Women Want to Speak Like Britney Spears?
A new preliminary study suggests that young women may be mimicking the voices of pop singers like Britney Spears, which could pose a possible threat to their vocal chords.
According to the Journal of Voice, an increased number of women are using a speech pattern called “vocal fry” which refers to the lowest vocal register and is described by the study as "rattled, popping air."
However Discover magazine has said, “The new study doesn’t actually show that fry has become more common among young women, just that it was common in the small group surveyed.”
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The Long Island University-based study was conducted among 34 college-aged women.
Typically described as a language disorder, some scientists are starting to question whether the vocal fry has become a language fad. The fry is usually found at the end of sentences and is common amongst singers like Britney Spears in her song “Baby One More Time.”
As a language disorder, the speech habit can cause contact granulomas, benign but painful lesions on the vocal cords. But Linguist Patricia Keating of the University of California, Los Angeles, reported to Science Now that “creaking at the end of a sentence is normal …the chances of it leading to vocal damage are very minimal."
Discover Magazine says the topic has “been propelled to web prominence… though many outlets got some basic facts wrong.”
However, the new preliminary study has been the first to address vocal fry in everyday speech and explore its prevalence among women over men.
Authors of the study, Nassima Abdelli-Beruh,Lesley Wolk and Dianne Slavin, have only revealed preliminary findings.
