Blog Archives
Girl friendly? Investigating the gender gap in national reading tests at age 11
Conclusions: This investigation suggests that there are differences between boys and girls in their preferences for different genres and in their test-taking strategies.
from Educational Research
The role of marriage in linguistic contact and variation: Two Hmong dialects in Texas
The role of marriage in linguistic contact and variation has been under-represented in sociolinguistic research. In any practice-based analysis, individual interactions and relationships are crucial. Therefore, marriage relationships – small but intense communities of practice – deserve variationist attention for their role in dialect construction and identity. This investigation of cross-dialectal marriages explores how dialect practices and choices are negotiated between partners. The results show the importance of viewing this linguistic behavior in terms of community ideology, culture, and individual choice, rather than primarily as a matter of the amount and intensity of contact. Likewise, the study shows how less commonly studied minority communities can bring new insights to the study of dialect acquisition and linguistic contact. Specifically, this investigation focuses on marriages between speakers of two different dialects of Hmong, a Hmong-Mien language of Southeast Asia. On the basis of home visits to ten Hmong immigrant households in Texas, the study analyzes lexical and phonetic contrasts and ethnographic interviews. Results suggest that macro-level shifts in Hmong social organization and gender roles are being reflected and constructed by gendered, marriage-level dialect practices. The linguistic behavior in these marriages is best viewed as a matter of community ideology in tension with individual choice: individual wives are choosing to challenge the traditional Hmong ideology regarding language behavior in cross-dialect marriages
The effect of investigator gender on lateral tympanic membrane temperature
The measurement of tympanic membrane temperature (TMT) using hand-held infrared devices is common in both clinical and experimental research. However, the role that measurement context has on TMT has been overlooked. In the present investigation 94 women and men had their right and left TMT measured by either a male or female investigator. Regardless of participant’s gender, when measured by a female investigator the right TMT was significantly lower than the left TMT. When measured by a male investigator, both male and female participants had similar right and left TMT. These lateral TMT results correspond with neuropsychological theories regarding threat appraisal.
The green leaves of love: Japanese romantic heroines, authentic femininity, and dialect1
How is ‘authentic’ linguistic femininity in Japan manifested in popular texts? We analyze the dialogue of female characters in Wakaba, a 2005 Japanese drama set in two very different parts of ‘regional’ Japan – Miyazaki and Kobe. Through this analysis, we examine two contradictory discourses circulated through popular media. The first is that linguistic femininity is based in Standard Japanese – a surprisingly persistent ideology despite a current trend to examine cases in which language ideology and practice do not match. Other studies reflect another dominant discourse, that of the ‘authentic’ dialect speaker, who expresses local alignment by using dialect forms outside the bounds of ideologically modern linguistic forms. The tension between acting linguistically feminine and ‘authentically’ local raises some interesting questions for Japanese language and gender studies, including studies of gendered representations: are women who are speakers of regional dialects authentically ‘feminine’? Can they be? Do some dialects express femininity better than others?
Development of communication skills in Finnish pre-school children examined by the Children’s Communication Checklist (CCC)
The communication skills of typically developing Finnish-speaking children between three and six years of age were examined using the Children’s Communication Checklist (CCC). The differences between the boys and girls were also investigated. Results showed that the performance of the three-year-old children differed on the Speech subscale of the CCC compared to the five-year-old and six-year-old children and on the Syntax, Coherence and Use of Context subscales from the six-year-old children. Four-year-old children differed from the six-year-olds on the Syntax and Coherence subscales, and the five-year-olds differed from the six-year-olds on the Rapport subscale. Boys performed similarly to girls except on the Interests scale where the boys’ performance was poorer. The CCC was effective in evaluating typical communication skills in pre-school children, and it can be used to investigate pragmatic skills in children as young as three years of age. As the development of pragmatic abilities may develop differently across languages and cultures, studies about children’s pragmatic development in different languages and cultural backgrounds are needed to identify if there is a universal developmental pattern of communication, as well as features that are specific to a given culture and to a given language.
Development of communication skills in Finnish pre-school children examined by the Children’s Communication Checklist (CCC)
The communication skills of typically developing Finnish-speaking children between three and six years of age were examined using the Children’s Communication Checklist (CCC). The differences between the boys and girls were also investigated. Results showed that the performance of the three-year-old children differed on the Speech subscale of the CCC compared to the five-year-old and six-year-old children and on the Syntax, Coherence and Use of Context subscales from the six-year-old children. Four-year-old children differed from the six-year-olds on the Syntax and Coherence subscales, and the five-year-olds differed from the six-year-olds on the Rapport subscale. Boys performed similarly to girls except on the Interests scale where the boys’ performance was poorer. The CCC was effective in evaluating typical communication skills in pre-school children, and it can be used to investigate pragmatic skills in children as young as three years of age. As the development of pragmatic abilities may develop differently across languages and cultures, studies about children’s pragmatic development in different languages and cultural backgrounds are needed to identify if there is a universal developmental pattern of communication, as well as features that are specific to a given culture and to a given language.
Perceiving the Effects of Ethanol Intoxication on Voice
Many conditions operate to degrade the quality of the human voice. Alcohol intoxication is one of them. In this project, the objectives were to examine the ability of human listeners to accurately estimate both the presence and severity of intoxication from two types of speech samples. A review of available data suggests that, although listeners can often identify individuals who are intoxicated simply by hearing samples of their voice, they are less efficient at accurately determining the severity of this condition. A number of aural-perceptual studies were carried out to test these relationships. Populations of speakers, selected based on rigorous criteria, provided orally read and extemporaneous utterances when sober and at three highly controlled levels of intoxication. Listener groups of university students and professionals attempted to identify both the existence and specific level of intoxication present. It was found that these individuals were proficient in recognizing the presence of, and increases in, intoxication but were less accurate in gauging the specific levels. Several subordinate relationships were also investigated. In this regard, statistically significant differences were not found between male and female listeners or between professionals and lay listeners; however, they were found for different classes of speech. That is, it was shown that text difficulty correlated with severity of effect.
from the Journal of Voice
Girl friendly? Investigating the gender gap in national reading tests at age 11
Conclusions: This investigation suggests that there are differences between boys and girls in their preferences for different genres and in their test-taking strategies.
from Educational Research
Electroglottographic Evaluation of Age and Gender Effects During Sustained Phonation and Connected Speech
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of age and gender on selected vocal fold vibratory behaviors during vowel prolongation and connected speech using electroglottography (EGG). Forty-six young and older individuals (23 males and 23 females) with normal voices participated in this study. EGG parameters including fundamental frequency and contact quotient were measured during sustained vowel prolongation and connected speech tasks. Significant age-by-gender interactions were found for both parameters. Moreover, results from discriminant function analyses revealed that the overall accuracies of the parameters in predicting different age and gender groups were higher for the connected speech tasks than for the sustained vowel prolongation task (89.1% and 73.9% for passage and phrase tasks vs 71.7% for vowel prolongation). These findings suggest that reliability of EGG measures can be affected by the test stimuli. Therefore, one should carefully consider the use of the speech material when assessing vocal fold behaviors using EGG. The findings also support the use of connected speech stimulus, preferably at passage level, in electroglottographic evaluation for a better representation of vocal fold vibrating behaviors.
from the Journal of Voice
Girl friendly? Investigating the gender gap in national reading tests at age 11
Results: There were differences between boys’ and girls’ stated enjoyment of the texts in the test. There were differences in the extent to which boys and girls omitted items in the test, with boys, especially lower achieving boys, more likely to omit items than girls. Nine out of 32 items showed a significant differential functioning and there was some relationship between this and the text type to which the item referred.
Conclusions: This investigation suggests that there are differences between boys and girls in their preferences for different genres and in their test-taking strategies.
from Educational Research
Talking different heterosexualities: the permissive, the normative and the moralistic perspective — evidence from Greek youth storytelling
The aim of this article is to investigate the construction of heterosexual identities in Greek youth talk. More specifically, we explore how Greek adolescents construct themselves as heterosexuals through storytelling. In terms of theoretical framework, our article follows a dynamic approach to identity construction. Our analysis focuses upon naturally occurring narratives produced by female and male informants. These narratives deal with incidents of the adolescents’ everyday lives and are related to their perceptions towards sexual affairs. We consider storytelling as one of the forms of verbal behaviour that has proved to be significant for identity work, as it forms the means through which narrators display aspects of their identities. Taking into account the way our narrators construct their stories, in relation to the ethnographic observations we have collected concerning our informants, we propose a pattern of narrativization showing how they display their positioning towards the ethics of heteronormativity.
Hearing loss and paid employment: Australian population survey findings
Abstract
This paper provides an analysis of participation in paid employment for people with a hearing loss over the full span of adult ages. The paper is based on original analysis of the 2003 Australian survey of disability, aging and carers (SDAC). This analysis shows that hearing loss was associated with an increased rate of non-participation in employment of between 11.3% and 16.6%. Advancing age and the existence of co-morbidities contribute significantly to reduced participation in employment. A disproportionate impact is evident for women and for those having low education and communication difficulties. Controlling for co-morbidities, hearing loss was associated with a 2.1% increase of non-participation in employment, a proportional difference of 1.4 times the population. People with hearing loss were less likely to be found in highly skilled jobs and were over-represented among low income earners. The SDAC data set provides self-report findings on the experience of disability rather than hearing impairment. As such, these findings serve as a conservative estimate of the impact of hearing loss on accessing well-paid employment.
from the International Journal of Audiology
Effect of Gender on Swallow Event Duration Assessed by Videofluoroscopy
Abstract There are data suggesting that women swallow liquids at a lower flow rate and ingest smaller volumes in each swallow than men. Our objective in this work was to compare swallowing in asymptomatic men and women by videofluoroscopy. We studied 18 men [age = 33–77 years, mean = 61 (10) years] and 12 women [age = 29–72 years, mean = 53 (15) years] who swallowed in duplicate 5 and 10 ml of liquid and paste barium boluses. None of the volunteers had dysphagia, neurologic diseases, or oral, pharyngeal, or esophageal diseases. The videofluoroscopic examination showed that for the 5-ml bolus, women had a longer oropharyngeal transit [liquid: men, 0.63 (0.21) s, women, 0.88 (0.39) s; paste: men, 0.64 (0.35) s, women, 0.94 (0.58) s], longer oral transit [liquid: men, 0.41 (0.21) s, women, 0.59 (0.35) s; paste: men, 0.39 (0.28) s, women, 0.59 (0.42) s], and longer pharyngeal clearance [liquid: men, 0.36 (0.11) s, women, 0.45 (0.16) s; paste: men, 0.42 (0.25) s, women, 0.56 (0.27) s] compared with men (p < 0.05). We conclude that there are differences in swallowing between men and women, with women having a longer oropharyngeal transit than men for a 5-ml bolus.
from Dysphagia
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