Kachel Sven, Simpson Adrian P, Steffens Melanie C
Department of Social, Environmental, and Economic Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Fortstraße 7, 76829 Landau, Germany.
Department of German Linguistics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Fürstengraben 30, 07743 Jena, Germany.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2017 Jun;141(6):4793. doi: 10.1121/1.4988684.
Compared to studies of male speakers, relatively few studies have investigated acoustic correlates of sexual orientation in women. The present investigation focuses on shedding more light on intra-group variability in lesbians and straight women by using a fine-grained analysis of sexual orientation and collecting data on psychological characteristics (e.g., gender-role self-concept). For a large-scale women's sample (overall n = 108), recordings of spontaneous and read speech were analyzed for median fundamental frequency and acoustic vowel space features. Two studies showed no acoustic differences between lesbians and straight women, but there was evidence of acoustic differences within sexual orientation groups. Intra-group variability in median f0 was found to depend on the exclusivity of sexual orientation; F1 and F2 in /iː/ (study 1) and median f0 (study 2) were acoustic correlates of gender-role self-concept, at least for lesbians. Other psychological characteristics (e.g., sexual orientation of female friends) were also reflected in lesbians' speech. Findings suggest that acoustic features indexicalizing sexual orientation can only be successfully interpreted in combination with a fine-grained analysis of psychological characteristics.
与对男性说话者的研究相比，针对女性性取向的声学关联的研究相对较少。本研究旨在通过对性取向进行细致分析并收集心理特征（如性别角色自我概念）的数据，进一步揭示女同性恋者和异性恋女性群体内部的变异性。对于一个大规模的女性样本（总计n = 108），对自发和朗读语音的录音进行了分析，以获取基频中位数和声学元音空间特征。两项研究表明，女同性恋者和异性恋女性之间没有声学差异，但有证据表明性取向群体内部存在声学差异。发现基频中位数的群体内部变异性取决于性取向的排他性；至少对于女同性恋者来说，/iː/中的F1和F2（研究1）以及基频中位数（研究2）是性别角色自我概念的声学关联。女同性恋者的言语中也反映出其他心理特征（如女性朋友的性取向）。研究结果表明，只有结合对心理特征的细致分析，才能成功解释表征性取向的声学特征。
