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Article published In: Journal of Language and Sexuality
Vol. 8:1 (2019) ► pp.1–29

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Performing graysexuality

A segmental and prosodic analysis of three voices employed in the construction of the graysexual self

 | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Published online: 7 March 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.18003.coo
Abstract
While recent work in sociophonetics has focused on the speech of gay men (Gaudio, Rudolf. 1994. Sounding gay: Pitch properties in the speech of gay and straight men. American Speech 69(1): 30–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Podesva, Robert. 2007. Phonation type as a stylistic variable: The use of falsetto in constructing a persona. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11(4): 478–504. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Podesva, Robert J., Roberts, Sarah J. & Campbell-Kibler, Kathryn. 2002. Sharing resources and indexing meanings in the production of gay styles. In Language and Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and Practice, Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, Robert J. Podesva, Sarah J. Roberts & Andrew Wong (eds), 175–189. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), lesbian women (Camp, Margaret. 2009. Japanese Lesbian Speech: Sexuality, Gender Identity, and Language. PhD dissertation, University of Arizona.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Van Borsel, John, Vandaele, Jana & Corthals, Paul. 2013. Pitch and pitch variation in lesbian women. Journal of Voice 27(5): 656.e13–656.e16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and transgender people (Zimman, Lal. 2017a. Gender as stylistic bricolage: Transmasculine voices and the relationship between fundamental frequency and /s/. Language in Society 46(3): 339–370. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), the speech styles of asexual individuals remain understudied. This study analyzes an interview with a graysexual and homoromantic cisgender student at a research university in California, examining the segmental and prosodic characteristics of three voices he uses to construct and position his graysexual identity: a questioning voice, a judgmental voice, and a non-desiring voice. The analysis finds that the questioning voice is characterized by decreased speech rate, high F0, and modal phonation; the judgmental voice, by low F0; and the non-desiring voice, by low F0, narrow F0 range, low intensity, reduced gesture, flat facial expression, and a centralized vowel space. The results emphasize the importance of stylistic reticence to the construction of graysexuality.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Language and asexuality
  • 2.Background: Interview context
  • 3.Questioning, judgmental, and non-desiring voices as resources for graysexual identity construction
    • 3.1Questioning voice
    • 3.2Judgmental voice
    • 3.3Non-desiring voice
  • 4.Comparison and discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Transcription conventions
  • References
References (32)
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