Differences in Phonation of Lesbian Spanish Speakers

This paper investigates the phonetic characteristics of Spanish-speaking lesbian women, focusing specifically on creakiness in their voice quality. While there is extensive research on the phonetic markers associated with queer speech in English-speaking contexts, there is a significant gap in understanding how these markers manifest in other languages, particularly in Spanish. This study addresses this gap by exploring whether lesbian Spanish speakers exhibit distinct phonetic features that differentiate them from their heterosexual counterparts. The study involved four participants, two of whom were lesbian women (one openly lesbian and one not openly lesbian) and two heterosexual women, all of whom were college students from Michoacán, Mexico. The participants engaged in three tasks: a cooperative description task to elicit semi-spontaneous speech, a sociophonetic interview to collect natural speech, and a socio demographic survey to gather relevant extralinguistic information. The recordings were analyzed to assess the presence and degree of creakiness in each participant’s speech. The findings indicate that, similar to English-speaking contexts, Spanish-speaking lesbian women do exhibit creakiness in their voice quality. However, the degree of creakiness varied between the openly lesbian and non-openly lesbian participants. This study contributes to the understanding of queer speech by highlighting the phonetic characteristics of lesbian Spanish speakers, particularly in relation to creakiness. It bridges a crucial gap in the literature by providing insights into how sexual identity is expressed and perceived through speech in non-English languages. The results underscore the complexity of queer speech and the importance of considering both identity and performativity in phonetic research.