Jane Lynch and /s/: The Effect of Addressee Sexuality on Fricative Realization

Abstract

Although there has been a sizeable amount of work on the speech of gay men (e.g., Podesva 2007), there has been little to no research on gay or bisexual women, whether interspeaker or intraspeaker. This dearth is possibly due to the lack of a stereotypical gay speech style for women. Most people will recognize the gay man speech style exemplified by characters such as Kurt Hummel on Fox’s Glee , but there seems to be no female equivalent. While there may be visual stereotypes of sexuality such as “butch” lesbians sporting baseball caps and Doc Martens (or think of Old Hollywood bisexual Marlene Dietrich’s controversial love of tuxedos), this does not come with a particular speech style. Studies such as Podesva and van Hofwegen’s (2014) analysis of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) residents of Redding, California, have found differences in the realization of /s/ (as defined by spectral measurements such as center of gravity or the mean frequency over the spectrum) between straight and lesbian or bisexual (LB) women. This study examines American lesbian actress Jane Lynch’s realization of /s/ according to center of gravity measurements in two different interviews, with the aim of determining if her /s/ realization is affected by the sexuality of her interlocutor. Lynch’s speech was measured across two topic-controlled interviews, one with lesbian host Rachel Maddow and the other with two non-lesbian women hosts, Gayle King and Erica Hill. Results show that Lynch used lower /s/ realizations (i.e., a lower spectral mean) with the lesbian host than with the non-lesbian hosts. The analysis explores how she uses /s/ both responsively and actively to index a non-heteronormative identity and conceptually aligns herself with the lesbian host. This is mainly presented within the frameworks of Bell’s (1984) theory of audience design and indexicality. It is argued that /s/ may not be consciously salient, but it is perceptually salient on some level (e.g., Mack and Munson 2012). It may therefore, along with other possible features, contribute to an individualized group-marking style. In the absence of a well-known “lesbian accent”, it is argued that Lynch uses /s/ as a tool to create and control her self-presentation to a heteronormative society. Secondarily, some LGBT vs. non-LGBT topic effects within one of the interviews are discussed, with the finding that Lynch has a lower mean of /s/ while discussing LGBT topics, such as same-sex marriage, than unrelated topics, such as her acting career.

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