Can you tell someone’s orientation by the way they talk?

While there’s been a lot of supposition and stereotyping, there’s also a body of linguistic work on this very topic.

Linguist Daniel Midgley swings that way on this episode of Talk the Talk.


Listen to this episode

164: Sounding Gay

Download this episode

You can listen to all the episodes of Talk the Talk by pasting this URL into your podlistener.

http://danielmidgley.com/talkthetalk/talk_classic.xml

Promo

Promo with James Hall, 2014-05-20: Gay Voice

Show notes

Education Minister Christopher Pyne calls Opposition Leader Bill Shorten a ‘cunt’.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/may/15/what-did-christopher-pyne-call-bill-shorten

2004: US VP Dick Cheney told Senator Pat Leahy: “Go fuck yourself”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/politics/25floor.html

And was unrepentant later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYY1oDDYS18

Why do some people sound gay? Uncle Cecil once tackled the topic.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1203/why-is-lisping-stereotypically-associated-with-homosexuality

The film ‘Do I Sound Gay?”
http://www.thebacklot.com/do-i-sound-gay-documentary/04/2014/

Here’s the Kickstarter project
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/117088046/do-i-sound-gay-a-documentary-about-finding-your-tr

Lavender linguistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_linguistics

An intro
http://speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62:code&catid=11:admin&Itemid=117

Can people identify gay guys by voice? My unscientific (but interesting) experiment
http://goodreasonblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/gayvoice-is-it-real.html

Gaudio (1994): Sounding gay: Pitch properties in the speech of straight and gay men
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/455948?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103724077221

An easier intro to Gaudio
http://joeclark.org/soundinggay.html

Munson (2006): The acoustic and perceptual bases of judgments of women and men’s sexual orientation from read speech
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095447005000379

David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day
http://www.enotes.com/topics/me-talk-pretty-one-day

Polarihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarihttp://www.polari.org.uk
http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/paulb/polari/home.htm

More about the history in the Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/may/24/polari-language-origins

drag
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=drag

camp
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=camp

naff
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=naff&searchmode=none

After Perth resident Simon Carville planked Eliza the Statue, no further planking was possible.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/naked-planker-simon-carville-just-wants-to-have-fun/story-e6frfq80-1226061333539

So stocking is the new planking.
http://stockingisthenewplanking.tumblr.com/

No, wait, it’s owling.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/owling

Or kamehameha-ing.
http://www.incrediblethings.com/travel/kamehameha-ing-is-the-new-planking-in-japan/

Baguetting?
http://baguettemenots.tumblr.com/

Perhaps unicorning is more your thing.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2380265/Unicorning-new-planking-New-internet-trend-friends-film-wearing-rubber-unicorn-masks-inappropriate-settings.html

But those are all kind of two years ago. So johning is the new planking, for rlz.
http://www.chron.com/news/strange-weird/article/Johning-the-new-planking-and-weatherman-ruins-5449632.php