As with the talk of “Valley Girls” in the 1980s or the alleged overuse of the word “like” in the 1990s, vocal roast remains controversial topic of conversation more than 10 years later. This term refers to the distinct creaking or crackling tone heard in some people's voices… or whales. But at least people use it often, so far expression of apathy at the end of a word or phrase. Think about celebrities like Aubrey Plaza, Britney Spears or Kim Kardashian. But, as these examples may imply, the debate about vocal prevalence and fatigue often comes down to gender generalizations. Meanwhile, actual linguistic data on this issue remain scarce.
To fill some of these research gaps, researchers in Australia recently conducted a much-needed case study based on more than three decades of data on language patterns. Their results clearly indicate that an inordinate amount of criticism from young people is directed at women. At the same time, a study published last month in the journal Journal of the Acoustical Society of America also shows how much the vocals are growing.
According to Macquarie University linguist and study co-author Felicity Cox, the project first began because of a seemingly one-sided focus on female vocals.
“We found it interesting that changes in vocal characteristics, such as a squeaky voice, were attributed primarily to girls, although no one had actually collected data to support this assumption,” she says the statement.
To correct this, it was important for Cox and her colleagues to select a sample of a population whose English language use had not only remained stable over generations, but also showed no diversity over the same period of time. Cox meant only the population. This is the group she first began studying more than 35 years ago, in 1989 – teenagers from the Sydney suburb of North Beaches. Although Greater Sydney has diversified its population in recent decades, the number of English-only households has remained remarkably stable: 88.7 per cent in 1986, up from 87.4 per cent in 2021.
“The fact that it is one of the least linguistically diverse parts of Sydney makes the Northern Beaches an ideal place to study changes in spoken English over time,” Cox explained.
Cox's team first unearthed her original recording samples and then assembled a new set of data taken from contemporary North Beach teenagers. They then used a combination of acoustic analysis tools, including automatic squeak detection, to estimate the prevalence of vocals in each group of samples.
Their findings may shock some critics. Cox and her colleagues found that about 19 percent of both male and female speakers use a raspy tone in their speech. They also found that vocal heat was more likely to occur before a pause (before a conversational pause), regardless of the speaker. However, men were more likely to use vocals outside of pre-pause situations.
So why is all the attention given to female vocals? Study co-author Joshua Penny put it a little more charitably than many other people would if asked the same question.
“Perhaps the creaking is simply more noticeable in female speakers because the difference in pitch between a higher-pitched 'normal' voice and a low-pitched creaky voice is usually larger in women,” he suggested. “In other words, listeners may be less sensitive to the creaking of male voices, so the increase in creaking of female voices was noticeable enough to prompt comment and criticism.”
Despite the fact that today the percentage of vocalists is the same among men and women, the results of the study showed that this is not always the case. Compared to audio recordings collected in 1989, the authors saw a “significant increase in the prevalence of creaking” among modern women. However, the downside to this finding is that men used today, talking to a voice is more than a stereotypical woman. As an example, Penny cited one of the most “macho” figures in the history of pop culture.
“Listen to Sean Connery say, 'Bond.' James Bond,' and you'll hear a creak,” he says. “But it gets less attention from men.”
