Also included were certain conditions where no speaker is using profanity, one speaker is using profanity, and two speakers are using profanity. Each of the aforementioned conditions occurred in all of the previously mentioned speaker gender pairings. To circumvent any variables, the core content of the conversations remained strictly consistent. The ONLY variable that was adjusted was whether there is or there is not profane language being used. Additionally, the conversations a participant interacted with were randomly decided through an online random number generator.  Participants were then asked to rate a speaker on trustworthiness, intelligence, and friendliness. The conversation below was presented to the participants.

Using Google Forms, I was able to collect voluntary response samples from my target population (18 – 25 year old non-religious native US California English speakers.) A total of 138 responses were received. 37 responses from males and 101 responses from females. Collecting the data through an online survey was the most reliable way to address my RQ. Creating controlled contexts was easier, and so was operationalizing the responses I received.

Results and Analysis

On average, male participants saw female speakers. Female participants saw male speakers were more offensive in context than they rated male ale speakers as more offensive in context than did female speakers.

On a (1 – 10) scale, ratings were generally higher when none of the speakers were using profanities, and significantly lower when both speakers used profane language (independent of gender).

I recorded and analyzed the level of exposure to profanities on a daily basis as well as the frequency at which the conversation speakers were being rated on a scale of 1 – 10. Additionally, I recorded and analyzed the frequency of female participants rating male speakers more offensive than female speakers and vice versa.

Discussion and Conclusion

The use of obscenities DID result in less favorable impression ratings of the speaker in overall impression on intelligence, trustworthiness, and friendliness (See Figure 2). There was no evidence that regular exposure to obscenities meant neutral impressions against profane language users would be formed. Female participants saw male speakers more offensive in context than they did with female speakers and the same goes for male participants seeing female speakers as more offensive (See Figure 1).

Profanity use leads to poorer impression ratings, independent of the speaker’s gender. Profanity creates the perception of vulgarity, which in turn leads to the impression of reduced trustworthiness, sociability, and intelligence, no matter the gender.

Just a little extra random fun fact that came out of my survey’s data that I couldn’t fit into my presentation! The word that was found to be most vulgar amongst the participants of my survey was ‘bitch.’ If I’m allowed to speculate, I believe this could be due to the word ‘bitch’ having a derogatory connotation towards women specifically, and I had a lot more female participants, more than half, make up the study pool. Furthermore, I also found a pattern in which female participants rated ‘bitch’ and ‘bastard’ more offensive than the male participants in the study, which may reinforce my earlier speculation. But of course there is no true evidence behind what I’ve said, but I think future research about this topic would lead to some interesting results.

The limited male responses from the data collected leads some results to be interpreted with caution! Future research could examine the specific categories of profanity to determine if words from different categories differ in their power. Implications from this study and future research can help with understanding how language choices affect the way people are judged.

Similarly, another study conducted by Paradise, Cohl, Zweig (1980), found that, no matter the gender of profane language speakers, the act itself, the use of obscenities, led to impressions of reduced competence and less positive overall impressions.

I believe that these findings as well as my study’s data are indispensable in garnering a much deeper understanding of how one’s presentation of self and how someone chooses what words to say affects perception in ways that are fully unknown.

The words someone chooses to use will not only leave an emotional impact (which could be another topic for the future), but also a potentially long-lasting impression that may be difficult to alter. It is important to understand what image language projects and to understand that word choice/language choices DO matter.

References

Asch, S. E. (1952). Social Psychology. Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/10025-000

Bergen, B. (2016). What the f: What swearing reveals about our language, our brains, and ourselves. New York, NY: Basic Books.

DeFrank, M., & Kahlbaugh, P. (2018). Language choice matters: When profanity affects how       people are judged. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 38(1), 126–141. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927×18758143

Paradise, L. V., Cohl, B., Zweig, J. (1980). Effects of profane language and physical attractiveness on perceptions of counselor behavior. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 27, 620-624.

Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First Impressions. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01750.x

Introduction and Background

Our research focused on the first episode from Love is Blind which featured Jessica Batton, a 34-year-old white woman from Chicago, who works as a Regional Manager.  The public coined her iconic voice as a “sexy baby voice,” but the “sexy baby voice” was only apparent when she spoke to potential matches and disappeared when she relayed her experience in camera confessional interviews. “Sexy baby voice” according to linguists is achieved by raising your pitch and engaging in upspeak where the phrase ends with a rising pitch. Through our analysis we labeled Jessica’s two voices as “sexy baby voice” and her “professional voice.” In order to concretely measure the changes of her vocal modulation our study utilized the linguistic tool, PRAAT by inputting voice recordings from the show and comparing Jessica’s “sexy baby voice” used in the pods versus her “professional voice” utilized in the individual camera confessionals. Furthermore, we used conversational analysis to juxtapose her dual voices and to deepen our understanding of Jessica and determine if her pitch use fluctuated in accordance to the subject of her discussion. By creating a transcript between Jessica and her potential partner, we were able to illustrate the nuanced changes described through PRAAT and what the speaker was indexing through her vocal modulation.

Hypothesis
We expect Jessica to employ a higher vocal pitch when she is interacting with a male suitor, in the pods versus utilizing lower vocal pitch, consistent with a professional speaking voice, during her individual, camera confessionals. We expected our research findings to be consistent with our hypothesis in accordance with Jessica’s fluctuating voice pitch depending on her contextual setting and how such use of varying vocal pitches are reflective of her attempt to index two different identities in her personal and professional life.

Methodology/Project Design

We chose to limit our primary data collection to Season 1, Episode 1, entitled Is Love Blind as Jessica garnered the most screen time compared to other episodes later in the season, as she navigated the complexities of finding true love between two potential partners: Barnett and Mark. This case study was particularly notable to use because her modulating voice samples, according to professional or personal context, would provide us with substantial material to analyze throughout the episode. In our research, we collected a total of four samples and chose samples where a dramatic change in voice was evident Another reason for choosing these four samples was their back-to-back nature. Jessica used her professional voice when giving an interview and then used her “sexy baby voice” moments later when entering the pod. We then put the four samples into PRATT, which allowed us to draw conclusions about formant values, pitch, and intensity, when speaking to future relationship prospects versus one-on-one camera confessional. We then created a transcript of each of the 4 samples and used conversational analysis methodologies. We then collected 12 additional samples that we ran through PRATT with the purpose of observing her pitch formants. The subject content of the vocal samples was not analyzed. We watched the relevant episode, recorded Jessica’s speech, transcribed her voice samples into PRATT, created a transcript, and subsequently analyzed her pitch patterns in relation to what she was saying. By carefully analyzing the linguistic features of Jessica’s voice, we were able to deepen our understanding of Jessica as a social being as she indexed construction of her identity when speaking to relationship prospects versus addressing the camera directly in individual confessionals. 

Literature Review: Woman’s Vocal modulation in Dating Context

Helen Sautason, an English and Linguistic Professor at York St. John University in London offers insight into why a woman’s voice may change when speaking to a potential partner. In Sautason’s words, “the speaker will put themselves in a position where they sound less powerful because they have a belief that men find that attractive, and they don’t want (men) to feel threatened. There’s always been a value placed on girlish femininity” (Dazed, 2020, p. 2). Additionally, in a study entitled, “Voice Pitch Modulation in Human Mate Choice,” thirty adult men and women were observed in real time speed-dating events; their vocal patterns were analyzed for pitch changes. What was concluded from this study was that “women spoke in a higher-pitched and less monotone voice on speed dates with men they chose as potential mates.” The authors of the research observed that “the trade-off implied by this dichotomy suggests that women may volitionally raise their voice pitch to signal youth and femininity but lower their pitch in contexts where they wish to be taken seriously, or to indicate intimacy to a listener” (Pisanski et al., 2018, p. 2). As we examine our focus episode, we see that this observation is evident.  

Data Analysis: Pitch Formants

The differences in frequencies translate directly to pitch differentiation. A lower frequency indicates a lower pitch, while a higher frequency indicates a higher pitch. Figure 1 is a visual representation of Jessica’s first on-screen confessional where she introduces herself as a contestant on the show for the first time. Here she used her professional voice which produced a low F1 frequency of 606Hz. 

Figure 2 is a visual representation of Jessica’s first time in the pods where she meets Barnett.  Here she used her sexy which produced a high F1 frequency of 1069Hz. 

Her use of two different voices and varying pitches is a direct attempt to index two different identities. There is a juxtaposition of two “first moments” that are happening within the context of Jessica’s introduction as an on-screen character to the world. Excerpt 1 provides a direct transcription of what Jessica says in her camera confessional, where her F1 produced a frequency of 606Hz (line 1).

Excerpt 1: Jessica’s First Confessional Interview “Professional Voice” 

[6:38- 7:00]

1 Jess: My name is Jessica Batton I'm from Rock Falls Illinois

2       <I’ve had> a rigid set of: standards I would only date a

3       guy between 1 to 5 years older I would only date (0.1)

4       athletes because I’m really athletic

Here, the audience is led to believe that Jessica is an established and serious woman looking for a mature relationship, to fit the bill of her desired qualities of a man, which is consistent with her use of a lower pitch voice register. The second introduction of Jessica portrays a different picture of her identity to Barnett, which contrasts sharply with her introduction to the world; a direct transcription of what Jessica says in the pods can be found in Excerpt 2 where her F1 produced a frequency of 1069Hz (line 8). 

Excerpt 2: Jessica’s Initial Pod Meeting “Sexy Baby Voice”

[6:38- 7:00]

1 Jess: But  I’m 34 years old and I may not find someone based

2       on:: the criteria that I’ve::: put in place for myself

3       I’m ready to start a family and::  I want to have:::

4       the most perfect marriage

5 Mark: What’s your name,

6 Jess: I’m Jessica_

7 Mark: Jessica_  Nice to meet you Jessica  I’m Mark 

8 Jess: Nice to meet you  Mark ?

Suddenly, she is bubbly, girlish, and demure, consistent with her use of the high pitch, feminine, sexy-baby voice register. It is implied that Jessica’s use of the sexy baby voice serves her the purpose of portraying herself as a likable woman that should be seen as desirable to the male gaze, or in this case, the male ear. Shortly after Jessica’s sexy baby voice driven interaction with Barnett, it appears that her high-pitched voice had captivated the attention of Barnett who comments on how nice her voice sounds. 

Similarly, the initial meeting between Jessica and Mark, her second potential romantic partner on the show, merited our attention and examination as it was another unique instance of Jessica’s voice modulation. Before meeting Mark Jessica gave a camera confessional discussing her past dating. When analyzing the F1 formant frequencies of her “professional voice,” in her camera confessional her F1 frequency produced a value of: 607Hz. The visual representation of her formants can be found in Figure 3. 

Minutes after Jessica’s camera confessional Jessica enters the pods where Jessica leverages her “sexy-baby” voice. In the pods, her pitch had increased and produced a value of 810Hz, a drastic difference in pitch from her interview frequency of 607Hz. The visual representation of her formants can be seen in Figure 4.

Excerpt 3 provides a transcription of Jessica’s use of her professional voice, which produced a low F1 of 607Hz (lines 1-4). 

Excerpt 3: Jessica’s Confessional Interview “Professional Voice” 

[30:23-30:30]

1 Jess:  There’s never been a time in my life (.) when I’ve been

2        able to really (0.1) focus solely on finding love_

3        here in the experiment (0.1) you spend every second  

4        of every minute searching for your soul mate

Jessica’s statement pushes the perception of Jessica’s social identity as a professional “working woman”’ who does not have time to spare to be dating. In the study, “Voice Pitch Modulation In Human Mate Choice”, the authors explain the common perception of women who have a lower-pitched voice as “consistently judged as more dominant, competent and mature, and as better leaders than women with a higher voice pitch” (Pisanski et al., 2018, p. 2). It is therefore not a coincidence that Jessica uses her “professional voice” emulating a pitch drop when speaking about her personal life and lack of time to engage in dating.

Excerpt 4  provides a direct transcription of Jessica’s conversations with Mark, where her sexy baby voice was used frequently, and produced a high F1 frequency of 810Hz.

Excerpt 4: Jessica’s Pod Meeting “Sexy Baby Voice”

[31:26- 32:11]

1 Mark:  holy shit we’re the same fucking person (.) and it's 

2        like (.) I want to raise my kids with religion

3        Christianity you know because that’s how I was raised 

4 Jess:  yeah

5 Mark:  and you know (.) I have a tattoo on my ribs (.) like  

6        it’s a cross with my parents initials on the top and

7        bottom (.) my sister and brother on an empty plaque

8 Jess:  wow 

9 Mark:  so when I have kids I can initial their names on it  

10       (.) and Psalm 19:14 going across it

11 Jess:  °I love that (.) that makes me so happy 

12 Mark:  (( laughs)) 

13        (0.2)

14 Mark:  how many kids do you want?

15 Jess:  three

16 Mark:  three (,) ? I'm down

17 Jess:  ok

18 Mark:  I want two boys and a girl

19 Jess:  I like that ,

20 Mark:  my face hurts

21 Jess:  why ?

22 Mark:  I’m smiling a lot

23 Jess:  you are?

24 Mark:  maybe

25 Jess:  that makes me so happy

Throughout the conversation, her replies were short and affirmative of Mark’s feelings and sentiments about religion and the number of children they desire. A study titled “New Zealand Women Are Good to Talk to: An Analysis of Politeness Strategies In Interaction” explains that American women are supportive and cooperative conversationalists; they act as an ideal and responsive audience – usually to men.” (Holmes, 1993, p. 92) The idea that women often act as “an ideal and responsive audience” to men, might explain the use of Jessica’s “sexy baby voice” in this interaction with Mark and the need to protect his ego.  There exists a contrast between Jessica’s dual identities because with her professional voice, we interpret her as a head strong working woman, versus with her sexy baby voice we tend to perceive her as flirty, and submissive “dumb blonde” archetype (refer to Figure 5 for an image of Jessica). 

For the purposes of confirming our hypothesis, we collected further data reinforcing Jessica’s consistent use of vocal modulations in response to alternating scenarios. The data presented in Figure 6 is a series of F1 frequencies that reaffirm Jessica’s use of higher pitch in her romantic interactions and lower pitch in her on-screen camera confessionals while reflecting on her life experiences.

Conclusions

There have been numerous studies conducted on voice modulation in various settings and even dating simulations, however, the objective of our study is to fill the gap in the body of research in the context of reality dating television, analyzing how individuals use their voices as a means of connecting with a potential partner who cannot physically see them.

In Love is Blind, we found that Jessica Batton deliberately altered her voice in order to make her sound more attractive to potential suitors, and that her sexy baby voice contrasted sharply with the pitch frequency she used when speaking directly to the camera. Therefore, based on Jessica’s varying voice modulation patterns in response to differentiated social contexts, we reaffirm the notion that voice can be used as a tool to construct and index an identity in specific social environments.  When completing our case study, we were cognizant of the limitations, more so, that a reality television show can easily manipulate an image of a woman through the editing of the production team  Our research was also limited as we only conducted a case study and did not analyze if this applied to others on the show, and did not analyze other episodes to mark if there was a change. In light of this, although our study does not definitively establish that women change their voice in the situational context of all reality dating television, it is one glaring instance of the degree to which shifting vocal modulation can affect the external perception of a person’s identity. 

References

Dazed. (2020, March 9).  Investigating the ‘sexy baby voice’ phenomenon. Dazed.
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Introduction and Background

Language has the power to reinforce harmful racial stereotypes and to determine how marginalized groups navigate American society. These groups whose speech differs from standardized English, specifically Black communities, are viewed as lacking grammar and speaking a less sophisticated language. Despite these misinformed perceptions of AAVE, many people on social media platforms, including Twitter and TikTok, appropriate AAVE words, phrases, and stylings, claiming these features as part of Internet speech. Such phenomenon continues, despite attempts from actual AAVE speakers to denounce its harmfulness:

Previous studies have researched AAVE appropriation by non-speakers on modern usage; although the analysis is limited, these papers provide a framework for why and how people with different genders and sexualities appropriate AAVE. Elaine Chun did a case study on an individual Korean-American male and his usage of AAVE “slang,” theorizing that he used it to index a hypermasculine persona and separate himself from European Americans (Chun, 2001). Due to the lack of material on the LGBTQ+ community’s utilization of AAVE, we speculated that LGBTQ+ members also used it to disassociate themselves from the white mainstream and to appear hip and nonconformist. To further explore AAVE and the personas it indexes, Ilbury argues that online spaces use the orthographic representations of AAVE to embody a “Sassy Queen” persona, which relies on stereotypes of Black women (Ilbury, 2020). Furthermore, non-Black speakers perform similar stereotype-based persona construction when they “borrow” African American Language to participate in hip hop or urban youth style. Through media representation and the marketability of “Black cool,” which is the culmination of all the desirable features of Blackness: trendiness, resilience, and eloquence, many young people and influencers use AAVE to index this stereotype based on white imagination (Roth Gordan et al., 2020). Corporate companies recognize the benefits of profiting from this perceived coolness, exploiting AAVE in their marketing campaigns and their partnerships with young influencers. These articles assist us in understanding the social and financial motivations of non-Black people’s usage of AAVE and why they take on specific personas.

In light of the existing literature, we conducted a sociolinguistic study of non-Black Gen Z members by comparing their use of language in humorous and non-humourous contexts to identify how they utilize AAVE lexicon and accent to index a “funny” or “cool” persona. Also, due to the lack of research regarding the LGBTQ+ community’s usage of AAVE and the intersection of gender, our study analyzed the frequency of these linguistic features in social media influencers’ speech, particularly those who fit these categories. Overall, the usage of AAVE that became popularized through the Internet varies depending on gender, sexuality, and context. Methods We watched videos from eight non-Black, American, Gen Z influencers on YouTube and TikTok and recorded the instances in which they employed a lexical item or grammatical construction borrowed from AAVE.

Methods

We watched videos from eight non-Black, American, Gen Z influencers on YouTube and TikTok and recorded the instances in which they employed a lexical item or grammatical construction borrowed from AAVE. Our numerical analysis was based on a simple counting method. While it seems that counting a singular “instance” of grammar would be impossible in a traditional linguistic sense, this was possible because the influencers did not use any full grammatical constructions, but rather just one word in to imitate an AAVE grammatical style; e.g., “be” as in “[subject] be [verb]ing.” To determine what words and phrases were instances of AAVE, we referenced this guide, which was created by a group of Black people and non-black people of color with the intent to reduce appropriation in online communities. For words with multiple indexical meanings (such as “bitch” as a slur for women or “ain’t” as part of Southern dialect), we took their context into account to assess whether they were appropriated from AAVE. The eight influencers we examined were:

These influencers are a small group of the most popular internet users, and should not be considered a representative sample of all influencers of internet users. Rather, we intend for their selection to be a series of eight case studies examining intraspeaker differences in AAVE use. When watching the videos, we separated their content into two contexts for comparative purposes:

Non-humorous: Any segment of video or full video centered around the promotion of a product or service, such as a promotion of the influencer’s merch or a brand sponsorship

Humorous: Any other segment of video, because even those who are not solely comedy YouTubers are known to include humor in their content

We considered commercial content like sponsored segments, brand collaboration videos, and formal interviews non-humorous because influencers tend to act “professional” and remove the informal, humorous aspects of their speech in promotional contexts. If their use of AAVE is significantly higher in humorous contexts, we can assume that their use of AAVE is tied to the indexing of humor, rather than a reflection of their natural speech variety. For the LGBTQ+ speakers, usage of AAVE mostly was characterized by borrowed lexical terms that indexed sass and cheekiness. Here is an example of how we recorded and examined AAVE use. This is transcribed from a Nikita Dragun video titled “REACTING TO MY BOY VIDEOS!!”:

● [0:58] “tea” (used to describe drama and not the drink) 

● [2:13] “clock it the house honey,” 

● [3:08] “shook,” 

● [7:08] “unclockable” (derived from clock), 

● [7:31] “thick” (referring to a person’s figure and not literal thickness). 

● Total: 5 in 10 min

This is transcribed from a Bretman Rock video titled “Hugging for the first time? Catching up with my Sister”:

● [01:11-01:24] I just know they’re bomb though. I just know they’re bomb_ (bomb meaning cool/great, extremely positive connotations) we have two dishes of broth--uhm; they’re both seafood broth one is spicy and one is mild and I believe this one is kimchi. We have udon Chinese CABbage enoki mushrooms up. In. this. BITCH. (imitating AAVE grammatical structures) 

● [01:57-2:17] SIS. (used to refer to friends/peers, not literally speaker’s sister, although in this case she is) whatchu been up to? (grammatical structures) PERIOD! (used to mean “and that’s that,” a marker of finality—online may be spelled “periodt”) and we gon keep doing you. (grammatical structure) Purr. (used to express approval/satisfaction) um YEAH BITCH you’re twenty ONE we can have drinking videos now. Period. 

● [02:55-03:02] she got FUCKT! (lexical feature, -t suffix replacing -ed) UP!Perio;d that’s all that matters_ NEW age; new DICK. purr! 

● [03:37-03:39] this bitch been telling everybody (using the habitual be, e.g. is, are, am) 

● [04:15-04:17] yeah you don’t deserve. Period.

● [04:34-04:41] the thing IS she ain’t even done like celebrating her birthday (grammatical structure) yet what the <<slurred, quick>fuck’re you gonna do in LA bitch this bitch is gonna stay in my apartment 

● [04:54-05:01] bitch I always be telling you tips and tricks but you don’t even listen so it’s like you know what some people just wants to learn on their own and that’s fine 
● Total: 14 instances in 5 minutes 
● Overall, Bretman Rock’s usage tends toward leaning heavily on the “sassy Black woman” stereotype as a persona. He overutilizes—at times randomly and incorrectly— “periodt” and more commonly puts on a persona when he is interacting with women and LGBTQ+ individuals.

As for the Non-LGBTQ+ speakers, their usage of AAVE varied. Males usually used borrowed grammatical forms and lexical terms. Here’s an excerpt from Ricegum’s video titled “Meeting My Online Crush For The First Time!”:

● [00:43] - [0:45] Yo so listen, but you can’t even be sliding into dms in Tik Toks (invariant be usage) 
● [00:58] - [01:02] She’s finna just appear. It’s finna just be magic (borrowed term) 
● [05:33] - [05:35] But you don’t be hittin’ those other dudes back? 
● Overall, Ricegum ports an overall blaccent and overutilized penultimate consonant deletion. 
● Total: 10 instances in 8 minutes

For female users, their usage of AAVE varied based on their humor. In particular, one of the influencers showed signs of self-awareness and utilizes it ironically. On the other hand, Brittany Broski uses lexicon to index a sassy persona. Here’s an example from Brittany’s video titled
“Deep Diving My Angry 2013 Tumbler”:

● [0:52]-[0:58] This whole idea of stan culture on Twitter really was like the thing at the time. If you didn’t have a stan account 
● [1:00]-[1:04] So this was my stan account in high school because I never had a One Direction Twitter 
● [3:50]-[3:54] Oh my god I loved this bitch I ate this shit up 
● [4:57]-[5:00] I genuinely was like real mean don’t wear pink, swag 
● [8:44]-[8:48] Another boyfriend Harry post wow period, period 
● Total: 11 instances in 11 minutes

Results and Analysis

Discussion and Conclusions

Most of the influencers examined here have significant differences (see Figure 1) in AAVE usage between humorous and non-humorous contexts, which confirms our hypothesis that influencers choose to change their styles for social benefits. Sexuality and gender expression also appear to have an effect on the instances of AAVE usage. LGBTQ+ influencers, especially men, tended to use AAVE to index a “sassy” persona, based on the stereotype of the “sassy Black woman.” On the other hand, non-LGBTQ+ men tended to use AAVE to index a “tough” or “masculine” persona, based on the cultural masculinization of Black people. Influencers use AAVE to index a funny, sassy, or edgy persona because of cultural stereotypes around Black people and their language. These stereotypes date back to minstrelsy in which Black people were treated as entertainment tools for white people. Today, this derogatory cultural lineage lives on in the appropriation of Black people’s language as an entertainment tool for non-Black people. These public figures’ influence leads to further spread of these speech patterns, indexed in these ways, without acknowledgement of the source and the price paid by Black people who have native fluency in AAVE. Influencers of this caliber have great potential to impact their audience, and carelessly using AAVE without acknowledging its origins will propagate the idea that AAVE is simply netspeak, which leads to the broader population of Non-Black Gen Z speakers using incorrect forms, or completely disregarding the cultural implications of knowing the language:

People tend to feel inappropriate when they incorrectly use grammar in a language they do not speak or are just beginning to learn. However, that does not appear to be the case for when non-speakers of AAVE misuse its grammar. This further contributes to the myth that AAVE is not, in fact, seen as a legitimate vernacular language of its own, and helps fuel extreme cases where people actively discredit AAVE entirely:

It is not inherently bad that the internet is shortening gaps between different cultures and as a consequence, languages. However it is the due diligence of every responsible internet user to ensure that they are not just passively absorbing all the information that is available to them and mindlessly replicating them. When the majority uses (and misuses) the language spoken by a minority only to express particular ideas, they, at best, contribute to the viewpoint that the variant is not legitimate, and at worst, reaffirm the racist ideologies that exist to oppress Black people (see Figure 5). When Black people use AAVE, people assume that they don’t know Standard English. However, when non-Black people use AAVE, people assume that it’s a choice—one to appeal to humor. These double standards further propagate racism towards Black people and devaluation of African American Vernacular.

References

Chun, E. W. (2001). The Construction of White, Black, and Korean American Identities through African American Vernacular English. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 11(1), 52–64. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2001.11.1.52

Davis, Chloe. “The Language of Ballroom.” The Gay & Lesbian Review, 9 Mar. 2021, https://glreview.org/the-language-of-ballroom/

Eberhardt, M., & Freeman, K. (2015). ‘First things first, I’m the realest’: Linguistic appropriation, white privilege, and the hip-hop persona of Iggy Azalea. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 19(3), 303–327. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12128

Ilbury, C. (2020). “Sassy Queens”: Stylistic orthographic variation in Twitter and the enregisterment of AAVE. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 24(2), 245–264. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12366

Roth-Gordon, J., Harris, J., & Zamora, S. (2020). Producing white comfort through “corporate cool”: Linguistic appropriation, social media, and @BrandsSayingBae. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2020(265), 107–128. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2020-2105