Hearing an interview on NPR brought this topic to mind. The woman is a professional something or other, and sounded as though she were 14. I have worked with women who spoke in the same way, like a girl. A high, light voice, I expect them to giggle at any moment. Is it affected, or is it some sort of speech defect?
They may have a high pitched light voice, it’s hard to change that. It is also sometimes a result of childhood abuse or trauma. That part is complicated, I wouldn’t assume it simply based on a girlish voice.
Here’s more on the general subject of Puberphonia.
Well … if you listened to Lovelline back in the 90s and 00s (or whenever it was exactly on), Dr. Drew Pinsky’s pet theory is adult women with little girl’s voices were sexually abused as children. Or at least the adult women with little girl’s voices that called into their show. I would take that with a grain of salt.
Dr. Drew is a perfect example of someone with a hammer seeing everything as a nail.
Isn’t voice change mostly a reflection of overall body growth? The bigger the body, the thicker the larynx? Small women have more girlish voices.
The woman I knew at work was about 5’ 4" and on normal weight.
No - otherwise Peter Dinklage would be a soprano and not a baritone.
Vocal pitch is an interactions between the size the vocal apparatus (children’s voices vs. adult voices), probably a dose of heredity, the effect of hormones (male hormones tending to lower the voice, as we all know), and to some extent cultural influences that could lead a person to try to speak either a higher or lower pitch than they would otherwise.
Some women really do have a high-pitched speaking voice. Others get called “sir” when answering the phone. Try not to make too many assumptions based on just that one trait.
I suspect Dinklage’s head and throat are as large as mine.
His specific form of dwarfism is defined by having a normally proportioned head and torso, but shorter limbs due to a defect in bone formation. So not just head and throat, but chest and lungs. Compare with Herve Villachez, who had an endocrine disorder that made his entire body smaller, and who had a notably high pitched voice.
Of course, physical build isn’t the only factor in determining what a person’s voice sounds like, but it’s definitely a major one.
And people wonder why Elizabeth Holmes tries to lower her voice.
My point exactly. Most woman with girlish voices are probably small women.
I think there is a fair amount of code switching going on. Jennifer Tilly for example. Her on screen voice is much higher than her off screen voice.
Natalie Portman has spoken about how much she trained to get rid of her “childish” voice, just to have to undue all that training for Black Swan.
Most women I know with an unusually higher pitched voice have been self-conscious about it and embarrassed by it. I’m guessing they wouldn’t do it on purpose if given the choice.
Are we talking about the baby-talk affectation vs. an actual higher pitched Disney princess voice?
A Disney voice for the most part. The woman I recall in particular did a lot of smiling and acted like a puppy expecting a treat.
Blossom Dearie built a singing career out of it.
I recently started rewatching Brooklyn 99, and I was struck by Detective Rosa Diaz’s voice. The actress, Stephanie Beatriz, plays her with a very low voice for much of the show’s run–but in the first half of the first season, her voice is much higher. It’s hard to believe she’s also the voice of Mirabel in Encanto.
Culture plays a huge part of it, absolutely: a woman with a high-pitched voice will often be perceived as immature, whereas a woman with a low-pitched voice will often be perceived as masculine.
This reminds me of a girl in my high school class. She was perhaps a little smaller than average but by no means tiny. She had a girlish voice, but what stood out was not the tone. It was how she used it. She spoke in a very childlike manner. It was quite noticeable. She wasn’t dull-witted, in fact she was our Salutatorian at graduation. (You can imagine what that speech was like.) She went on to become a kindergarten teacher, a place where her peculiar way of speaking was put to good use.
I have to admit I don’t have a clear mental picture of the “little girl” or “childlike” affect a lot of people are (rather contemptuously) referencing here.
Is this a matter of imitating the vocabulary and speech patterns of actual children, i.e., early language learners? As in “Me want go potty now” or “I wuv oo” or similar?
Or are we talking about language use that would not generally be interpreted as “childish” if you read a transcript of it, but you somehow got an impression of “childishness” or “girlishness” from pitch and intonation and facial expression?
Or something in between? Like I said, I’m really not getting a clear picture of this reported phenomenon. Some links to representative transcripts and recordings might help.
For that matter, what is a “Disney voice”?