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So I guess the best place to start is the beginning. So I originally got interested
in linguistics and language variation because I took an intro course, intro to linguistics
210 here, with Robin Dodsworth. And throughout the course we were talking about basic linguistic
things and one section that really got me interested was identity and style through
language. So we were basically talking about how people present themselves as certain types
of people, and how people perceive that. So it originally got me thinking about my own
identity and I was thinking, “how do people project and interpret *** orientation in
men’s speech.” So I was talking with Robin and brainstorming some ideas and out of that
came a study that I started. So, I wanted to look at how does pitch and aspiration,
which is basically if you say words beginning with “p,” “t” or “k,” how much
air you produce. So I wanted to look at how pitch and aspiration influenced how people
perceive men, based on masculinity, sexuality and also education. So what I did is, I took
the speech of four different guys, two identifying as straight and two identifying as gay, and
I did some -- I altered their speech, and their pitch and also their aspiration and
then randomly presented those single-word recordings to a couple of different groups
of undergrads and different students and had them rate them on how they perceive them,
in terms of their masculinity, their sexuality and their education. And so once I got all
that data, I went through and I analyzed some of the patterns, and I guess one of the most
interesting things that I found was that people were really good about coming to an agreement
about what they thought people were. And most of the time that fit what people actually
identified as, so that’s a really good thing for us because it shows that people who are
sending identity messages and receiving them are on the same page. And one of the more
interesting things that I found was that when I raised pitch for the self-identified straight
speakers, they were rated on average as less masculine and less “straight.” So that’s
got some implications because we know that pitch is -- you can manipulate it, so you
can use it to -- if you raise your pitch you’re going to seem less masculine, if you lower
it you’re going to seem more masculine. So I don’t know, this experience has been
really good for me. All the faculty here at NC State have been really supportive, especially
Robin Dodsworth, who was my mentor. So if you’re an undergrad student thinking about
doing some undergrad research here, I’d definitely suggest it because there’s lots
of resources. First of all, your professors – if you have a course that’s really interesting
to you, I’d say go talk with your professor after class or office hours and just start
a conversation, ask them about their own research and you’ll be surprised where things go.
Also, a really great resource here is the Office of Undergraduate Research because they
have a couple of different symposia where you can present your research, your independent
research, and they also offer a lot of travel and conference funding, as well as funding
for research projects. So I’d definitely suggest it, it’s been a really great experience
for me.