Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 08:59:41 -0600

From: "Timothy C. Frazer" mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: Almost about dialect



Like Beverly, I, too, cannot hear word segmentation. Messages on my

answering machine are indecipherable.



On Sun, 25 Jan 1998, David Bergdahl wrote:



On Sat, 24 Jan 1998, Beverly Flanigan wrote:



The high tensed female voice is common here at OU too, but more

prominently so in non-southern Ohioans, it seems to me. The pitch is

high and the rate is so fast that often I cannot hear word segmentation

and have to ask the speaker to slow down. Student announcers on the

radio are among the worst (they've also never learned how to read aloud

with anything like normal intonation and pausing). I associate the

squeaky little-girl pitch with a desire to sound cute and "feminine" --

a backlash from a (perceived) masculinizing of women? Horrors.

Beverly Flanigan

Ohio University



By contrast, on European tv, women with alto voices seem to be preferred.



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David Bergdahl Ellis Hall 114c Ohio University / Athens

Associate Prof/English tel: (740) 593-2783 fax: (740) 593-2818

bergdahl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]oak.cats.ohiou.edu

http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl



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