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Sunday, November 18th, 2007 11:38 amI sound like what in Japanese?
"Grammar and syntax aside, Japanese men generally speak in shortened huffs, while women tend to speak in artificially high octaves, elongating their word endings in an almost coquettish attempt to flatter the listener."
Shortened huffs certainly describes how men speak in old Japanese movies. That's one thing I don't like about watching some of those movies... the characters seem grim and serious, and it sounds to me as if they are shouting at each other throughout the whole movie. That can leave me feeling stressed. In one movie I was watching, I was amused that the men kept uttering what sounded like short trembling groans, but the subtitles were translating it as "Yes, Sir". I thought it would be funny if at future BDSM group meetings, the subs were to utter short groans like that in place of saying "Yes, Sir".
I don't like that there are cultural associations of short, gruff, monotonic, non-emotional or angry-sounding speech with masculinity. Although that does give people who want to down-play their masculinity a relatively simple way of doing it - by speaking differently. Which is the reason perhaps, of why some gay men tend to speak differently from straight men, even in English.
I think I tend to be short/monotonic myself, when I speak. It's not something I do purposefully/consciously in order to sound masculine, though. It seems to me to take more mental and physical effort to use expressive intonations/inflections. And it seems fake, somehow... like an actor reading their lines as opposed to someone speaking straight from their heart. It's hard enough verbalizing the things I want to say, without adding extra inflections on top too. For example, if I compose and write down a few sentences to use as my answering machine message, I can then add extra intonations to it when recording it. But it is hard to do that in regular conversation.
So perhaps one's method of speech may be related to how one's brain has developed. Perhaps males in general would tend to speak differently than females, even without cultural/social influences.
While reading the above article, I wondered why speaking in a high-pitched voice would be interpreted as a form of flattery. But if it is a woman speaking to a man, maybe it is because that makes it sound as if the woman finds the guy attractive, and is excited to be speaking to him, like a teenage girl who has a crush on a boy. Which begs the question, do Japanese women also use a high-pitched voice when speaking to each other? But then I suppose a woman could be happy and excited to be speaking to another woman too... it would give the impression she thinks highly of her, which is what flattery is all about.
Come to think of it, when someone says "Hi" in a long drawn-out, high-pitched voice, that does give the impression that they are happy to see you (in person) or to be speaking with you (on the phone).
"Grammar and syntax aside, Japanese men generally speak in shortened huffs, while women tend to speak in artificially high octaves, elongating their word endings in an almost coquettish attempt to flatter the listener."
Shortened huffs certainly describes how men speak in old Japanese movies. That's one thing I don't like about watching some of those movies... the characters seem grim and serious, and it sounds to me as if they are shouting at each other throughout the whole movie. That can leave me feeling stressed. In one movie I was watching, I was amused that the men kept uttering what sounded like short trembling groans, but the subtitles were translating it as "Yes, Sir". I thought it would be funny if at future BDSM group meetings, the subs were to utter short groans like that in place of saying "Yes, Sir".
I don't like that there are cultural associations of short, gruff, monotonic, non-emotional or angry-sounding speech with masculinity. Although that does give people who want to down-play their masculinity a relatively simple way of doing it - by speaking differently. Which is the reason perhaps, of why some gay men tend to speak differently from straight men, even in English.
I think I tend to be short/monotonic myself, when I speak. It's not something I do purposefully/consciously in order to sound masculine, though. It seems to me to take more mental and physical effort to use expressive intonations/inflections. And it seems fake, somehow... like an actor reading their lines as opposed to someone speaking straight from their heart. It's hard enough verbalizing the things I want to say, without adding extra inflections on top too. For example, if I compose and write down a few sentences to use as my answering machine message, I can then add extra intonations to it when recording it. But it is hard to do that in regular conversation.
So perhaps one's method of speech may be related to how one's brain has developed. Perhaps males in general would tend to speak differently than females, even without cultural/social influences.
While reading the above article, I wondered why speaking in a high-pitched voice would be interpreted as a form of flattery. But if it is a woman speaking to a man, maybe it is because that makes it sound as if the woman finds the guy attractive, and is excited to be speaking to him, like a teenage girl who has a crush on a boy. Which begs the question, do Japanese women also use a high-pitched voice when speaking to each other? But then I suppose a woman could be happy and excited to be speaking to another woman too... it would give the impression she thinks highly of her, which is what flattery is all about.
Come to think of it, when someone says "Hi" in a long drawn-out, high-pitched voice, that does give the impression that they are happy to see you (in person) or to be speaking with you (on the phone).