In class, we talked about language and gender. I did not realize how passionate I was about this topic until I listened to the podcast by Lexicon Valley. The podcast had a lot of interesting information but also had some negative drawbacks.
One of the positives from the podcast is the way that the hosts speak about the different ways your voice can change the meaning of what you say. I’ve always been interested in this idea. For example, the words “excuse me” can have so many different meanings. First, if you don’t understand what someone said you can say “excuse me” with the intonation at the end posing it as a question, this is also known as uptalking. You could say the words with more syllables than necessary portraying an insulted feeling. You can also say excuse me in a more apologetic way with a regular voice if you need to move past someone. The podcast did give us important information about what is called vocal fry or creaking. One study mentioned in the podcast was done by Ikuko Yuasa who found that American women creak twice as much as American men. This is interesting because before I listened to this podcast I had never heard of vocal fry, and I don’t think I really noticed anyone use it. Altogether it was a very informational podcast but there were some negative sides to it as well.
To begin I think I was most noticeably upset when listening to this podcast when one of the hosts spoke about how revolting it is to hear a woman’s voice creak. I was upset by this because of his mere lack of empathy and hatred towards how many people in this generation speak, not just women. My biggest takeaway for people who make fun of how someone speaks is that they need to listen to what words are coming out of someone’s mouth not just the way they are sounding. I was also upset to hear that many women creak their voices “possibly in an attempt to be like [men]” (Barry Pennock-Speck, as cited in Lexicon Valley, 2012). I feel I might be taking this a little bit hard. But I don’t agree with this information as men do the vocal fry as well. If women were the only people who had a vocal fry, and it was more than just mainly American women, I might believe that there is a connection. But if men with low voices creak, then I think that this debunks that theory.
Finally, something else I found interesting in the podcast was the connections to women in movies. The hosts brought up a clip from Reece Witherspoon in the movie “Legally Blonde”. It is really interesting how we can hear the vocal fry in the clip that was played however the clip from Movieclips (2015) tells an entirely different story.
The clip that is linked is at the end of the movie. Reece Witherspoon’s character Elle Woods is questioning a witness at a murder trial. I think it is interesting that at the beginning of the clip Elle is somewhat unsure of herself, you can hear her voice creak especially at (0:49). But as the clip goes on Elle becomes more and more confident and powerful, I found it hard to find any creaking near the end of the clip. I also think it is important to note that Witherspoon is playing a bubbly sorority girl in the movie, so I think that it is safe to say that she might be raising the amount that she creaks to portray the “valley girl” image.
Something else we talked about in class was the use of the word “like”. It was funny when we were aware of our habits in saying this word. My group was very observant of the word “like” and how much we used it in our conversations. I feel like I say this word too often. But it was interesting when Rubina explained that it is nothing to be embarrassed about because this is the way our language has evolved. My group figured that the reason we all say “like” so often is because it is a filler word. Instead of making the sound “um” when we are taking a break in a sentence, we use the word “like”. I think that as a person that uses this filler word, I need to be more forgiving of people who use different filler words that I am not used to.
In class we had some L2L students come to our zoom classroom. It was so fun to have a discussion with them. Because of COVID-19 and quarantine, I had not been able to go in a classroom and interact with students before today. In the zoom class today, my group of L2L students had some struggles when it came to their confidence. It took some time to connect with the students enough for them to feel somewhat comfortable speaking. Once I found out the students enjoyed drawing, we drew pictures together on a word document. I was excited when another classmate of mine came into the breakout room and we were able to bounce ideas off each other. That way, if I said something that the students didn’t understand she could say it in a different way. Another reason a partner was helpful was when the students said something that I didn’t understand, my classmate might be able to catch what they were saying. I’ve included images below of the pictures we drew, it was a lot of fun and really cool that the students were also able to draw on the word document. The students were able to talk about their own dogs and choose funny colors to make their own dog together. I had one student who didn’t want to speak but she was able to write in the chat. It was difficult to talk with the students and write back to this student in the chat. However, when this student became more comfortable, she started drawing the dog with us. I had the best time when the students were laughing and enjoying themselves. They were even able to do things on the document that I did not know, like putting in the stars.
Lexicon Valley #24: Get Your Creak On from Spectacular Vernacular | Podcast Episode on Podbay. (2012). Podbay. https://podbay.fm/p/lexicon-valley/e/1356931800
