Perceived sexual orientation and speech style: A perceptual and acoustic analysis of intentionally clear and conversational speech.

Abstract

Munson et al. [Journal of Phonetics (2006)], found a correlation between perceived speech clarity and perceived sexual orientation (PSO) of male talkers: those who had been rated to sound gay were rated by an independent group to produce speech clearly. A smaller, opposite influence was found for women talkers. Munson et al. hypothesized that gay male speech styles might be based, in part, on clear speech styles. One weakness of Munson et al.’s study was that none of the speech examined was intentionally clear. This study follows up on this finding. A new group of 29 listeners rated the PSO of four men and four women producing conversational and intentionally clear speech, recorded as part of a larger study on interspeaker differences in talker intelligibility. PSO was rated using a five-point scale. Speech style had a moderate, statistically significant influence on PSO. In contrast with previous research, both men and women were rated as gayer-sounding when producing clear styles than when producing conversational ones. The differences in mean ratings were small. This investigation, thus, partly supports Munson et al.’s findings. The relatively small influence of speech style on PSO likely reflects the complex, content-dependent nature of gay speech styles and PSO.