Falsetto voice and observational logic: Motivated meanings

Abstract

A B S T R A C T Examples of falsetto and higher pitched modal voice are presented in which the meanings are linked iconically and/or indexically to the signs, and therefore nonarbitrarily. Nine such meaning types are identified and discussed as inferences about falsetto derivable from observations that are minimally informed by cultural traditions. Observational knowledge and the logic by which it is utilized are seen as central concepts mediating universals and relativist approaches to the social meanings of voice qualities, including falsetto, and it is proposed that most falsetto use can be placed within the nine functional meaning categories identified. (Voice quality, falsetto, iconicity, indexicality, observational logic, universals, relativity)* usually not arbitrary, but instead motivated, that is, not symbolic but rather iconic or indexical. To the extent that the linkages are motivated by cross-culturally relevant factors-specifically observable characteristics of the voice qualities themselvesthey can be generalized in import, even while maintaining the immediacy of cultural factors and the semiotic process in mediating the patterned coincidence of voice qualities with social functions and the contexts in which speech and other communicative acts take place. By using observational logic as a methodological tool for examining the relationship between sign and meaning and as a middle ground between universals and relativist positions, it is unnecessary to discount universals in favor of culturally specific motivations for voice qualities, and vice versa.Icons, indices, and symbols are somewhat idealized yet analytically separable sign types (Anttila 1972), mediating between the external referent world around us and our internal world of knowledge (Nöth 1995). Iconicity and indexicality, rather than being natural qualities, relationships, or processes in and of themselves, derive meaning in human communication through their mediation of semiotic relationships, but the meanings of icons and indices are related to these signs by way of similarity and contextual contiguity respectively and are thus motivated. At least some of their meanings, then, can be acquired from the signs themselves. Symbols, however, are related to their meanings arbitrarily, by cultural convention, contextually situated, and culturally specific.Cultural traditions, knowledge, assumptions, and logic do not provide the only input to our interpretation of what goes on around us. Many signs are experienced that do not have to depend on language or culture for their interpretation. Interpretation of linguistic signs (i.e. symbols) does require cultural knowledge but voice qualities as paralinguistic features, while informed by the specific cultural contexts in which they occur, appear to have some autonomy by virtue of a usually motivated relationship of sign (sign vehicle) to the meaning, which leads to a hypothesis relating to the use of falsetto voice and higher pitches in modal voice.

Voice Quality and Identity

“…Little research has investigated the presumably innumerable ways in which affective indexicalities of voice quality differ cross-culturally (cf. Stross, 2013), though cases of language-specific difference point in their direction. In their comparison of French and Japanese, Rilliard, Shochi, Martin, Erickson, and Auberge (2009) drew a distinction between emotions, which they view as involuntary, and attitudinal expressions, which they treat as relatively more subject to cultural convention.…”

“…Another way in which the sound of the voice can be linked to the meanings it conveys is through iconicity, or relations of resemblance. Stross (2013) understood the meanings conveyed by falsetto voice (and high pitch in general), for instance, as involving iconic resemblances. Though the voice is rarely purely iconic (except, for instance, where one voice is understood as resembling another), it is very common for the voice to index relations of resemblance, a phenomenon called iconic indexicality or rhematicity.…”

Effects of simulated cochlear-implant processing on voice quality distinction: Evidence from analysis of disordered voices

“…These results can be interpreted in the context of perception of voice cues involved in talker recognition, as well as speech processing. The observed lack of faithful transmission of acoustic information, that is more or less related to various perceptual attributes of voice quality (e.g., breathiness, harshness, and strain), suggests that CI listeners may not benefit from voice quality-related acoustic variations as much as their peers with NH in processing segmental and suprasegmental information for speech comprehension (Dicanio, 2009; Dilley et al, 1996; Dilley et al, 2016; Garellek & Keating, 2011; Gordon, 2001; Gordon & Ladefoged, 2001; Henton, 1986; Ogden, 2001; Redi & Shattuck-Hufnagel, 2001), as well as in recognition of talkers’ gender (Gussenhoven, 2004; Ohala, 1983; Puts, Hodges, Cárdenas, & Gaulin, 2007), race (Alim, 2004; Irwin, 1977; Moisik, 2013; Thomas & Reaser, 2004) and social and cultural class (Esling, 1978; Rilliard et al, 2009; Sicoli, 2007; Stross, 2013; Stuart-Smith, 1999). Our investigation of normal and disordered voice qualities suggests that CI processing substantially degrades spectral properties signaling voice quality variations (Dicanio, 2009; Garellek & Keating, 2011), which probably negatively impact CI listeners’ access and learning talker-specific information as an important skill for robust speech recognition (Johnson, 2005; Kleinschmidt & Jaeger, 2015; Pisoni, 1992).…”

The poetry of sound and the sound of poetry: Navajo poetry, phonological iconicity, and linguistic relativity

“…From Sapir's (1915) now classic Abnormal Types of Speech Among the Nootka to Marshall Durbin's (1973) tentative presentation of a consideration on the phonologicalsemantic networks found in Mayan languages to Dell Hymes's (1979) "How to Talk Like a Bear in Takelma" to Anthony Woodbury's (1987) concern with "meaningful phonological processes." Other more recent works on phonetic and phonological gestures -from the indexing of social intimacy among women through pulmonic ingressives among the O'odham (Hill and Zepeda 1999) to voice registers in Mesoamerica (Sicoli 2010;Stross 2013) to the influence of ejectives and sound associations on language change in Quechua (Mannheim 1988) to fricative gestures of intensity in Korean (Harkness 2011) -speak to the role of sound and the production of sound and their ideological salience as important components of linguistic and ethnographic analysis. Returning to Navajo, Gladys Reichard's (1948) "The Significance of Aspiration in Navajo" stands as an important contribution on the social importance of sounds within Navajo words.…”