Effects of speaker gender on attitudes towards creaky voice in US English

In US English, a creaky voice is a natural voice quality used to convey linguistic information. One common use of a creaky voice is to mark the end of a sentence or conversational turn. Despite its linguistic functions, several studies have suggested that listeners have negative attitudes toward creaky voice especially when used by younger women. A previous study in our lab suggested that not all listeners exhibit these negative attitudes when a creaky voice is produced at the ends of sentences. That study found that only older women rated creaky productions to be less pleasant, suggesting a type of self-group distancing. The current study extends these findings by including cisgender men as speakers in addition to cisgender women. Listeners are asked to rate both the hireability and pleasantness of speakers’ voices. Utterances are evenly split between those with creaky voice on the final syllable and those without. The study will examine listener attitudes toward both cisgender men and women speakers and explore the scope of self-group distancing by examining listener gender as well.