Why do gay men talk the way they do
Essentially, as previously stated, a large portion of gay terms originate from AAVE. He explained that the filmmakers discovered that uptalk when you end a sentence on a higher pitcha vocal fry when you kinda end your sentences with a very low pitch croak-like sooooounnnnddand even a lisp are the most stereotypically prominent features of gay speak.
In fact, Radice told me to look into the Polari dialect This dialect developed from the entertainment industry in the early s when homosexuality was still illegal in the U. Although the secret dialect is now dead as it serves no purpose anymore, it's an interesting nugget of information which serves to prove how people will persevere despite the world being against them.
Keep up the great work!!! [4] In older work, speech pathologists often focused on high pitch among men, in its resemblance to women, as a defect. Great stuff as usual. In reply to point 2, I knew a guy in college who spoke in that stereotypical “gay” way, but was straight.
When talking to Radice about the reasons for gay speak, he said, in a nature v. Another interesting thing I learned in my conversation with Radice was that a lot of gay speak developed as a way for queer people to avert discrimination. After three years of research, linguistics professors Henry Rogers and Ron Smyth may be on the verge of answering that question.
[5] Since the gay community consists of many. Almost like how you start to sound like your friend after spending a lot of time with them, members of the same communities often pick up similar speaking patterns. Why do some gay men “sound” gay?
They might speak in higher pitches and a more melodious groove to their speech. As gay speak enters the mainstream we need to stop commodifying gay men and using this as a tool for discrimination. In an effort to increase my understanding of this world and how it works, I reached out to Joseph Radice, a linguistics Ph.
Following up on that, Radice also told me about that while this information can be particularly interesting to learn about, when in the wrong hands, can be used against the community to discriminate. For example, a gay man whose first language is Spanish and who grew up in New York is going to speak drastically different than a gay man whose first language is English and who grew up in Texas.
After identifying phonetic characteristics that seem to make a man’s voice sound gay, their best hunch is that some gay men may subconsciously adopt certain female speech patterns. Soon enough, members within the ballroom culture started picking up on these AAVE words and phrases and started adapting them into their own forms of speaking.
Thus, they slowly pick up traditionally feminine speaking patterns. As mentioned before, while this information is useful, it can also be harmful and reinforce unwanted stereotypes. Now, what exactly is gay speak? Thanks for sharing this amazing blog.
Luigi Bencosme is an online writer at Rowdy Magazine. When he's not frantically swiping through Twitter or Instagram, he's indulging on an iced coffee while blasting all genres of music. And if it is, why does it even exist? But is the gay accent even real?
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This would explain why some but not all gay men have gay speak and why even some straight men speak like this. One of the explanations for why some men speak with gay speak is because, Radice said, some gay boys gravitate toward women and girls more.
Thank you for helping people get the information they need. He had 2 homosexual brothers who were older than him, and spent a lot of his youth hanging out with them and their friends and BFs, so he just picked up that way of talking.
They want to know how men acquire this manner. Linguists have attempted to isolate exactly what makes gay men's English distinct from that of other demographics since the early 20th century, typically by contrasting it with straight male speech or comparing it to female speech.
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