Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 16:10:32 -0500 From: David Bergdahl Subject: Re: Almost about dialect 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. ===================================================================== == 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 ===================================================================== ==