Creaky voice
Type of phonation
- 2 min read
- 2 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Linguistics
In phonology
In the Received Pronunciation of English, creaky voice has been described as a possible realisation of glottal reinforcement. For example, an alternative phonetic transcription of attempt could be .
In some languages, such as Jalapa Mazatec, creaky voice has a phonemic status; that is, the presence or absence of creaky voice can change the meaning of a word. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, creaky voice of a phone is represented by a diacritical tilde U+0330 ◌̰ COMBINING TILDE BELOW, for example . The Danish prosodic feature stød is an example of a form of laryngealisation that has a phonemic function. A slight degree of laryngealisation, occurring in some Korean language consonants for example, is called "stiff voice".
Sign in to keep reading
One more chapter is free with a Lably account.
Social aspects
Use of creaky voice across general speech and in singing is termed "vocal fry".
Some evidence exists of vocal fry becoming more common in the speech of young female speakers of American English in the early 21st century, with researcher Ikuko Patricia Yuasa finding that college-age Americans perceived female creaky voice as "hesitant, nonaggressive, and informal but also educated, urban-oriented, and upwardly mobile." Yuasa further theorizes that because California is at the center of much of the entertainment industry, young Americans may unconsciously be using creaky voice more because of the media they consume.