Acoustic Correlates of Self-Perceived Vocal Masculinity in Transmasculine Individuals’ Speech
Creators: name: Wong, Sidney
name: Papp, Viktoria
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 470411
subject: Sociolinguistics

description: The current study investigates the relationship between speaking mean fundamental frequency (f0) and self-perceived vocal masculinity in transmasculine individuals’ speech. Minimal research has been conducted on transmasculine individuals due to the prevailing belief that testosterone hormone treatment lowers the f0 to a satisfactory masculine-sounding pitch [1][2]. Gendered speech characteristics (i.e. pitch) observed in masculine- and feminine-sounding speech can be attributed to societal percepts of the gender binary and anatomical and physiological differences between post-adolescent cisgender females and males. In English, masculine mean speaking f0 is around 110-130 Hz and feminine mean speaking f0 is around 210 Hz [3]. However, studies show a gender-conforming speaking f0 does not always equate to a gender-affirming voice as gendered-speech characteristics (i.e. resonance) cannot be automatically acquired through testosterone therapy [4][5]. 66 participants recruited as part of a wider global study on transmasculine individual’s speech were recorded online reading “North Wind and the Sun”. The speech samples were collected using LaBB-CAT software [6] and central tendency f0 measures were extracted using Praat [7] and <i>REAPER </i>[8]. Participants spoke in either English or German. Perceptual and attitude ratings were asked following the recording. The results did find a relationship between mean f0 and self-perceived masculinity. However, a regression tree analysis of the acoustic and perceptual data found that f0 is not a strong predictor of self-perceived vocal masculinity. This suggests other acoustic factors may contribute to self-perceived vocal masculinity beyond f0, which means acquiring masculine-sounding speech cannot rely on testosterone hormone treatment alone.<b>References</b>[1] Van Borsel, J., De Cuypere, G., Rubens, R., &amp; Destaerke, B. (2000). Voice problems in female-to-male transsexuals. International Journal of Language &amp; Communication Disorders, 35(3), 427–442. https://doi.org/10.1080/136828200410672[2] T’Sjoen, G., Moerman, M., Van Borsel, J., Feyen, E., Rubens, R., Monstrey, S., Hoebeke, P., De Sutter, P., &amp; De Cuypere, G. (2006). Impact of Voice in Transsexuals. International Journal of Transgenderism, 9(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1300/J485v09n01_01[3] Hillenbrand, J. M., &amp; Clark, M. J. (2009). The role of f0 and formant frequencies in distinguishing the voices of men and women. Attention, Perception, &amp; Psychophysics, 71(5), 1150–1166. https://doi.org/10.3758/APP.71.5.1150[4] McNeill, E. J. M., Wilson, J. A., Clark, S., &amp; Deakin, J. (2008). Perception of Voice in the Transgender Client. Journal of Voice, 22(6), 727–733.[5] Thornton, J. (2008). Working with the transgender voice: The role of the speech and language therapist. Sexologies, 17(4), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sexol.2008.08.003[6] Fromont, R., &amp; Hay, J. (2017). Language, Brain &amp; Behaviour Corpus Analysis Tool. English, Christchurch, New Zealand: New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour. Retrieved from https://labbcat.canterbury.ac.nz/system/[7] Boersma, P., &amp; Weenink, D. (2017). Praat: doing phonetics by computer (Version 6.0.27). Retrieved from www.praat.org[8] Talkin, D. (2015). REAPER. Retrieved from https://github.com/google/REAPER