Importantly, these findings were further complicated when considering the listeners’ own backgrounds. Speakers who were thought to sound more “feminine” were given lower ratings for homosexuality. It was also found that listeners rated a voice as sounding more “homosexual” if the pitch was deeper than if the pitch was higher. The research illustrates that participants who were gay and also active in a sport that is typically considered masculine were more likely to have a deeper-pitched voice and to pronounce /s/ to sound more like ‘sh’. It was found that there were more significant differences between this sporty group and all the other participants in the study. The research ‘Can a woman sound 'gay'?’ demonstrated that differences between gay and straight speakers are generally subtle, but the result is different when focusing more closely on a group of gay women on a local football team, who Dr Cuddy refers to as her “sporty” group. Her thesis ‘Can a woman sound 'gay'?: A sociophonetic study of /s/ and pitch of gay and straight British-English speaking women’ focuses on how Yorkshire women may indicate their sexual orientation in their speech and also how listeners might perceive a speaker’s sexual orientation based on their voice cues alone. The department of Language and Linguistic Science is pleased to announce the award of a PhD in Linguistics to Salina Cuddy. Newly awarded PhD on a sociophonetic study on 'gay voice' for women
