Variation in global and intonational pitch settings among black and white speakers of Southern American English

Abstract

This article revisits classic questions about how pitch varies between groups by examining global and intonational pitch differences between black and white speakers from Memphis, Tennessee, using data from read speech to control for stylistic and segmental variables. Results from both mixed-effects regression modeling and smoothing spline analysis of variance find no difference between black and white men in mean F0 and pitch range measures. However, black women produced consistently lower mean F0 than white women. These findings suggest that while pitch patterns in black women's speech remain underexplored in the literature, they may play an important role in shaping attitudes and ideological associations concerning black American speakers in general. Moreover, vocal pitch may be a linguistic variable subject to variation, especially in a context of racialized and gendered linguistic standards.