Normative nasalance patterns in male and female speakers of Southern American English native to Texas

Abstract

The purpose of this proposed study was to investigate the effects of gender on measures of nasalance in speakers native to Texas and speakers of the Texas South dialect. Speakers (n=25 males, n=25 females, ages 18-30) were recruited from the Texas South dialect region and across Texas. Participants wore the head-mounted microphones of the Nasometer system and produced speech consisting of isolated vowels and sentences. A significant main effect of gender on nasalance was found in the speakers of the Texas South dialect region during vowels (F= 5.656, p= .026) and sentences (F= 5.312, p=.031). No significant differences were found for Southern dialect (p>.05), Southern gender (p>.05), or both dialects combined (p>.05) on nasalance scores. Although a limited sample was used, the findings suggest that speakers born and raised in the Texas South dialect region have different nasalance scores than speakers born and raised in other parts of Texas.