Published: Sept. 29, 2020

queer-trans-sociophonetics-flyerThe sound of the queer voice has captured the intrigue of the popular and sociolinguistic imagination, spurring a wave of research investigating what makes someone “sound gay”. While much research has sought to uncover the phonetic markers of the (cisgender, White, male) “gay sounding” voice, only recently has a wave of research begun to investigate the myriad ways that queer speakers of other gender, sexual, and racial identities articulate their identities. This panel continues this trajectory, aiming to: (1) explore how understudied and marginalized queer identities— including transgender, non-binary, and non-White identities— are articulated using phonetic, variationist methods; (2) discuss the implications that the phonetic patterns of these speakers have on theories of sociolinguistic variation that are based on White, cisgender, heterosexual speakers and often taken for granted as if they apply universally; (3) to explore the consequences of the ways that dominant theories and methodologies in sociolinguistics don’t account for the full range of queer experiences.

Presented by:Linguistic Society of America Committee on LGBTQ+ Issues in Linguistics [COZIL];Culture, Language, and Social Practice [CLASP] Program at the University of Colorado

When:Saturday, October 24, 2020, 3:00-5:00pm Eastern (1-3 MDT)
FREE Registration:

AGENDA (click here for abstracts)

Introduction to Queer and Trans Sociophonetics
Jeremy Calder, University of Colorado Boulder

Tran/s/gender: assessing the effects of the social construction of gender on speech. A focus on transgender /s/ realisations
James Parnell-Mooney, University of Glasgow

Variable vocal tract length as sociolinguistic feature
Lily Clifford, Stanford University

Pajara/s/ in wigs: bilingualism, latinidad, and gendered sociophonetics in Miami’s Queer Barrio
Christopher Mendoza, Florida International University

Ér-Change: shifting from “smooth operator” to “sexual modern” in Beijing Queer Media
Andrew Ting, University of Colorado Boulder

Normativity in normalization: Methodological challenges in the (automated) analysis of vowels among non-binary speakers
deandre miles-hercules and Lal Zimman, University of California Santa Barbara

Audience Q&A