'I Am a Perpetual Underdog': Lady Gaga's Use of Creaky Voice in the Construction of a Sincere Pop Star Persona
Esposito, Lewis
Creaky voice. a vibratory phonation produced when the cartilage from the front and back of the
larynx are pressed closely together (Zirnrnan 2013), has received significant media attention
in recent years, particularly for its prevalence in the speech of female American pop stars,
such as Kesha, Brimey Spears, and Lady Gaga. Recent studies (Yuasa 2010; Podesva 2013)
have found that the phonation is more pervasively employed by American women than men,
which is in contrast to earlier studies showing its associations with upper-class males in the
UK (Henton-Bladon 1988; Esling 1978; Stuart-Smith 1999). Ye~ until recently (Zirnrnan
2015; Levon 2015), few smdies have extensively analyzed its potential social meanings from
an intraspeaker perspective. Additionally, none examine its usage among the women noted
above. Firmly situated within the realm of third-wave intraspeaker variation studies, this thesis
considers Lady Gaga's use of creaky voice across four different speech samples - two interviews
and two speeches - to discern her possible stylistic usage of the phenomenon. ] find that the
calculated percentage of creak is highest in the most personal of the samples and lowest in one
of the speeches. Considering these results along with the conversational contexts in which creak
is most prevalent, I argue that she employs creaky voice to take an affective stance of intimacy
and convey character traits of openness and sincerity. Further, I argue that these meanings arise
out of creak's iconicity with a 'contained' emotional state. This thesis (1) adds to the growing
body of literature examining the indexical meanings of creaky voice in American English, (2)
offers evidence for stance-based persona construction, and (3) emphasizes the importance of
considering variation in interaction.
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