Description:

Topic: Toward an expansive theory of vocal gender: Trans approaches to the sociophonetics of gender

Abstract: 

The expectation that voices can be unproblematically characterized as either “female” or “male” is both foundational to (socio)phonetic analysis and increasingly unviable given current understandings of the complexity of gender. This talk critically interrogates the concept of vocal gender, a highly undertheorized, largely implicit framework that nevertheless structures many aspects of sociolinguistic and phonetic inquiry. It takes three parts. The first addresses current practices regarding the treatment of sex and gender in linguistics, drawing on a large-scale survey of linguists that points to widespread uncertainty and dissatisfaction with current norms – as well as some resistance to expansive perspectives on gender. Second, I synthesize and highlight innovative trans linguistic approaches to sociophonetic variation, including several methods for building speakers’ nuanced forms of identification into rigorous quantitative analysis of the voice. Finally, I explore the centrality of race in the interactional attribution of gender, as well as in research on the gendered voice. Here I share early findings from a collaboration in the UC Santa Barbara Trans Research in Linguistics Lab on the voices of trans people of color and the ways racialization shapes trans engagements with gender. With these various insights in mind, I sketch a path toward an intersectionally-minded, trans-affirming framework for vocal gender and – perhaps boldly – suggest its potential to contribute to anti-racist and pro-trans coalitions in linguistics and beyond.